902, BULLETIN OF THE BUBEATJ OF FISHERIES 



instead of lying on the beach perhaps for a week or more. The fact that one bottle, 

 which drifted right up the Bay of Fundy to Advocate Harbor at Cobequid Point, at 

 its head, was picked up in 107 days affords direct evidence to this effect, the distance 

 on the assumed track being more than 250 miles. 



With this imcertainty introducing a source of error that may be very consider- 

 able, I have not thought it justifiable to assume a shorter route for the bottles 

 drifting to the mouth of the Bay of Fundy in 1923. Theprobableroutes within the Bay 

 of Fundy of such bottles from line E as entered the latter are laid down on the chart 

 (fig. 182) to accord with the drift bottles set out there by Mavor in 1927 (i. e., 

 crossing it from south to north and then continuing to veer westward to Grand 

 Manan), because this type of circulation seems sufficiently established there. 



Line E reproduces the corresponding series of the preceding year (line A), not 

 only in the preponderance of drifts to Nova Scotia and in the uniformity of the tracks 

 probably followed, but also in the recovery of one bottle at Metinic Island, off the 

 western entrance to Penobscot Bay (No 1792), and of another at Round Pond 

 Harbor, a few miles farther to the west (No. 1740). The time intervals for these 

 ■ (respectively, 64 and 77 days) correspond as closely as could be expected with 63 

 and 103 days for the two bottles (Nos. 98 and 284) that drifted to this same sector 

 the year before (figs. 180 and 181), and hence suggest the equally circuitous offshore 

 route laid down on the chart. However, it is possible that the two bottles in ques- 

 tion (Nos. 1740 and 1792) actually circled in the opposite direction (i. e., clockwise), 

 drifting inshore at first in company with four others that were picked up in Casco 

 Bay and a few miles to the east of it, then continuing eastward along the coast, 

 perhaps through the channels between the islands. The fact that one bottle (No. 

 1793) from the outer end of line E was found in Sheepscott River"'' after 34 days 

 lends likelihood to this possibility. 



The Cape Elizabeth series for the two years, however, illustrate an anual differ- 

 ence of another sort; namely, that the coastal belt, 10 to 15 miles broad next the 

 cape, was a sort of deadwater in 1922 (p. 899), while in 1923 the general dominant 

 set governed closer in to the coast. 



BOTTLES SET OUT OFF MOUNT DESERT, AUGUST, 1923 



The drifts of the bottles of the Mount Desert line can be approximated only if 

 they are taken in conjunction with the several series discussed so far. Standing by 

 themselves they would be self-contradictory, for 8 were recovered at significant dis- 

 tances to the westward (figs. 183 and 184) ; 11 were recovered at significant distances 

 to the eastward; and 6 others at points close to where they were released. The 

 easterly drifts so far reported aU lead to the coast of Nova Scotia, except for one to 

 the coast of Maine at the western entrance to the Grand Manan Channel (No. 1584, 

 Haycock Harbor, Washington County). By themselves, these would naturally 

 suggest a set to the northeast from the offing of Mount Desert, but analysis makes 

 this most unlikely. 



The fact that these Nova Scotian recoveries -are distributed along the same sec- 

 tor of the coast line where bottles from the Cape Elizabeth, Cape Ann, and Cape 



" stated in the returns as " Sheepshead " River. • 



