56. How far has a message in a bottle ever traveled on the 

 ocean? 



Each year, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution releases be- 

 tween 10,000 and 20,000 drift bottles off the East Coast of the United 

 States to obtain information on currents in the ocean, particularly over 

 the continental shelf. Clear 8-ounce carbonated-drink bottles are com- 

 monly used. Dry sand is added for ballast and a self-addressed postcard 

 is included, requesting the finder to note the date and location of 

 finding. 



Bottles are released from ships, ferry boats, offshore towers, aircraft, 

 and even blimps. The rate of return has been 10 to 1 1 percent. Records 

 of all bottles released and recovered are kept in an IBM punchcard system. 



Woods Hole has records of a number of bottles that have crossed the 

 Atlantic from the United States to Ireland, England, and France-a dis- 

 tance of 3,000 miles. Other drift bottles have made a nearly complete 

 circuit, passing the Azores and coming ashore in the West Indies after 

 having drifted 5,000 or 6,000 miles. 



Probably the longest undisputed drift on record was a bottle released 

 June 20, 1962, at Perth, Australia, and recovered almost 5 years later 

 near Miami, Florida. Oceanographers at the Tropical Atlantic Biological 

 Laboratory estimated that the bottle had traveled some 16,000 statute 

 miles at a speed of about 0.4 mile per hour. The most probable route 

 was around the Cape of Good Hope, north along the Coast of Africa, 

 across the Atlantic to northern Brazil, north along the South American 

 Coast into the Gulf of Mexico, and through the Florida Straits to Miami. 



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