The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-08-25
OCEAN CURRENTS
Experiments Made by the by
geographic Office.
The Calculation of Their Force
Being Established
BY "BOTTLE FLEETS. -
No. 26 Travelled 24O0 Miles In
Ninety two Days.
Frequently Make Complete Cir
cults of the Seas.


! photographic Office has prepared an in
| terestfng account of the operations of
the so-ca1led bottle fleet" during the
last year. There is no way of ascer-
tanning the exact number of bottles
cast adrift during that period but it
is thought to be a thousand or more,
thus showing that only a comparative
ly small percentage Of those released
are recovered. A great majority of
those that were picked up and sent
back to Washington were found on the
coasts bordering the Atlantic. This
undoubtedly was the result of the bot
ties being thrown overheard in the At
lantic by captains leaving ports in this
country.
The map prepared by the hydro
graphic Office shows that with one or
two exceptions all bottles cast adrift
in the Atlantic between Florida and
Halifax, within d few hundred miles
of the coast, took a northWesterly
course, winding up on the English or
French coast.
bottles in recent years occurred last
fall. A messenger, known officially on
the chart of the department as No 70,
was thrown overheard from the Ham
burg-American liner First Bismarck on
May, 1, 1898, about $50 miles southeast
of Cape Race and recovered, according
to the letter of tranSmittal from the
United States consul at Ham burg on
August !, 1898, in the vicinity of Gluck-
Stadt, on the EIbe. The distance traV-
eled is 2,400 miles, and as the bottle
was at sea ninety-tWO days this gives
it a daily average of twenty-six miles.
This is far in excess of any similar
drift hitherto reported to the hydro
graphic office, the nearest approach to
IT being a daily average of tWenty-One
miles, which was attained by q bottle
thrown overheard on December %, 1895,
about 200 miles from the point at which
No. 26 was dropped into the sea, and
recovered on March %, 1896. on one of
the Shetland Islands. One of the bot
ties recovered last year had been afloat
since October Is, 1898 while another,
also recovered last year, had been
drifting since August, 1894, having COW
cred 1.500 miles at an average of one
mile a day.
In the early history of the investiga-
ton of ocean currents by this system
q bottle was known to remain afiOat
for ten years. This is the most re-
markable achievement Of this kind on
record
Occasionally bottles are fshed out of
nid-Ocean, the discoveries sometimes
thinking that they may contain mes
Sages from persons in distress. An ex-
animation of the various drifts of bot
ties last year shows that near the
equator the velocity of the ocean cur
rents is much greater than in higher
ATTITUDES.
instances are on record of a bottle
having moved thousands of miles in
opposition to the direction Of the pre-
vailing wind. No cases, however, have
been reported to the photographic office
of bottles proceeding in opposition to
the direction of the current so it would
seem that the theory of the force of
the currents is stronger than that of
the wind is the right one
It is no unusual thing for a bottle to
make a complete circuit of an ocean.
One dropped overheard in the vicinity
of Cape Verde Islands could do this by
crossing the Atlantic, entering the Gulf
of Mexico by the Strait of Yucatan,
emerging again through the Strait of
Florida, thence drifting northward and
eastward Of the gulf stream to the
neighborhOOd of the Azores and then
back again to it's starting point in the
Cape Verde Islands. The length of
time occupied in a drifting voyage of
this character could hardly be less than
two years, covering in the round trip
about l., 900 miles.