Sweeps Bottle Messages Across

Queer Ocean Current

Sweeps Bottle Messages Across the Pacific

THERE is evidently a remarkable current flowing from east to west in the Central Pacific, a few degrees north of the Equator.

A resident of Jaluit (Marshall Islands), a well-known missionary, makes a prac tice of collecting and returning to their senders messages which arrive in bottles on the various atolls, having been thrown overboard from ships.

We have just seen two of the latter.

In the first case the message was thrown overboard from R.M.S. Niagara half way between Suva and Honolulu on February 11, 1934, by a passenger, Mr, Dynes Fulton, of New Zealand, who was then en route to England. The bottle was picked up at Mille, in the Marshall Islands, on July 2, 1934, and sent to the missionary at Jaluit. Mille Lagoon, in cidentally, was a favourite resort of the

famous Pacific bucaneer, Bully Hayes.

In the second case the message which the bottle contained was evidently com piled on August 18, 1932 by a merry party aboard R.M.S. Monowai, which was north-bound and practically on the Equator. The merrymakers contributed many quips and jokes, and their signa tures apparently are W. H. Castle, Gene Ermington, of Los Angeles; Sylvia Par ker, of Hollywood; Dennis McGrath, solicitor, of Wellington, New Zealand; A.

E. Foster, of the Union S.S. Co., Welling ton; and W. McClure. This message was picked up at Rongrik Island, Marshall Group, on April 8, 1933 —very water stained but quite decipherable.