250 H. C. RUSSELL. 



It is however a remarkable fact that of the twelve papers which 

 came on shore on the east coast seven made northing decidedly ;. 

 three made westing, and only two decidedly southing. I do not 

 propose to draw conclusions from such a small number of records,, 

 they are interesting and instructive so far as they go, and will I 

 hope, induce masters of ships trading to Australia to help in the 

 distribution of current papers, which will without doubt throw 

 much light upon the question of currents on our coasts. 



If instead of forty-three papers we had four hundred and thirty,, 

 a number we may readily get, if all those most interested — the 

 masters of ships trading to Australia — would take the matter up 

 and distribute current papers regularly, we should then have 

 something to base conclusions upon that would be valuable. 



In the following tabular statement particulars of current papers 

 will be found in a condensed form. It will be observed that nine 

 or twenty-one per cent, were put into the sea near the land and 

 made their way to the shore in a few days, — these have not been 

 plotted on the chart ; fourteen on the south coast have been 

 plotted, and twelve on the east coast, and eight others were found 

 in places out side the chart, making a total of forty-three. The 

 majority of these current papers have been found in good order 

 after their voyages, and there is but little of special interest to 

 record. 



No. 1 was six years and seven months on its journey, and then 

 only travelled eighteen hundred and eighty miles, while No. 3 

 covered five thousand one hundred miles in less than one-fifth of 

 the time. When found the bottle was incrusted with barnacles 

 but otherwise in sound condition, although the paper within it 

 had in part decayed. 



No. 30 is the only one picked up at sea. It was one of a series 

 that Captain Orr of the s.s. Port Caroline put over at 1000 miles 

 intervals between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia. The 

 bottles were carefully fitted into specially prepared wooden floats,. 

 so that the bottles would be protected on a rocky coast. When 



