Seafaring people often throw a bottle overboard, with a paper
stating the time and place at which it is done. In the absence of
other information as to Currents, that afforded by these mute little
navigators is of great value. They leave no track behind them, it is
true, and their routes cannot be ascertained; but knowing where they
are cast, and seeing where they are found, some idea may be formed as
to their course. Straight lines may at least be drawn, showing the
shortest distance from the beginning to the end of their voyage, with
the time elapsed. Admiral Beechey has prepared a chart, representing,
in this way, the tracks of more than 100 bottles. From this it appears
that the waters from every quarter of the Atlantic tend towards the
Gulf of Mexico and its stream. Bottles cast into the sea midway between
the Old and the New Worlds, near the coasts of Europe, Africa, and
America at the extreme north or farthest south, have been found either
in the West Indies, or the British Isles, or within the well-known
range of Gulf-Stream waters.
“THE HORSE LATITUDES”
are the belts of calms and light airs which border the polar edge of
the north-east trade-winds. They are so called from the circumstance
that vessels formerly bound from New England to the West Indies, with a
deck-load of horses, were often so delayed in this calm belt of Cancer,
that, from the want of water for their animals, they were compelled to
throw a portion of them overboard.
“WHITE WATER” AND LUMINOUS ANIMALS AT SEA.
Captain Kingman, of the American clipper-ship _Shooting Star_, in lat.
8° 46′ S., long. 105° 30′ E., describes a patch of _white water_,
about twenty-three miles in length, making the whole ocean appear like
a plain covered with snow. He filled a 60-gallon tub with the water,
and found it to contain small luminous particles seeming to be alive
with worms and insects, resembling a grand display of rockets and
serpents seen at a great distance in a dark night; some of the serpents
appearing to be six inches in length, and very luminous. On being taken
up, they emitted light until brought within a few feet of a lamp, when
nothing was visible; but by aid of a sextant’s magnifier they could
be plainly seen--a jelly-like substance, without colour. A specimen
two inches long was visible to the naked eye; it was about the size
of a large hair, and tapered at the ends. By bringing one end within
about one-fourth of an inch of a lighted lamp, the flame was attracted
towards it, and burned with a red light; the substance crisped in
burning, something like hair, or appeared of a red heat before being
consumed. In a glass of the water there were several small round
substances (say 1/16th of an inch in diameter) which had the power of
expanding and contracting; when expanded, the outer rim appeared like a
circular saw, the teeth turned inward.
The scene from the clipper’s deck was one of awful grandeur: the sea
having turned to phosphorus, and the heavens being hung in blackness,
and the stars going out, seemed to indicate that all nature was
preparing for that last grand conflagration which we are taught to
believe will annihilate this material world.