APPENDIX 



461 



the lack of data in the American charts for the summer months 

 being supplied in Schott's memoir. 



All of the twenty-seven bottles dealt with in this table came from 

 the region between Sable Island off the Nova Scotian coast and 

 Cuba, but the number for each locality is no indication of relative 

 frequency, since most of the experiments were begun in the north. 

 It is noteworthy that none of these bottles approach the group from 

 the southward, all from the quarter between West and North-north- 

 west — a fact brought out in the cases of those dropped into the sea in 

 mid-ocean to the westward of the islands. To the southward and 

 westward lies a debateable region from which, according to the 

 compiler of the American charts, but few bottles are ever recovered, 

 though " crossed by numerous sailing and steamship routes and 

 within which in all probability are cast as many bottle papers as in 

 other portions of the ocean." This region lies between the main 

 drifts of the Gulf Stream and North Equatorial Current, and, accord- 

 ing to the same authority, is confined between 25° and 40° N. lat. 

 and 30° and 60° W. long. But even if we curtail these limits a little, 

 since bottles can reach the Azores from the same parallel a few 

 hundred miles to the west, the fact remains that in this part of the 

 central Atlantic there is interposed between the Azores and the 

 New World to the south-west the vast area of the Sargasso Sea, 

 covering some 120,000 square miles, where, as Laughton (p. 221) 

 observes, collects a very large proportion of the drift or wreckage 

 which floats about the Atlantic. This may explain why four and even 

 six years may elapse before some of the bottles are recovered on the 

 Azores. Indeed, the progress of drift to the Azores seems to be 

 never rapid. Of the rates given for nineteen bottles not one reaches 

 ten miles a day. Though those drifted there from the vicinity of 

 Cape Hatteras seem to travel at the same speed as those that are 

 carried to Europe from the same locality, the passage from the 

 Nova Scotian region is very tedious, bottles taking rather longer for 

 the drift from that region than they do from Cape Hatteras, although 

 the distance is much less. 



The fate of other bottles thrown into the sea in the vicinity of the 

 Azores, between 60 and 150 miles east and west of the group, is 

 illustrated in Dr. Schott's paper. Of four, one was recovered on the 

 coast of Norway, and the others, after being carried south, were 

 transported by the North Equatorial Current to the West Indies, 

 being found on the Bahamas, on one of the northern islands of the 

 Lesser x4.ntilles, and on the north-west coast of Cuba. 



It would seem, therefore, that whilst the islands of the Azores can 

 only receive drift from the coasts of North America and from the 

 West Indies, they can supply it to the coasts of Europe and to the 

 West Indian region. 



The Prince of Monaco's observations in 1885 and 1887 to the 

 N.N.W. and N.W. of the Azores at distances of 200 to 800 miles, 

 largely confirm the results above given, in the case of bottles thrown 

 overboard 200 to 750 miles W. and N.N.W. of the group. Of eleven 

 floats that reached there from distances between 280 and 460 miles 

 N.N.W. of the islands, the three most rapid drifts gives a mean of 



