VOYAGE OF A BOTTLE.

Westport Times, Volume 1, Issue 142, 14 January 1868, Page 3

VOYAGE OF A BOTTLE.

Professor Neumayer, now in Europe, has addressed the following letter to the Argus: — OCEAN CURRENTS. Sir, —By the last, mail from Victoria I received intelligence of a nature which will prove of considerable interest to the nautical public; and I hasten, therefore, to place it at your service for publication. In the course of my voyage from Australia to England, per Grarrawalt, I threw overboard forty-five bottles, containing information as to date, locality of ship, &c, and to my servant, Edward Brinckmann, who made the same voyage about the same time, per Norfolk, I had also given instructions to throw similar notices overboard whenever opportunity offered; and he therefore despatched twelve more; one of these being thrown over at noon of the 14th of July, 1864, when in lat. 56 deg. 40 min. S., and long. 66 deg. 16 min. W., and, therefore, just past the meridian of the Horn. The slips which I had prepared for that purpose contained—in addition to the above information respecting time, locality, &c.—a request to the finder of the bottle to send the slip back to my address in Europe, after having filled up the blanks left for locality, time, and accompanying circumstances of the finding. By the last mail I received the slip referred to, with every information required, properly filled up. Strange to say, the bottle containing it had been washed ashore at Tambuk, opposite Lady Percy Island, in lat. 38 deg. 20 min. S., and long. 142 deg. 11 min. E. The finder's name was stated to be Michael O'Donohue, laborer, at Yambuk. He had also taken the trouble to state by letter the exact condition in which he found the bottle, and that he had taken some pains to dry the slip, which had become quite illegible from water penetrating the cork. All the data contained in it were' in exact accordance with the journal kept by Brickman during his voyage, and which is kept in my hands. It is a matter of considerable interest to examine the probable route this bottle has taken somewhat more closely. There cannot exist a doubt that it was carried by the Cape Horn current, at the rate of forty-five miles a-day, for some distance into the South Atlantic, but that it was prevented reaching lower latitudes by the current of the River Plate, which in the winter months, when our bottle would arrive, runs with considerably more force than I in summer. In these regions, generally

free from ice, and surrounded with a belt of seaweed and kelp, it must have drifted about a considerable time, being merely under the influence of the so-called antartic drift with a general direction to the N.E., until, by a happy chance, it was carried within the reach of the easterly current, some seven or eight degrees to the south of the Cape of Good Hope. This current attains at parts a daily rate of from twenty to thirty-five miles, and would carry our bottle, without doubt, direct towards the shores of Australia, from which it originally started. The shortest distance on this probable route, from Cape Horn to the place where it was found, is about 9600 miles, while the distance measured on the great circle connecting these two points is only half that amount. It is, however, quite out of the question that it could have taken the latter route, as currents, ice, and the configuration of the antarctic continent would have effectually prevented its doing so. Let us suppose that the bottle travelled the first 1000 miles after leaving the Cape in twenty-five days, and that it travelled the last 5400, viz., from the point where it would meet the easterly current to Australia, at the rate of 20 miles a day, there would remain 765 days for the time it would have to spend in the region of the antartic drift, during which time it would most likely be floating backwards and forwards—north and south according to season—until at last it was so far advanced towards the east that the northward moving ice in the month cf September, 1866, would carry it into the easterly current above-mentioned. As it is not probable that the bottle could have remained long on the beach of Yambuk before being observed, we may therefore estimate its average daily rate of motion throughout the whole voyage to be nine miles. In April, 1864, when I was staying in Hobart Town for the purpose of making some magnetic determinations, I received information of a parallel case to that of the bottle just described. The American whaler Pacific was so fortunate as to pick up in April, 1861, close to the Chatham Islands, (43 deg. 48 min. S. and 178 deg. 56 min. W.) a cask of blubber, which, according to certain signs and marks, was proved to have belonged to the ship Ely. This ship was wrecked in November, 1859, on the M'Donald group, in 53 deg. S. and 73 deg. E., and it was therefore evident that the blubber cask had travelled 4380 miles in 510 days. This would give an average daily rate of motion of 85 miles, being much the same as that of our bottle. It would have to pass to the south of Tasmania and New Zealand, after having succeeded in getting through the equatorial current to the west of the latter country, before it could reach the spot where it was found. If we add these two routes together, we obtain a distance of 13,980 miles, which probably represents pretty fairly the length of the voyage of a bottle round the world in these regions. As the voyage from the Chatham Islands to Cape Horn would, if we except the chance of meeting with ice, offer no more difficulties than our bottle had to contend with on its voyage, we may assume that under favorable circumstances such a bottle would accomplish the voyage round the world from Cape Horn to the southward coast of America in about four years and ninety-three days. During the five years I presided over the Nautical Observatory on the Flagstaff Hill, I took every pains that as many such notices as possible should be set afloat in all parts of the ocean, but the case which I have just taken the liberty to bring under your notice is the first which has resulted in the recovery of the same. Many years may probably elapse ere any more of them may be picked up —a prospect perhaps calculated to slacken our zeal in this cause; but it is just by such good chances as the one I have described that we are inscribed that we are inspired with new energy and new hope in our work for the future, and it is therefore well that they should have a large circulation.