56 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



should be noticed that the proportion of bottles stranded on Madeira 

 and the Canaries is tripled in the case of the Prince of Monaco's 

 floats thrown over in 1885 and 1886. 



The Prince's results for 1887 are most suited for comparison with 

 those of Table I. But even here it is obvious that if we make a 

 cross-section of the Gulf Stream drift in mid-Atlantic, these results 

 are more concerned with the southern half than with the northern 

 half of the section. Thus the great increase in the proportion of 

 floats deflected towards warm southern latitudes is here repeated, 

 about 13 per cent, being carried to Madeira and the Canaries and 

 about 10 per cent, to the West Indian region. This tendency is well 

 exhibited in the differences in the two cases between the proportions 

 of bottles or floats stranded on the European side of the Atlantic in 

 latitudes north of the French coasts. This proportion in the case of 

 the results given in Table L is as much as 51 per cent., whilst for the 

 results obtained by the Prince of Monaco for 1887 it is barely 39 

 per cent. 



With these exceptions, most of the principal features in the dis- 

 tribution of transatlantic drift that are illustrated in Table I. are 

 reproduced in the Prince of Monaco's results. His floats were found 

 on all coasts of the European side of the North Atlantic from Norway 

 to Morocco, and they even penetrated into the Mediterranean. It 

 may be added that the large proportion of the floats recovered in 

 Norway in the series of experiments made in 1887 is to some extent 

 counterbalanced by the diminished proportion found on the coasts of 

 Ireland and Scotland, inclusive of the islands near. 



The Passage of Bottle-drift from the European and African 

 Side of the North Atlantic to the West Indies.— This has 

 already been demonstrated by implication from the data in the 

 previous tables that are employed to establish the completion of the 

 circuit of the North Atlantic by drifting bottles and floats. But we 

 will here deal with those bottles that commence the ocean traverse 

 in European or African waters, or in different parts of the track to 

 the New World; in other words, with those that perform the last 

 half of the circuit. As before observed, bottle-drift in European 

 waters is carried south in the Portuguese or North African Current 

 past Madeira and Canary Islands to the vicinity of the Cape Verde 

 Group, whence it is borne westward in the North Equatorial Current 

 to the West Indies. Before discussing this subject I will give the 

 materials on which my conclusions are based (see table, p. 57). 



Although the table largely explains itself, some additional remarks 

 may here be made; and in the first place I will give a few details 

 about the 44 places of recovery." Most of the bottles entered in 

 Column A, under the heading 44 Bahamas," were recovered at the 

 south-east end of the Bahamian group, namely, on the Turks, Caicos 

 and adjacent islands. Out of the twenty-six there recorded, twenty 

 are thus accounted for. Two were found in the middle of the group 

 and four at the north-west extremity. Of the twenty bottles found 

 in the Greater Antilles, as given in Column B, four were stranded on 

 the south coast of Jamaica and on the small islands near, whilst all 

 the rest were beached on the coasts of Cuba, Hispaniola and Porto 



