322 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



portional length, sharp points and dense texture, that the tusks of 

 the Dicynodon were applied by the living animal either for the 

 purpose of killing its prey, or of defending itself from its foes, or 

 in both acts ; and that they were offensive and defensive arms. 



A further insight into the habits and mode of life of the 

 Dicynodons may reasonably be expected to follow the examination 

 of the skeleton of the trunk and the organs of locomotion. This 

 will form the subject of a subsequent memoir ; but the vertebras 

 of the Dicynodon present the sub-biconcave structure common to 

 most of the older extinct saurians, which structure, in comparison 

 with the ball and socket vertebras of the modern species, indicates 

 a more aquatic and perhaps marine theatre of life for the amphibia 

 which swarmed in such plenitude of development and diversity of 

 forms during the ancient secondary periods of the geological 

 history of this planet. 



January 22. 1845. 



David Walter, Esq., of Colchester, was elected a Fellow of this 

 Society. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Newer Coal Formation of the Eastern Part of Nova 

 Scotia. By John Dawson, Esq. 



In some notes communicated last year to the Geological Society, I 

 stated the results of observations on the gypsiferous formation of 

 Nova Scotia, tending to confirm the views of Mr. Lyell respecting 

 the age of that series of rocks. In introducing those notes, it was 

 stated that the carboniferous strata of this province may be included 

 in three groups ; first, the gypsiferous or mountain limestone forma- 

 tion ; secondly, the older coal formation ; and thirdly, the newer 

 coal formation : of these the two former have almost exclusively at- 

 tracted the attention of geologists, the latter having been in a great 

 measure neglected. In connection with the Pictou coal field, how- 

 ever, and probably also in other parts of this and the neighbouring 

 colonies, the newer coal formation is an extensively distributed 

 deposit, often attaining considerable thickness, and, though not 

 containing valuable beds of coal, ironstone, or gypsum, yet so asso- 

 ciated with the rocks including these minerals, that a knowledge 

 of its structure and relations is essential to their satisfactory inves- 

 tigation. In a palasontological point of view also it possesses con- 

 siderable interest ; as its fossils show the continuance of the coal 

 flora during the deposition of a series of red sandstones newer than 

 the great coal measures ; and also the co-existence of that flora 

 with terrestrial vertebrated animals. 



The coal measures of the Albion mines, on the banks of the 



