444 



APPENDIX 



the first being especially important, since the bottle was found by 

 fishermen afloat off the island of St. Lucia, and the element of un- 

 certainty that attends most records of bottle-drift is thus removed 

 (Schott, p. 16). Of the other four bottles, one was stranded at 

 Cayenne in French Guiana, and three broke through the line of 

 islands of the Lesser Antilles, one of them reaching Porto Rico; 

 whilst the other two after crossing the Caribbean Sea entered the 

 Gulf of Mexico, one of them being stranded at Vera Cruz, and the 

 other ultimately arriving at the Florida keys. The last mentioned, 

 which was thrown over in the St. Paul's Rocks area in March, per- 

 formed a passage of nearly 4000 miles, its minimum daily drift rate 

 being computed in the American chart at 18-4 miles. 



Dr. Schott (p. 16) gives an interesting series of records which con- 

 firm these results. Of three bottles dropped into the sea on different 

 days in January between 0° and 7° N. lat. and 27° and 31° W. long., 

 that is to say, in the neighbourhood of St. Paul's Rocks, all were 

 found in the following May on different parts of the coast of Trinidad, 

 the respective daily rates indicated being 17-7, 17-1, and 17-0 miles. 



(c) The Region between St. PauVs Rocks and Cape St. Roque. — If 

 bottles thrown into this current in mid- Atlantic near its northern 

 and southern borders are carried to the West Indies at the rate of 

 nineteen or twenty miles a day, it is likely that in the centre of the 

 stream they would attain a greater velocity. Dr. Schott (p. 16) 

 gives the rates for seven bottles placed in the sea during February, 

 March, and April, between St. Paul's Rocks and Cape St. Roque, 

 or a little to the eastward, namely, between the parallels 0° and 7° S. 

 and the meridians 27° and 32° W. They were all recovered on Trini- 

 dad and the adjacent island of Tobago, four of them giving minimum 

 daily rates exceeding twenty miles, the greatest being 27-2 miles. 

 We may take them as indicating an average velocity of at least 

 twenty-five miles during this part of the passage, and if we allow 

 for the " speeding up " of the current on approaching the Brazilian 

 coast it is probable that the average velocity of the thread of the 

 current in the latter half of its traverse to the West Indies would 

 be nearer thirty miles a day. 



(d) Off the Amazon Estuary and thence to the West Indies. — Accord- 

 ing to the known behaviour of this powerful current, its speed in- 

 creases greatly after passing Cape St. Roque, and we should expect 

 that bottles cast into the sea off the mouths of the Amazon would 

 be transported to the West Indies at a rate of from thirty to fifty 

 miles a day. The data for nine bottles, mostly derived from the 

 American charts, are here employed. They were thrown over in 

 March, April, and May of different years at a distance of from 200 

 to 300 miles from the mouths of the Amazon. As indicated by the 

 dates of their recovery on Trinidad and Tobago three of them per- 

 formed the passage of from 900 to 1100 miles at minimum daily 

 rates of 43-5, 36-1, and thirty-four miles. But the greatest velocity 

 recorded for a bottle thrown into the sea in this locality was attained 

 by one that was recovered on the Virgin Islands twenty-eight days 

 after its start, having accomplished a drift of 1400 miles at fifty miles 

 a day. This bottle was cast over with two others on the same day 



