44 ' The Atlantic 



brought the lovers together and they lived happily ever afterward," 

 but unfortunately romance seems to have vanished in a puff of public- 

 ity- 



The floating bottle carried by ocean currents has over the years 

 been a great aid in the study of the oceans. Of course many of the bot- 

 tles launched are never found or they fall into the hands of ignorant 

 or careless people and are never reported. The bottles that are recov- 

 ered have provided a great deal of information about the direction 

 and extent of ocean currents and the date of report or arrival may 

 also indicate an average speed or rate of travel. 



Besides bottles and other sealed containers the drift of many other 

 objects have been traced over the Atlantic. Since most of these objects 

 were large enough to be real and active dangers to ships traveling 

 along shore or across the ocean, captains were usually eager to trace 

 and report them. The list of such objects includes logs and timbers, 

 wreckage, derelicts, icebergs. 



Almost from the beginning of ocean navigation captains have kept 

 logs or other systematic records of their voyages, recording therein 

 at regular intervals the state of the weather, direction and strength of 

 the wind, the condition of the sea, the course or direction of the ship, 

 her speed; later as instruments became available there were also rec- 

 ords of soundings, barometer readings, air temperatures, water tem- 

 peratures, etc. etc. There were also brought forward an estimate of 

 the ship's position (dead reckoning) or when conditions were favora- 

 ble a statement of her exact position (fix) determined by observing 

 fixed objects ashore — lightships, lighthouses, capes, objects ashore 

 (coastwise pilotage) or by observing sun and stars (celestial naviga- 

 tion). Now when the observed position differed from the dead reck- 

 oning position, the navigator could assume that a surface current at 

 sea or a tidal current near shore were responsible. A head current 

 could set the ship back, a favorable current advance it or lateral cur- 

 rents set it to either side — but in any case the direction and speed of 

 the current could be calculated. 



Often, of course, in the old days these ships' logs were crude and 

 inaccurate, but as more and better instruments became available 

 (chronometers, patent logs, sounding machines, etc.) and as naviga- 

 tion methods were more systematically taught and used, knowledge 

 of the sea improved. The large-scale scientifically directed study of 

 ships' logs began about one hundred years ago and out of it grew 

 books and charts that first gave a general, comprehensive and prac- 



