The Daily Alaska empire., 1934-01-27
sLoND 3 !!l !!l!!' Y {; GODDESS a..,.!' ,:.':s

f'ff7 compartment of the train the man in the ticket office had told him made the best connection at Laredo for Vera Cruz. tf-A
 By his side was a sheaf of news papers, most of which contained press despatches of transcripts from the Hydrograptiic Balletifl, pub lished at Washington, D. c. The transcript was what later became known to the world as the famous Langton Bottle Paper.
 Bottles containing data to aid in
 the deter imitation of and to add to
 the knowledge of current drifts
 were thrown overheard and recov-
 cred as follows; ss ta ~
 First position not given Recov-
 cred on January 2. 193.- at center
 of sand bank East Triangle. off the
 coast of Yucatan, Mexico. in (ap-
 proximately) lat. 23' 55' N.. long.
 92' l3' West Paper in bad condi-
 tion from sea water. Fragments
 believed to be in the handwriting
 of William Langton. tF
 The writing (said the papers) had been definitely established as Lang. tons. Upon further examination ot the document the belief was ex- pressed that the pigment used in the writing was human blood. This fact was to be confirmed by laboratory analysis.
 The bottle itself-an ordinary "pop" bottle-seemed to indicate to some that the paper was hoax-a tragic hoax, if true.
 However it was pointed out that the bottle and the beverage it con. tained was largely exported. particu. larly into South American countries. and that it would not have been un- usual for Langton to have taken supply with him when he began that ill-fated flight. Further. handwrit- ing experts denied any possibility of a hoax.
 The paper itself was a torn-open cablegram envelope. No address ap peared on the reverse side. Langton may have carried supply with him on the plane.
 The message-what could be de ciphered-was meager. The first DOT ton was fairly legible; it told that bearings had been lost about a hun dred miles south of Belize in British Honduras. It referred to the hur. rieane, and of his attempt to make Belize for a landing.
 The legibility faded swiftly here. The word native" was made out. And startlingly vivid. almost as if the emotion of the writer had been concentrated in those four words was the fragment, T die tomorrow morning"
 ONCE the general theory appeared O to be that Langton had gone down at sea: since it was concluded that the message had been written with splinter and blood from wound, this was interpreted to mean that Langton had hoped that some native craft would pick him up, and that by estimating the rate at which his wreckage was sinking he would die by tomorrow morning"
 Frank Grahame put down the paper he was reading and gazed out at the countryside flashing by. To him that interpretation made non sense. No one in the middle of storm dashed ocean, hanging on te what was left of an aeroplane could possibly figure with any accuracy rate of sinking, even had that per son-assumed to be wounded and desperate-thought of it in the first place. ny eas' .A 4-s
 He recalled his own theory: that Langton had gone down in the jun gle back of the coast It was pug zling, he admitted to himself. that the drift bottle had been picked out of the sea beyond thesnorth coast oi Yucatan; yet supposirg that 1t had floated around from the east coast Langton could not possibly have sci the bottls adrift down some interior point since that coast had no rivers!
 Still, maps of that coast were known to be inaccurate. The coun. try was little explored. Perhaps there was d river or two that topog raphers had m!ssed.-if topog pher had ever been there. Frank thought not.
 Once In the smoking room of "banana boat" enroute to Havana. Frank had talked with an unnatu- rally tanned young man with nerv- ous manner. Later. when remember ing the incident. he suspected that the young man travelled in an official capacity of some sort.-probably Navy gumshoe, Or. to be more exact. a Department of Justice operative. This gentlemSn whose eyes looked tired behind their bleached eyelash. es had said something about Quin- fana Hoo-about natives who perched in tree-forks above the trails. with their throwing sticks ready. and whose only agreeable trait was patience. He said that he knew of only one white man who had been through that particular strip. that lies be. tween Merida. the capital of Yuca' tan, and Puerto Morelos on the coast opposite the island Of cozumel.
 (cotyigAs. lo5l. sy Rs5ers js~sss)