LONG BOTTLE DRIFTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3348, 14 October 1911, Page 9

LONG BOTTLE DRIFTS.

CAPETOWN TO THE SHETLAND

ISLES

An absorbing hobby with Captain Alexander Simpson, well known at Sydney as an ex-commander in vessels of the Aberdeen Line, is to cast sealed bottles overboard, with messages inside. His chief object was to make experiments in regard to ocean currents, and some interesting results were achieved. Roughly estimated, 10,000 bottles were despatched by the captain on their errands. Of these, nearly 1000 were returned to him by people by whom they were recovered in various parts of the world, and lie is still receiving others at the rate of about two a week. “One of the most interesting drifts.” remarked Captain Simpson, “and one of the longest, was by a bottle put overboard 146 miles north-west of Capetown. It was picked up four and a half years later on the Shetland Isles. Another cast into the sea east-south-east of St. Helena reached the Norwegian coast in a slightly shorter period. Three bottles were carried towards Cape Sail Rogue, on the Brazilian coast, and passing through the West Indian Islands, made a circuit of the Gulf of Mexico, and, under the influence of the Gulf Stream, were deposited on European shores. Ten bottles thrown overboard in the vicinjfcy of Cape Horn were picked up off the southern coast of Australia, after traversing from 10,000 to 12,000 miles at an average daily drift of 10 miles. Other bottles put overboard within 20 degrees south of the equator in the Atlantic and Indian oceans made an average drift of 18 to 22 miles per day to tlie west and north-west.