158 



Passing to the region east of the meridian of Cape Point, we 

 observe indications of a decided inset into False Bay, many of 

 the recovered bottles put away off this region having been 

 found in the Bay. No. 174 M is, apparently, an exception, but 

 it is not impossible that tliis also circled round the Bay before 

 being carried further eastwards. 



Outside of these, however, one bottle, No. 108, was carried 

 round Cape Point, and was found near Saldanha liay. This is 

 of special interest, as affording some evidence that the warm 

 Agulhas current flows at least occasionally round Cape Point 

 and up to the West Coast as a surface current. It was thrown 

 oflt 142 iiiilps soutli by west off Capo Hangklip on the 8th 

 December, 1899, and was found about thirteen days later at 

 Saldanha Bay. In this instance, the only such occurrence, it 

 was picked up in the water, so that it probably went at the rate 

 of about nine miles per day. When sent oft' there was a fairly 

 strong westerly breeze. During the fourteen days which it took 

 to complete the journey (118 miles) the wind, as ascertained at 

 Cape Agulhas, Cape Point, and at the Royal Observatory by the 

 Meteorological Commission, was as follows: — 



These observations, for a copy of which I am indebted to Mr. 

 C. Stewart, li.Sc., Secretarj^- to the Meteorological Commission, 

 may be taken to fairly represent the prevailing direction and 

 force of wind over the region through which the bottle passed 

 between the 8th and 21st, the period of its drifting, and it will 

 be seen at a glance that the direction, if wholly determined by 

 the wind, would be an easterly, rather than a westerly one. 

 When the bottle was dropped overboard there was a west by 



