PREFACE. 



THE Thirty-First Volume of the Journal of the Transac- 

 tions of the Victoria Institute is now issued. It is 

 " a record of the various important questions, which are 

 occupying tlie thinkers of the present day, treated in 

 papers, by competent investigators, and impartially discussed 

 at meetings by those who have studied the subjects con- 

 sidered; to Avhose opinions have been added the written 

 opinions of others whom distance has prevented attending 

 the Institute's gatherings in person."* 



The papers and discussions in this volume are upon the 

 following subjects : — " The Age of the Earth as an Abode 

 fitted for Life," by the Right Honourable Lord Kelvin, 

 G.C.V.O., F.R.S., whose researches and arguments may 

 well serve to check hasty assumptions in the solution of 

 new problems in Science. Remarks by the Right Honour- 

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

 President, the Bishop of Dunedin, Sir Joseph Fayrer, 

 Bart., F.R.S., Sir H. Barely, G.C.M.G., F.R.S., Sir Sidney 

 G. A. Shippard, G.C.M.G., Captain Creak, R.N., F.R.S. 



* The careful correction of the papers, discussions, and communications, 

 by their respective authors, often involving repeated communications even 

 with distant lands, and references to the views of other investigators who 

 have made the subjects treated matters of research, is at times a cause of 

 delay in the publication of the Journal containing them, but the result is 

 to give the Volume of Transactions the character of a finished work. 

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

 their high sense of the value of the Transactions of the Institute, inas- 

 much as they contain not the views of any one person only, 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 treatment of the several subjects beyond that which any individual 

 author could give. 



