'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎14] (241/258)

14
APPENDIX E.
the teeth of the traile wind, or probably of above four miles, making allowance for
the obstruction sustained by this.
3. The Secretary of the Geographical Society received through t' e kindness
of the Vice Admiral and Commander-in-ChieF of the Royal Dutch Navy in the
East Indies, a bottle log, of which the following is a copy. The log is marked
101, and as the Ganges was only provided with them some ten months before, she
must have thrown one overboard almost every day she had been at sea.
We hav§ another of later date marked 146, which shews that. Captain Baker is
remitting nothing in his exertions, and that he is duly seconded by his brother
officers, as shewn by the fact that of the three logs received from him, two have
been picked up at sea s -
“This bottle was thrown from on board the P. and 0. Steam Ship Ganges, on her
Way from Singapore to Hongkong, at noon on the 19th day of October lti53. Lat.
6 ° II'N., Long. 187° 19'E., course N. E. 5 E., 202 miles ; currents, 18 W., 14
miles. It w»s picked up at the Isle Great Bastard, North Coast of the Isle Flores,
in Lat. 8 ° 24' S., and Long. 122° 24' E , on 16th of February 1854, by a native
of Galitung, and received on board H. M. Netherland Steamer Etna, on the 10th
September 1854, by Lieutenant H. F. Valentine.”
This bottle had thus travelled over twenty degrees of longitude and fourteen of
latitude, or a distance of about 1,800 miles in all, in the space of 114 days ; the
log No. 2 , noticed above, l,5t)0 miles in about 4n0 days. This indicates a
current from the mouth of the Straits of Malacca S. E. and by E. betwixt
Java and Borneo of about fifteen miles a day. The next log we come to
is that thrown overboard by the Ganges on the 16th March 1854, in Lat. 5°
38'N. and Long. 100° 6 ' E. ; it was picked up by the Penang at 7 a. m. on the
38th of the same month, inside of Palo Televose Island north channel, having
travelled S. Easterly, a distance of sixty miles in 43 hours. The log wo come to
after this was thrown from the Singapore on the 21st of March 1853, Lat. 6 ° 13'
N., Long. 96° 37' E., and it was picked up by a native at Quellah Yen Quedahin
June 1853. This place is 24 miles northward from Penang, in Lat. 6 ° N., audLong.
101 ° E., or it had therefore travelled betwixt 250 and 300 miles nearly due K. in, we
shall say, three months—for the day on which it was found is not mentioned, —
neither is it stated whether it was picked up at sea or onshore. Epeiiking by guess
itprobably bad travelled at the rate of about three miles a day, or pretty much at
the same speed, from Ceylon to the point where this takes the survey. The four logs
amongst them luckily give us an uninterrupted track from Lat.4° 30'N. and Long
70° 15'E.to Lat 8 ° S. and Long. 122° E.,orover aspace ofabout3,500 miles, in
which we find a continuous current for the first half of its course from W. to E.,
flowing at the rate of about three miles a d"y—for the second from W. to S. E. by
E., flowing at the rate of about ten miles. We have not as yet the means of
knowing whether this equally obtains during both monsoons, but from all that
we can observe, it would seem that here the currents of the ocean are very un
expectedly opposed to the general direction of the wind.
4. Another bottle log thrown from the P. and O. •''teamer Cadiz on the 1st of
July 1854, in Lat. o° 37' N., Long. 82° 29' E , was picked up on the sea coast at
Nagore, near Negapatam, Bay of Bengal, ou the 12tli April. Captain Huberts,
who threw it overboard, remarks that a slight current was running at the time
towards the south, with a fresh monsoon blowing from the west—Temperature
of the sea 86 —Density 10. The place where this bottle seems to have been
picked up is in Lat. 10° N., Long. 80° E., or thereabouts ; and the course it appears
to have pursued is a singular one, having travelled 2 29 westward and 6‘23
northward, against a current apparently southerly. The conclusion to which
this leads is much less decisive and distinct than that afforded by bottle logs pre
viously picked up, and it looks as if it had been following much more the course
of the wind than of the sea. The distance travelled by the buttle is betwixt four
and five hundred miles, traversed in not more than one hundred and seventy-two