1897]. Scientific News. 657 
SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
The following changes made by the Postal Congress will interest 
naturalists generally :— 
1. The principal treaty, the entry of Corea into the Postal Union, 
the declaration of the Orange Free State, which had not yet sent a 
delegate to Washington, that it hoped in a short time to enter into the 
Union; the declaration of the empire of China, represented in the 
cougresses, that it will adhere to the union as soon as the organization 
of its service permits it. 
2. Uniform colors have been adopted for postage stamps. 
3. Postal cards unpaid are subject to a double tax, that is four cents 
in place of a tax equal to that upon letters unpaid, which is 10 cents. 
4. Circulars produced on a typewriter in quantities of twenty circu- 
lars or more, all of the same character, are admitted-at same tariff as 
are printed circulars. 
5. Samples of merchandise are admitted up to 350 grammes, except in 
the case of a contrary arrangement, when the maximum weight will be 
250 grammes. 
6. Objects of natural history, animals, dried plants or preserved 
zoological specimens are admitted as samples. 
7. The question of the creation of a universal postage stamp has been 
negatively decided on account of the difficulties which will occur in 
putting in practice that important innovation, and especially because 
of the diversity of the units of money of the various countries. 
The next session of the Congress, the sixth one, will be held at Rome, 
Italy, in February, 1903. 
In a letter to Forest and Stream, Mr. Bainbridge Bishop deprecates 
the action of the U. S. Fish Commissioners in stocking the trout and 
land locked salmon lakes with smelt. While it is true that adult trout 
fatten on the smelt, the smelt can also fatten on the young trout and 
salmon, the smelt being 1,000 to 1 in the majority. The absence of 
trout in Lake Champlain from Westport to Cumberland Head, an 
ideal lake trout water, he attributes to smelt which are found at all 
times of the year in all the deeper parts of the lake, and in the identi- 
cal depth of water that would naturally be inhabited by young and 
adult trout. His observations go to show that the introduction of smelt 
into the great lakes would be almost a national calamity, foretokening 
the extinction of trout fishing, both commercial and y ra 
