37 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



POSTPONED PAPERS. 



Description of the Cranium of a Labyrinthodont Reptile, 

 Brachyops LATiCEPS,/rowz Mangali, Central India. By 

 Professor Owen, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



[Plate IL] 



[This Paper was read June 21, 1854*.] 



The fossil obtained by tbe Rev. Messrs. Hislop and Hunterf from 

 the sandstone series of Mangali, about sixty miles to the south of 

 Nagpur, and transmitted for my examination, is a considerable por- 

 tion of a skull, wanting chiefly the tympanic pedicles and the lower 

 jaw ; it is imbedded in a block of bright brick-red compact stone, 

 with its upper surface exposed. The skull (PL II.) is broad, depressed, 

 of an almost equilateral triangular form ; the occipital border or plane 

 rather exceeding in extent each lateral border, which borders con- 

 verge with a slight convex curve to the rounded obtuse muzzle. The 

 breadth of the occiput is 4 inches 9 lines, and the extent of each 

 lateral border of the skull in a right line is 4 inches 6 lines. Most 

 of the cranial bones are impressed by rather coarse grooA^es, radiating 

 in each from a prominence which indicates the primitive centre of 

 ossification ; the intervening ridges being in some parts broken up by 

 communicating grooves into tubercles. The orbits (o, o) are entire, 

 of a moderate size, of a full oval form, and situated in the anterior half 

 of the skull. The middle line of the upper surface of the skull is 

 slightly depressed ; at the upper and fore part of the skull on each 

 side, there is a smooth continuous groove of a sigmoid form, with a 

 strong curve, convex outwards anterior to the orbit, and with a less 

 strong curve, convex inwards on the inner side of the orbit : between 

 the orbit and the occiput there is on each side a shorter groove, 



* For the other communications read at this Evening Meeting, see Quart. Journ. 

 Geol. Soc. vol. X. p. 454, &c. 

 t See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. No. 40, p. 472. 



