906 BULLETIN OF THE BUKEAU OF FISHERIES 



The tracks of three bottles from the mid section of line D, which were picked 

 up at the eastern entrance to Frenchmans Bay, and one other that went to the 

 vicinity of Petit Manan, are more puzzling. Ostensibly these point to short 

 easterly drifts of 8 to 12 miles, and the time intervals are so uniform (33 to 38 

 days)*" that all of them seem to have followed approximately the same route, 

 though set out some miles apart. However, the time between release and recovery 

 is so long for direct journeys so short, when contrasted with the rapidity with which 

 other bottles set out near them drifted in the opposite direction, that it seems 

 virtually certain that they followed a roundabout route. Judging from the facts 

 that many more bottles stranded to the westward and that all of this series (D) were 

 set out on the ebb, it is probable that the four bottles in question also drifted 

 westward at first. Their most likely route would then be into Blue Hill Bay with 

 the next flood, around Mount Desert Island, and so out again through Frenchmans 

 Bay, to strand about Schoodic Promontory and to the eastward of it. Such a drift 

 would be consistent with the clockwise circulation to be expected around Mount 

 Desert Island, on theoretic grounds (p. 970). In short, the bottles set out oJBf 

 Mount Desert in 1923 afford definite proof of a set westward along the coast of 

 Maine but no clear evidence of any longshore set in the opposite direction. 



On the basis of the foregoing analysis, the most reasonable explanation of the 

 localities where bottles from the Mount Desert, Cape Eli2;abeth, Cape Ann, and Cape 

 Cod series of 1923 were recovered, and of the periods of time between the dates 

 they were set afloat and later were picked up, is that bottles from all three lines 

 moved in tracks eddying counterclockwise through southwest, through east, to north, 

 and veering on successively shorter and shorter radii of curvature. Thus, the few 

 bottles from the two southernmost lines, which were found on the Nova Scotian 

 coast, probably traveled easterly from the time they were set out (southeast at first, 

 then east and northeast) , but the farther north and east along the coast bottles were 

 put out, the more they tended to circle to the right of a direct course. It is also 

 likely that while the breadth of the track covered by all the bottles in the western 

 side of the gulf was something like 100 miles, they tended to converge into a narrower 

 track as they approached the eastern side of the gulf. 



In August, September, and October of 1922 and 1923 the center of this eddylike 

 circulation seems to have been situated 40 to 60 miles south of Mount Desert 

 Island, over the northeastern extension of the deep trough of the gulf. 



The fact that the great majority of the recoveries from Nova Scotia and from 

 the Bay of Fundy were from a rather short stretch of coast leads to the conclusion 

 that no matter on which line the bottles in question were released, all those that 

 drifted across the gulf finally came within the influence of the same south-north 

 current, hugging close to the eastern shore. On no other assumption, I believe, is it 

 possible to reconcile the facts just stated with the time element (p. 904) and with the 

 current measiurements that have been taken in that side of the gulf (p. 861). 



The recoveries on the coast of Maine already discussed point to a division of 

 this northerly set before it reaches the Bay of Fundy, the greater volume entering 

 the bay along its southern shore, but offshoots (which may be only intermittent) 



"No. 16U was picked up in Winter Harbor 11 months later, a period so long that there Is no way of estimating how far it 

 may have traveled en route, or how long it may have lain on the strand. 



