The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-03-01

the famous Sargasso seattle graveyard
of lost ships and the home OF many
strange species Of marine animals not
found elsewhere tn the world. The Ger
mans have gone into the business OF stu
dying ocean currents, by means Of bottle
papers more thoroughly than any other
people. They make IL a rule 10 load their
bottles with certain quantities Of sand, IN
order that they may go completely inn
mersed while still floating Thus their
movements are not affected hy winds hut
only by water drift The most elaborate
experiments in this direction for purely
scientific experiments have been made 10y
the Prince OF Monaco, VINO employed his
yacht J. Hironcelle for several seasons IN
the work of scattering bottle papers How
ever, he tried other kinds OF reCeptaClcs
besides bottles such as Heats wooden casks
and copper globes. He decided the best
cOntrivance of all was a thick, glass bottle
coated with pitch. and finally covered with
copper This would last for any length of
time, remaining water-tigllt and prcscrv-
ing its contents intact. In 1887 he let loose
93l bottles on line from the Azores TO the
Grand Banks. and of them he got back
22I. Nineteen of these actually reached ia
pan.
Navigators who have lost reckoning are
often Obliged to figure out their position
by estimating the rate at which their YES
sells are drifting. In this they are greatly
helped by a knowledge of the currents,
which I'm all parts of the ocean run pretty
constantly in the same direction and at a
given speed. To them, consequently. the
reformation obtained from the hottie pa
pers Is of the utmost value In the laying
out of tracks for steamship lines across
the ocean much attention is paid to cur
rents, in order that those which are favor
able may be followed. 1t is a part of
the business of the hydrographic office TO
plot such tracks on charts for the benefit
of marine transportation companies In
order TO take advantage OF favoring cur
rents, there is usually one track for going
and another for coming back. If Column
bus had been familiar with the currents OF
the Atlantic. he would have taken a differ
ent course from that which he actually
chose, and the duration OF his voyage to
America would have been lessened by
many days.
A floating bottle is very small object
in the midst of the ocean, and yet four
bottles containing bottle papers have been
picked up at sea within the last three
years. All the rest have been found on
shore in one part of the world or another,
where they were thrown up by the waves.
In such cases. ordinarily it is not possible
to know how long previously the bottle
was thrown on the beach, and this is an
uncertain element in the problem OF deter
mining the time consumed in the voyage
made by the bottle. Up TO date, compare
lively few bottles have been set loose in
the Pacific ocean, but more attention is
to be paid TO those waters, the currents
of which remain as yet to great extent
unmapped. one fact long known is that
the Pacific, like the Atlantic, has great
Now and then the whistling buoys
which the lighthouse board establishes in
and near harbOrs, break away from their
mOOringS and traVek about over the ocean,
whistling merrily as they go. A buoy of
this kind. anchored by heavy chain OFF
Cape Canso, the most easterly point OF
Nova Scotia, was carried away by ice in
December 1898. Its voyage lasted year
and a half and the footing of its two
whistles frightened many skipper. 1t
drifted thousands of miles and was sighted
fourteen times. freighted with barnacles
and rusty but still whistling as gayly as
ever.