PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY OF THE GULF OF MAINE 893 



out near Nahant drifted west into Boston Harbor,'^ reflecting a definite set 

 inward along the northern shore of the bay. On the other hand, bottles that were 

 set out in the central part of the bay and at its mouth showed a tendency to drift 

 southeastward, either to leave the bay or to be caught up at the tip of Cape Cod. Thus, 

 one launched near Boston lightship reached Dennisport, on the south shore of Cape 

 Cod (fig. 178); one set afloat on the southern side of Stellwagen Bank was picked 

 up 75 miles east of Cape Cod Light 22 days later; while a third drifted from the 

 ofiing of Race Point, at the tip of the cape, to Nauset Beach, some 16 or 17 miles 

 down its outer shore. One of a pair set out in the western side of the bay a few 

 miles north of Plymouth also rounded Cape Cod, but the other, also drifting east- 

 ward, stranded at Wood End, near Provincetown, while one from the center of the 

 bay and two from its mouth, midway between the capes, were picked up on the beach 

 at the tip of Cape Cod or floating near by. 



The anticlockwise set, so clearly indicated by the drifts so far discussed from 

 this series, was also shared by bottles set out in the eastern side of Cape Cod Bay; 

 for all recoveries from this group were to the northward of where the bottles were 

 set out. Two of them went out around the cape, one stranding at its tip but the 

 other continuing southward past Cape Cod to Nantucket. One bottle set out off 

 Wellfleet and another off Billingsgate Island would probably have followed a sim- 

 ilar route if they had not been intercepted; for they went northwestward and were 

 picked up midway between Plymouth and Provincetown after 9 and 11 days afloat. 

 The companion bottle from the Billingsgate station {Fisli Hawk station 7), however, 

 was evidently caught in a different tidal current,.for it went northeast to the Truro 

 shore (fig. 178). ■ ~ -?:- 



These Massachusetts Bay studies were continued by series L to N, set out in April, 

 1926, by Henry C. Stetson (p. 878). Twelve of the 41 bottles put out off Cape Ann 

 (series L, fig. 179) have been recovered. One of these was from Race Point, at the tip 

 of Cape Cod, in 32 days; four were from the outer shore of Cape Cod, south to 

 Monomoy, in 30 to 66 days; two were from the south shore of Nantucket Island, 

 near the western end, after 44 and 70 days. This general tendency southward across 

 the mouth of Massachusetts Bay and so down past Cape Cod recalls the drifts of 

 bottles from Ipswich Bay and out of Massachusetts Bay the spring before. The 

 parallel between the two years is made complete by three returns from Nova Scotia 

 at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy from the series of 1926 and one from the New 

 Brunswick shore of the bay. 



One of these Cape Ann bottles went to Point Clyde, at the western entrance to 

 Penobscot Bay. Without the southern drifts just listed, for comparison, the tracks 

 followed by these bottles to the Bay of Fundy would be conjectural. The former, 

 however, make it as clear as evidence of this sort ever can that the general route 

 was southward at first, with a division off Cape Cod, whence some continued south- 

 ward but others were carried in an eddying course eastward and northward around 

 the basin of the gulf. The Port Clyde recovery alone is puzzling, but the time 

 interval (85 days) is sufficient to allow of a circuitous journey in its case also. 



72 Another stranded close by. 

 37755—27 25 



