PROCEEDINGS. xlix 



gradually extended until in 1863 it had become an estate of one hundred acres ; 

 and including in its bounds hills, lakes, brooks, ravines and wooded land, it pro- 

 vided the variety of surroundings necessary to make his collection of animals of 

 all kinds feel thoroughly at home. Mr C. Hallock gives in the New York 

 Nature, Vol. I, p. 150, an interesting description of the garden as it was at this 

 date, and many of us will doubtless remember the very large collection of animals 

 which it contained, and the careful provisions made by their loving guardian for 

 their comfort. In 1867 he disposed of his estate at Halifax and went to New 

 York, having been assured of his appointment as Superintendent of the Central 

 Park Menagerie. For some reason or other, however, the appointment was not 

 confirmed, and he returned to Halifax, where a few years later he purchased a 

 new property at the North-west Arm and started a new zoological garden, which 

 he continued to develop for about six years. 



During his active life he did an immense amount of work in acquiring knowl- 

 edge of the American fauna, and in desseminating that knowledge not through 

 the publication of scientific papers so much as by individual correspondence with 

 other naturalists and by sending abroad stufiFed and living specimens of our 

 animals. There is probably hardly an important museum anywhere which does 

 not contain specimens obtained from him. 



Mr. Downs joined this Institute during its first session, on the 5lh February, 

 1863, and was for many years a regular attender at its meetings. He contributed 

 four papers to our Transactions, — all on the subject of Ornithology, the subject in 

 which he was most interested. He was a man of a quiet and retiring disposition, 

 and his work was probably better known abroad than at home, his correspondents 

 having secured his election as fellow or corresponding member of many Natural 

 History Societies in America and Europe. 



This is the thirtieth year of the existence of our Institute, and we have no reason 

 to complain of its record, of its financial position, or of its general progress. 



Many papers possessing considerable interest have been read during our last 

 year's meetings, and as they will appear in the Transactions it is only necessary to 

 allude to them briefly here. 



On November 9th, 1891, Mr. T. C. Weston, of the Geological Survey of Canada, 

 communicated, by permission of the Director of the Survey, a paper on 

 concretionary structure in various rock formations in Canada. The paper 

 referred to certain concretionary forms found in the gold-bearing rocks of Nova 

 Scotia, supposed to be fossils, and assigned to the Lower Silurian age ; but under 

 microscopic examination, the result proved to be precisely the same as for 

 those examined thirty years ago, 1860-1870, by Dr. Selwyn. Dolomitic 

 concretions in gold-bearing rocks of Nova Scotia, concretions found in the 

 Huronian rocks of Newfoundland, and tree-like concretions found at King- 

 ston, Ontario, in the Cambrian sandstone (Potsdam) were treated of and 

 illustrated. The notes will be interesting to mining engineers as it has been a 

 vexed question whether these forms are concretionary or organic. 



The next paper by W. H. Prest on the evidence of the post-glacial extension of 

 the southern coast of Nova Scotia quotes evidences of the subsidence of the land 

 along our shores at Cumberland County, at Black Point, Liverpool River, at Black 

 Rock south of Lunenburg, at Broad River, at Catherine River, east of Port JoU 



