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Oldest-known message in a bottle found on WA beach 132 years after being tossed overboard
www.abc.net.au ^ | 03-06-2018 | By Charlotte Hamlyn

Posted on 03/06/2018 10:33:52 AM PST by Red Badger

Photo: The 19th-century gin bottle was found north of Perth with a damp, rolled up piece of paper inside. (Supplied: Kym Illman) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A Perth family has made an extraordinary historical discovery after becoming bogged on a West Australian beach.

Tonya Illman was walking across sand dunes just north of Wedge Island, 180 kilometres north of Perth, when she noticed something sticking out of the sand.

"It just looked like a lovely old bottle, so I picked it up thinking it might look good in my bookcase," she said.

But Mrs Illman realised she had likely uncovered something far more special when out fell a damp, rolled up piece of paper tied with string.

Photo: The world's oldest-known message in a bottle — a form filled out as part of a German experiment to understand ocean currents. (Supplied: Kym Illman) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"My son's girlfriend was the one who discovered the note when she went to tip the sand out," she said.

"We took it home and dried it out, and when we opened it we saw it was a printed form, in German, with very faint German handwriting on it."

The message was dated June 12, 1886, and said it had been thrown overboard from the German sailing barque Paula, 950km from the WA coast.

After conducting some of their own research online, the Illman family were convinced they had either made an historically significant discovery or fallen victims to an elaborate hoax.

Photo: The form reveals the date the bottle was jettisoned along with the ship's name, home port, co-ordinates and travel route. (Supplied: Kym Illman)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

German experiment in Dutch gin bottle

Between 1864 until 1933, thousands of bottles were thrown overboard from German ships, each containing a form on which the captain would write the date, the ship's coordinates and details about its route.

It was part of an experiment by the German Naval Observatory to better understand global ocean currents.

Photo: An artist's drawing of the German sailing barque Paula in 1880. (Supplied: Edouard Adam/WA Museum) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On the back, the messages asked the finder to write when and where the bottle had been found and return it, either to the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg or the nearest German Consulate.

The Illmans took their find to the Western Australian Museum, where assistant curator of maritime archaeology Ross Anderson conducted a series of investigations.

He determined it was a mid-to-late 19th-century Dutch gin bottle, and the form inside was written on cheaply-made 19th-century paper.

But more needed to be done to shore up the bottle's authenticity, and he contacted colleagues in the Netherlands and Germany for help. Captain's journal confirms 'extraordinary find'

The colleagues compared handwriting samples from the form and the captain's entries in Paula's meteorological journal.

"Extraordinary finds need extraordinary evidence to support them," Dr Anderson said.

"Incredibly, there was an entry for June 12, 1886, made by the captain, recording a drift bottle having been thrown overboard.

"The date and the coordinates correspond exactly with those on the bottle message.

"The handwriting is identical in terms of cursive style, slant, font, spacing, stroke emphasis, capitalisation and numbering style."

Discovered 132 years after it was tossed overboard, it is the oldest-known message in a bottle in the world.

The second oldest was just over 108 years old.

Kym and Tonya Illman have loaned their find to the WA Museum to display for the next two years.


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Education; History; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: australia; bottle; ggg; historic; ship
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To: Red Badger

“Send more gin”.


21 posted on 03/06/2018 11:00:35 AM PST by bigbob (Trust Trump. Trust Sessions. The Great Awakening is at hand...MAGA!)
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To: Damifino

If the message was damp, it wasn’t in the sea until very recently.

I’m thinking 50/50 hoax.


22 posted on 03/06/2018 11:02:33 AM PST by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: CGASMIA68

A good explanation is that the bottle ended on the beach at some time in the past and was buried in the sand .


23 posted on 03/06/2018 11:05:39 AM PST by rdcbn
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To: Red Badger

I hope they return it to the Germans so they can tie up loose ends on their study.


24 posted on 03/06/2018 11:13:16 AM PST by Blue Collar Christian (We Arizonans need to get rid of McCain/Flake as all of us pray for Trump.)
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To: Red Badger

The people on the ship should be hung for trashing the environment with glass and creating climate change.


25 posted on 03/06/2018 11:13:49 AM PST by Democrats hate too much
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To: Damifino

Agree. And the people who found it no doubt brought it into the museum in their bare hands......


26 posted on 03/06/2018 11:33:59 AM PST by originalbuckeye ('In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act'- George Orwell.)
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To: caver

>HOAX!

Course, it was written on the back of Zero’s birth certificate /s


27 posted on 03/06/2018 11:43:22 AM PST by i_robot73 (One could not count the number of *solutions*, if only govt followed\enforced the Constitution.)
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To: Red Badger

This is so cool. Man would I love to be part of that little connection to the past.


28 posted on 03/06/2018 12:48:39 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: Red Badger

LOL Good to see a meme of him! LOL Husband and I always joke about it (although it is, proudly, usually true!).

Think I’ll snatch that for my own usage!

And yes, I was thinking of it reading about this. “Cheaply made paper” - but apparently not so bad lasting 130 years with water to boot.


29 posted on 03/06/2018 12:50:57 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: rdcbn

Most likely.


30 posted on 03/06/2018 12:52:44 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: Red Badger

if you look at it closely... you will see the hawaiian doctor’s signature... Uk E Lele


31 posted on 03/06/2018 1:00:55 PM PST by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world.)
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To: Disambiguator

In before “Drink your Ovaltine”.


32 posted on 03/06/2018 1:33:33 PM PST by Carpe Cerevisi
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To: lodi90

There is still hope, CNN. Maybe 777’s can float. Send ALL available staff to the Perth beaches and have them stand by.


33 posted on 03/06/2018 1:39:05 PM PST by Oscar in Batangas (12:01 PM 1/20/2017...The end of an error.)
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To: Red Badger

WOW.

I love this!


34 posted on 03/06/2018 2:11:54 PM PST by onyx (JOIN 300 CLUB BY DONATING $34 MONTHLY! TRUMP'S WAY IS THE WIINNING WAY)
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