DRIFTING CURRENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 340, 16 March 1910, Page 3

DRIFTING CURRENTS.

.MESSAGE CARRIES 7600 MILES. ■ While walking along the beach at Mason's Bay (Stewart Island)last wcok (says an lnvercargill message To the Dunedin'Star), Mr. Jack MacQuitrie picked up a bottle containing a message. Upon uncorking the receptacle, it was found to- contain a programme of a concert held on the Athenic (Captain C. H. Kempson, R.N.R.), and on the back was the following message:—"Alew Findlay, John Aitken, Alex. Aitken, David Finlay, also Miss Bella Aitkin (Jate of Scotland), all on board R.M.S. Athenie, bound for New Zealand, 10th day of February, 1909. AVhen picked up kindly mention, and oblige, D. Findlay. Dropped overboard in the Indian Ocean." The bottle must have had a remarkably long journey, coming several thousands of miles, and if a bottle can drift all that distance from the west, perhaps some day the missing Waratah will turn up somewhere in Australian waters. A reference to an atlas shows a wind drift from the south of Africa right round the Antarctic Ocean, between the 40!, h latitude and the 50th, sometimes going so low as the 60th. As a matter of fact, this drift current passes Stewart Island, and then travels up the east coast oi jnc-w Zealand until on about level with B heim; then it moves on across tne Southern Pacific to Cape Horn, and then across the Southern Atlantic to Africa again—a sort of perpetual circuit. It is easv enough, therefore, to follow the drift of the Athenic's message, and the distance covered would be roughly 7600 miles. It should at the same time prove a first-rate example of the possibilities of the current, and the rate of 7600 miles in 380 days gives a speed of twenty miles a day, or, roughly, a mile an hour. This is not the first message of the kind that has been picked up at the Island, and it will no doubt be remembered that a couple of years ago a similar one was ,picked up at Barracouta Point. This had been thrown overboard off the east coast of South America, and had apparently drifted into the same current, and been carried a distance of no less than 17,000 miles.