280 LETTER FROM CHEV. W. JERVIS, F.G.S. 



disease to die of quite other causes. (2) It is not hereditary. 

 When children are isolated from leprous parents at once they 

 may grow up quite healthy to my knowledge ; and (3) it is only 

 veiy slightly if at all contagious. 



The Secretary. — The next meeting will be the Annual Meet- 

 ing to be held on 26th May. The date is earlier than usual 

 because it is to meet the convenience of the distinguished man 

 who is to give us the annual address, viz., General Sir Charles 

 Wilson, and I hope we shall have a good and successful meeting, 

 which will depend on members all doing their best to make it so. 



The Meeting then adjourned. 



Letter to the Secretary prom Chev. W. Jervis, F.G,S. 



" Luserna San Giovanni, 



" 'IQth April, 1902. 

 *' My dear Sir, 



"It is only this month, during the continual rainy days in the Alps, 

 where I am come for a short time, that I have had a moment's 

 time to read vol. xxxiii of the Transactions of the Victoria Insti- 

 tiLte. I am deeply impressed by the very high class of the papers 

 read there, from manj of which I have learned a great deal, and 

 with the statements expressed, in the greater part of which I fully 

 concur, or consider to be most plausible, so far as my knowledge, 

 which is so limited, can judge of. In the discussions, which are 

 often excellent, many too hazardous statements are courteously 

 signalled. Thus I feel what a privilege it is for me to belong, as 

 a modest Associate, to an Institute in which science and belief in 

 divine inspiration are not considered to be divorced, much less 

 antagonistic and contradictory. 



" What a field lies before the Members in the more accurate 

 study of ethnology, physical geography, geology as elucidating the 

 former coast lines and orographical conditions, the Tertiary consti- 

 tution and conformation of the bed of the then existing seas, which 

 study I ventured to propose to style ' Thalassography ' ; ancient 

 history of the most ancient races, as it were but now unearthed, after 

 lying buried for a score or two of centuries ! The choice of the 

 subjects, taken in general, appears to me to be extremely wise, and 

 moreover to be such as to interest one in most cases, since the 



