1895. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 311 



a slow current may pass through the wood even when the cavities are 

 completely blocked. 



In their work with paraffin, interesting casts of the interior of the 

 conducting tissue were obtained by steeping the wood of injected 

 branches in sulphuric acid. " A single night suffices in many cases 

 to remove the wood and leave the paraffin casts of the vessels stream- 

 ing upwards from below like a sheaf of fine white threads." It was 

 easy to demonstrate in this way the continuity of the elements forming 

 the vessels in the lime, sycamore, and elm. 



Postage of Natural History Specimens. 



At the close of his article on the International Zoological 

 Congress, Professor Hickson alludes to the resolution that was 

 unanimously adopted concerning the transmission of natural history 

 specimens from one country to another through the post. We have 

 not been behind our scientific contemporaries in occasionally drawing 

 attention to the anomalies and inconveniences of the present 

 restrictions ; notwithstanding which we often receive letters asking 

 us to ventilate the matter still further. The question, however, being 

 an international one, it has not seemed to us that isolated and ill- 

 timed action would be of much avail. But the time is now ripe for 

 concerted agitation to begin. 



The present facts are these. The Universal Postal Convention 

 has forbidden absolutely the sending through the mails of " animals 

 and insects, living or dead," with the sole exception of live bees. 

 Other natural history specimens, such as fossils and minerals, must be 

 sent by the ordinary letter-post, at the usual rate of 2^d. per half- 

 ounce, a charge which is almost prohibitive in many cases. At the 

 last meeting of the Postal Union it was proposed by the Post Office 

 of the United States that natural history specimens should be sent 

 under the same conditions and at the same rate as samples of 

 merchandise, that rate being the same as for book-post, except that 

 the minimum charge is id. In favour of this proposal there were 

 seventeen votes, and against it there were seventeen, but, since 

 a vote of two-thirds was required to carry it, the proposal was 

 defeated. The administrations voting against the amendment were 

 those of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bolivia, Canada, Spain, Great 

 Britain, Guatemala, British India, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Russia,. 

 Sweden, Tunis, Uruguay, and Venezuela. 



The next meeting of the Postal Union will be at Washington in 

 1897, and the Zoological Congress has respectfully requested the 

 Federal Government of Switzerland, which country is now the seat 

 of the bureau of the Union, again to bring forward the above 

 proposal at the forthcoming meeting. It therefore becomes the duty 

 of zoologists and men of science generally, in all countries, to urge the 

 claims of this proposal upon their respective Governments, so that 

 they may instruct their delegates to support it. 



