On account of the facility afforded by recent Acts of Parliament to the proprietors of Entailed Estates for disentailing, we trust that a paper dealing with the provisions of the Entail Acts which require actuarial calculations for giving effect to them, forms a suitable subject to be brought under the notice of this Society, any of whose members may be called upon to estimate the value of the pecuniary interests of the various heirs of entail. In treating the subject we beg leave to draw your attention briefly to the most important Statutes relating to Disentail, and to one or two decisions of the Courts on points affecting the actuarial calculations of the pecuniary interests of the heirs of entail. Before doing so,.however, we might shortly refer to the origin of entails in this country. An entail is a deed by which the succession to heritable property is settled on a series of individuals or heirs of entail, who may be different from the ordinary legal heirs. More generally speaking, an entail or tailzie comprehends every deed by which the legal course of succession is altered and an arbitrary one substituted. Deeds of this nature have been known in most civilised nations, and their origin is doubtless due to the desire natural to man, to perpetuate his name and family in connection with his possessions, fostered by the State, for political ends which were specially suited to a bygone age. In Greece, Rome, and also in France, deeds of entail, restricting the line of succession to a special series of heirs, have existed from a very remote period, and in Great Britain they date from the time, at least, of Alfred the Great, in whose reign the first Statute relating thereto was passed.