Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1891 — Wanderers on the Sea. [ARTICLE]

Wanderers on the Sea.

The discoveries of modern science have revealed monsters of the deep as terrillc as any that ancient fancy created, and have shpwn_that oceans are 'riot mere "wastes of 'waters, tmt the homes of an astounding variety of living things. More than this, it has been discovered that the seas themselves have each a sort of law of existence which they obey. The Hydrographic Bureau at Washington for two years has been trying to learn something of the characteristics of the Atlantic Ocean as a great moving body of water by means of bottles, containing papers, which have been dropped overboard from vessels in many places, to drift at the mercy of the winds and waves. Many of these bottles have been found and picked up again either in the open sea, or on shores where they had stranded. Knowing from its records where the bottles had been thrown overboard, the Bureau had been able to trace, in a general way, the path they must have followed in order to reach the places where they were found. In a report published on the first of July this year, and accompanied by a map of the Atlantic, the adventures of a hundred and thirteeen bottles are recorded. Being partially filled with air and then securely corked, the bottles float on the surface of the water, and go wherever the wind and the currents of the sea carry them. Each bottle contains a record of the place and the date of its starting. Some of these found have floated for many months on the bosom of the Atlantic, and traveled thousands of miles. It has been found that bottles dropped overboard between the shores of the United States and England or France generally travel toward the northeast, following the course of that great river in the ocean called the Gulf Stream. Bottles started off the coasts of Spain or Africa travel westward until they arrive among the West India Islands. Along the European side of the ocean the bottles take a southerly course, and along the American side a northerly course. Thus, as a result of winds and currents, the whole Atlantic is shown to be slowly circulating round and round, like an enormous pool. This accounts for the stories that were current in Europe, hundreds of years ago, of strange objects of human manufacture having floated from the New to the Old World, thus giving a clue to the existence of undiscovered lands beyond the sea