aries and Assurance Magazine_. This
work contains not only the papers read before the institute (to which
have been appended of late years short abstracts of the discussions on
them), and many original papers which were unsuitable for reading,
together with correspondence, but also reprints of many papers
published elsewhere, which from various causes had become difficult of
access to the ordinary reader, among which may be specified various
papers which originally appeared in the _Philosophical Transactions_,
the _Philosophical Magazine_, the _Mechanics' Magazine_, and the
_Companion to the Almanac_; also translations of various papers from
the French, German, and Danish. Among the useful objects which the
continuous publication of the _Journal_ of the institute has served,
we may specify in particular two:--that any supposed improvement in
the theory was effectually submitted to the criticisms of the whole
actuarial profession, and its real value speedily discovered; and that
any real improvement, whether great or small, being placed on record,
successive writers have been able, one after the other, to take it up
and develop it, each commencing where the previous one had left off.

ANNULAR, ANNULATE, &c. (Lat. _annulus_, a ring), ringed. "Annulate" is
used in botany and zoology in connexion with certain plants, worms, &c.
(see ANNELIDA), either marked with rings or composed of ring-like
segments. The word "annulated" is also used in, heraldry and
architecture. An annulated cross is one with the points ending in an
"annulet" (an heraldic ring, supposed to be taken from a coat of mail),
while the annulet in architecture is a small fillet round a column,
which encircles the lower part of the Doric capital immediately above
the neck or trachelium. The word "annulus" (for "ring") is itself used
technically in geometry, astronomy, &c., and the adjective "annular"
corresponds. An _annular space_ is that between an inner and outer ring.
The _annular finger_ is the ring finger. An _annular eclipse_ is an
eclipse of the sun in which the visible part of the latter completely
encircles the dark body of the moon; for this to happen, the centres of
the sun and moon, and the point on the earth where the observer is
situated, must be collinear. Certain nebulae having the form of a ring
are also called "annular."

ANNUNCIATION, the announcement made by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin
Mary