Second Marine Biology Bottle Recovered Near French Coast

A second bottle out of a total of 84 set to drift by the 1972 Freshman Seminar in Marine Biology was picked up in France last month.

The first bottle drifted ashore at Tralee, Ireland on December 18, 1973 after covering about 1900 miles in 26 months. Last month's bottle arrived in Cape Feret, France on September 29, 26 months after the drop.

Both bottles came from a group of 39 bottles members of the seminar released 430 miles South of Cape Race, Newfoundland in June 1972.

The successful trip of these bottles, which were designed to float like logs, shows that logs from North American rivers could have carried organisms across the Atlantic Ocean, Howard B. Fell, professor of Invertebrate Zoology and leader of the seminar, said yesterday.

The 12 students in the seminar prepared the 32 oz. ginger ale bottles by enclosing a card and putting on a water tight seal. The card, written in French and English, asked for the name and adress of the finder and the location and time the bottle was found. The card also offered to send the finder more information about the experiment.

Fell has filed the two cards returned so far with a map showing the place and dates of release and recovery, a copy of which is sent to the card's finders. Fell is now writing a letter to report his findings to the English scientific journal Nature.

"Organisms with a life span of five years, like that of the beetle grub, would be able to survive even a five year trip inside a log," Fell said. Marine organisms like barnacles could also be transported on the outside of the log, he said.

Prior to dropping the bottles off of New-foundland, some of Fell's students dropped some bottles 20 miles from the Navy Yard in Boston.