246 H. C. RUSSELL. 



London, and as a consequence papers have come back to me from 

 Burmah, Ceylon, Maldive Islands, from near Perim, from the 

 north coast of Africa at Tunis, and from the south coast of 

 England ; but I wish to night to confine our attention to those 

 nearer home. The total number of papers I have collected is 

 forty-three, of these seventeen were found on the south coast of 

 Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and eighteen on the east 

 coast. 



A tabular statement showing the particulars of all these is 

 appended, and also a chart showing the localities where the more 

 interesting ones were put into the water and where they were 

 found. The great majority of those which have been put into the 

 water near the coast have gone ashore close to where they were 

 cast adrift. These have been omitted from the chart because 

 they tend to make less distinct the positions of some of the more 

 important ones, the majority of these are on the central parts of the 

 east coast ; and in passing it may be mentioned that the chart 

 shows simply the start and the finish in each case, and these points 

 are connected by the shortest possible lines. It is not intended to 

 convey the idea that the actual tracks are known, but simply that 

 the shortest routes indicate the general direction in which the 

 current paper travelled. No significance is to be attached to the 

 very different routes shown for Nos. 1 and 27, except that they 

 are the shortest, both pass the southern coast of Tasmania. No. 1 

 lands at Wangarie, and No. 27 at Canterbury ; but No. 1 may 

 have gone round the south of New Zealand and made its way 

 along the east coast, indeed that is not improbable, for during a 

 a strong westerly gale in 1890 an iron buoy broke adrift from 

 the east coast of Foveaux Straits, and after three years and four 

 months it was found in Poverty Bay, having thus made its way 

 along the whole length of the middle island and nearly all the 

 eastern coast of the north island. The paper then which was 

 found at Wangarie may have gone that way, although it is much 

 longer, but the shorter route was taken in accordance with the 

 rule laid down. 



