September 25, 2012: Oldest message in a bottle

[Undertoad]

Here is thought to be the world's oldest message in a bottle.

It is 98 years old, and was cast into the ocean by Captain C. Hunter Brown, a scientist at the Glasgow School of Navigation, who was studying the currents in the North Sea.

The bottle was one of 1,890 bottles released on June 10, 1914, and the 315th to be entered into Captain Brown's log, which is still kept and updated by Marine Scotland Science in Aberdeen.

Still kept and updated. They are tenacious, those Scottish marine scientists.

So, released near Aberdeen, found near Shetland, we now learn that the North Sea currents flow northerly at a rate of about 300 miles/480 km per Century.

And with only 315 of the original 1890 bottles found, you yourself may now find another; and if you do, you will then become the world record holder for oldest message in a bottle. Off to Shetland wi' ye.

full story at The Atlantic

and BBC