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XXIV. On the nature of the function expressive of the law of 
human mortality, and on a new mode of determining the value 
of Life Contingencies. In a Letter to Francis Baily, Esq. 
F.R. S. ^c. By Benjamin Gompertz, Esq. F. R. S. 
Dear Sir, 
Read June i6, 1825. 
The frequent opportunities I have had of receiving 
pleasure from your writings and conversation, have induced 
me to prefer offering to the Royal Society through your 
medium, this Paper on Life Contingencies, which forms part 
of a continuation of my original paper on the same subject, 
published among the valuable papers of the Society, as by 
passing through your hands it may receive the advantage of 
your judgment. 
I am. Dear Sir, yours with esteem. 
gth June 1825. 
Benjamin Gompertz. 
CHAPTER I. 
Article 1. In continuation of Art. 2. of my paper on the 
valuation of life contingencies, published in the Philosophical 
Transactions of this learned Society, in which I observed the 
near agreement with a geometrical series for a short period of 
time, which must pervade the series which expresses the 
number of living at ages in arithmetical progression, pro- 
