Floating Mail

The earliest recorded instance of sea currents being used to transmit correspondence was about 300BC when the Greek philosopher, Theophrastus, launched bottles containing messages and thereby demonstrated that the Mediterranean Sea derived most of its water from the Atlantic Ocean. Benjamin Franklin tested the currents of the Gulf Stream by despatching bottles containing messages for the finders. A Royal Uncorker of Bottles was appointed in 1560 for the express purpose of examining water-borne messages and this appointment existed as late as the reign of George III (1760 – 1820).

Lady Grange, marooned by her husband on the island of St Kilda (1734 – 1742) ‘devoted her whole time to weeping, and wrapping up letters round pieces of cork, bound up with yarn, to try if any favourable wave would waft them to some Christian, to inform some humane person where she was resided’. A letter by Lady Grange, dated 20 January 1738, transmitted by this means, was not delivered to the recipient till 1740. This method relied on the North Atlantic Drift and the prevailing westerly winds.

In 1876, John Sands, marooned on St Kilda for seven months, used hollowed pieces of driftwood (St Kilda ‘mailboats’) to get messages to the outside world. His first mailboat, launched December 1876, was recovered at Sortlund, Norway in September 1877. Another, however, was found a few days after launching, at Poolewe, Highland. The St Kildans used this method regularly from 1885 till 1930 (when the island was evacuated), and from 1906, the Post Office made a payment of 2s6d to finders of these mailboats. Since the re-occupation of St Kilda by military forces in 1956, tin can mails have been despatched from time to time, marked with a special cachet.

Other instance of floating mail include:

1894        Scottish Fishery Board survey of ocean currents over 53 000 message bottles launched by 1955.

1899    Buoys with letters from Andree’s balloon flight were cast overboard on 11

            July 1897 and recovered 11 September 1897 and 14 May 1899.

1902 – 1904  Scottish Antarctic Expedition message bottles recovered between 

            1907 (Victoria, Australia) and 1952 (New Zealand).

1903        German South Polar Expedition, Kerguelen Islands; recovered New

Zealand 1955!

The longest distance record is for a bottle from Kerguelen recovered at Bunbury, Western Australia six years later – a distance of 16 000 miles