Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1898 — One Way of Posting a Letter. [ARTICLE]

One Way of Posting a Letter.

The island of St. Kilda is often visited by tourist steamers in the summer, but its regular maiil communication with the mainland, some 150 miles distant, is confined to the annual visits of the steamer which brings the factor and his stores. But if at other times the inhabitants desire to communicate with Great Britain, they employ the following curious device: A man cuts the rough model of a boat from a billet of wood, hollows it partly out, places in the hold a tin or small bottle containing a letter, nails on a deck, and when the wind is blowing toward the mainland, launches the tiny craft, having first connected it with a bladder, which drives along before the wind and acts as a tug to the little mailboat. But the set of the gulf stream frequently drives this curious craft out of its course, and as often as not it readies the Shetland Isles or the coast of Norway, where, however, the letter is pretty sure to l»e found and posted to its destination.— Household Words.