no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



at Constantinople there are bureaus established by France, Austria, 

 Russia, England, and Germany, who occupy themselves with the inter- 

 national postal service, in which Turkey takes no part. At Berne the Ot- 

 toman delegate protested against this state of things, declaring that his 

 Government wished to enter definitely into its rights, and that, besides, 

 it was ready to do all that was necessary to carry out the requirements 

 of the international postal service. The response to this was a demur- 

 rer, on the ground that the protest was a matter of which the con- 

 ference could not take cognizance, and one that should be regulated 

 between Turkey and the different states interested. 



The general principle of the treaty is thus stated in its opening 

 article : " The countries between which the present treaty is concluded 

 will form, under the designation of General Postal Union, one single 

 postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of correspondences between 

 their postal departments." 



-- 



SKETCH OF EDWAED D. COPE. 



THOUGH still a young man, having just entered on his prime. 

 Professor Cope is widely known for his enthusiasm and industry 

 in scientific pursuits. Already he has accomplished an amount of 

 original work in his chosen field of investigation that would do credit 

 to an ordinary lifetime, and that justly entitles him to the place he 

 now holds among the foremost of American biologists. 



Edward Deinker Cope was born in the city of Philadelphia, in 

 1840. He is of English and French descent, and his ancestry on both 

 sides is represented by names once prominent in the histories of their 

 respective countries. As a boy he was particularly interested in sci- 

 entific studies, and also showed an early aptitude in the use of lan- 

 guage, which has since developed into that remarkable power of lucid 

 and fluent expression, even on the most abstruse of topics, for which 

 he is now distinguished. He began to write on his favorite subjects 

 when only sixteen ; but, as he was then occupied with what others 

 had done, and presumably had nothing new to say, his writing at- 

 tracted little if any public attention before he was twenty-five. Af- 

 ter eighteen he studied with a private tutor ; subsequently graduated 

 from the University of Pennsylvania ; studied comparative anatomy 

 in the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, in the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution in 1859, and in Europe in 1863-64 ; and became Professor of 

 Natural Science in Ilaverford College in 1866. The most important 

 part of his scientific work is comprised in his paleontological studies, 

 and the papers he has prepared concerning them. He began his ex- 

 plorations in field geology in the Cretaceous green-sand of New Jer- 



