湖北省武漢市 童亞文 供稿

一封108歲的瓶中信

湖北省武漢市 童亞文 供稿

A 108-year-old message in a Bottle

On November 30,1906,George Bidder dropped a bottle from a boat into the North Sea.The weighted glass bottle sank almost to the sea floor,and then it moved slowly for 108 years and 138 days.

1906年11月30日，喬治·比德把一個(gè)瓶子從一艘船上丟進(jìn)了北海。這個(gè)有重量的玻璃瓶幾乎沉沒(méi)到海底，然后緩慢漂移了108年138天。

Its journey ended when Marianne Winkler found the bottle in 2015.Winkler was then on vacation on Amrum Island.She picked up the bottle when it was washed up onto the beach.She saw a piece of paper inside,but didn’t break it open.She could tell that the bottle was old,so she didn’t want to damage it.

2015年當(dāng)瑪麗安·溫克勒發(fā)現(xiàn)瓶子的時(shí)候，它的旅程結(jié)束了。當(dāng)時(shí)溫克勒正在阿姆魯姆島上度假。當(dāng)它被沖上海灘時(shí)，她把瓶子撿了起來(lái)。她看到有一張紙?jiān)诶锩?，但她沒(méi)有把瓶子砸開(kāi)。她能看出瓶子是很舊的，所以她不想毀了它。

Finally,she got the piece of paper out of the bottle.She found that the paper was actually a postcard.On the back of the card there was this message:The Marine Biological Association would pay ashilling1for the bottle.A shilling was a unit of money that was used in Great Britain before the early 1970s.

最后她把那張紙從瓶子里拿出來(lái)了。她發(fā)現(xiàn)那張紙實(shí)際上是一張明信片?？ǖ谋趁嬗羞@樣的信息：海洋生物學(xué)協(xié)會(huì)將為瓶子支付一先令。一先令是一個(gè)貨幣單位，在上世紀(jì)七十年代初在英國(guó)使用。

Winkler filled out the card and posted it.The association was surprised to get a postcard addressed to George Bidder,the president of theassociation2from 1939 to 1945.The workers of the association searched on the Internet to find a shilling.They found one and sent it to Winkler as areward3.

溫克勒填好了這張卡片寄了出去。該協(xié)會(huì)意外地收到一張寄給喬治·比德的明信片，寄明信片的人是該協(xié)會(huì)1939年至1945年的主席。該協(xié)會(huì)的工作人員在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上搜索尋找一個(gè)先令，找到一個(gè)之后把它送給溫克勒作為獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)。

The message in the bottle was the oldest ever rediscovered.For this reason Marianne Winkler got a place in“Guinness World Records”.She broke the record for the oldest message in a bottle.

瓶子里的信息是迄今重新發(fā)現(xiàn)的最古老的信息。為此，瑪麗安·溫克勒獲得了吉尼斯世界紀(jì)錄。她打破了瓶子里最古老的信息的記錄。

Winkler’s bottle was not the only one Bidder sent to the sea.Between 1904 and 1906,he sent away more than one thousand bottles.He placed postcards inside them.The bottles were part of a research project to map currents4in the North Sea.This was the best method at that time.But whether the association could get the bottles back depended on the people who found them.The association reported that about 55 percent of the bottles were returned.They added that the experiment was a success as it showed the east-to-west flow of the North Sea’s currents.

溫克勒的瓶子不是唯一一個(gè)被比德扔到海里的瓶子。在1904年至1906年之間，他扔了一千多個(gè)瓶子到海里。他把明信片放在里面。這些瓶子是研究標(biāo)示北海洋流的項(xiàng)目之一。這是當(dāng)時(shí)最好的方法。但是，協(xié)會(huì)是否能把瓶子拿回來(lái)取決于找到它們的人。該協(xié)會(huì)報(bào)告說(shuō)，大約有55%的瓶子被歸還。他們補(bǔ)充說(shuō)，這項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)是成功的，因?yàn)樗@示出了北海東西方向的洋流。

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