PREFACE. 



THE Thirtieth Volume of the Journal of the Transactions 

 of the Victoria Institute is now issued. It is a 

 record of the various important questions which are 

 occupying the thinkers of the present day, taken up in 

 papers by competent authors, carefully investigated, and 

 impartially discussed at meetings by those who have 

 studied the subjects considered; to whose opinions have 

 been added the statements of others whom distance has 

 prevented attending the Institute's gatherings in person.* 



The papers and discussions is this volume are iipon the 

 following subjects : — •• The Rontgen Eays," by Sir G. G. 

 Stokes, Bart., F.R.S. ; remarks by the Right Honourable 

 Earl HalsbURY, F.R.S. (Lord High Chancellor) Vice- 

 President, the Right Honourable Lord Kelvix, G.C.V.O., 

 F.R.S., Sir H. Barkly, G.G.M.G., K.C.B., F.R.S., Sir Joseph 

 Fayrer, Bart., F.R.S., and Professor E. Hull, LL.D., F.R.S. 

 "On Biblical Lands, their Topography, Races, Religions, 



* The careful correction of the papers, discussions, and MS. communi- 

 cations, by their respective authoi-s and theii- arrangement, is at times a 

 cause of delay in their publication in the Journal, but the result is to give 

 the Volume of Transactions the character of a finished work ; and from 

 time to time Members of the Institute and others have expressed their 

 high sense of the value of the Transactions of the Institute, inasmuch as 

 they contain not the vieivs of any one person onhf, but the well-considered 

 opinions of many, resident in various and even distant parts of the world. 

 This system, carried on by a competent body, gives a value to the treat- 

 ment of the several subjects beyond that which any individual author 

 could give. 



