In Germany, a Message-in-a-Bottle Found 108 Years After Its Release

schwit1 writes with a report that an early 20th century experiment has generated a belated data point. One of many floating bottles released 108 years ago to study currents was recently found by a German couple; it washed up on a beach in Amrum, Germany. From The Independent: When the couple unfurled the note inside, they found a message in English, German and Dutch. It asked the finder to fill in some information on where and when they had found the bottle, before returning it to the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth. It said whoever did so would be rewarded with one shilling. Communications director of the Marine Biological Association, Guy Baker, told The Daily Telegraph: "It was quite a stir when we opened that envelope, as you can imagine." Once at the association, staff recognised the bottle was one of 1,020 released into the North Sea between 1904 and 1906 as part of a project to test the strength of currents. Mr Baker told the paper: "It was a time when they were inventing ways to investigate what currents and fish did. Many of the bottles were found by fishermen trawling with deep sea nets. Others washed up on the shore, and some were never recovered. Most of the bottles were found within a relatively short time. We're talking months rather than decades."

Comments

Re:Clean bottle?

[rubycodez]

bottle collectors have easy way to clean barnacles and coral off bottles found at sea. Get 32 percent (20 baum) hydrochloric acid from hardware store, add to equal part water, and soak bottle for a couple of days in that (wearing rubber gloves to protect your skin obviously while handling bottles). then rinse with water. I assume that's what was done with the bottle in picture.

Re:Rewarded one shilling

[dotancohen]

The Marine Biological Association in Plymouth should buy a 1904 shilling (on eBay around $13) and send it to the German couple.

You are absolutely not going to believe this, but the fine article has a photograph of the couple who found the bottle posing with the one shilling payment that they received.