郵遞員在漂流瓶中發現108年前信息
Postal worker finds 108-year-old message in a bottle
郵遞員在漂流瓶中發現108年前信息
On Nov. 30, 1906, George Parker Bidder dropped a bottle from a boat into the North Sea. The weighted glass bottle sank almost to the sea floor. Then it bobbed along for 108 years, 4 months and 18 days.
1906年11月30日，George Parker Bidder在北海一艘船上丟下這個漂流瓶。結果，這個有分量的漂流瓶沉入深海。足足在海中游蕩了108年4個月18天。
Its journey finally ended when Marianne Winkler, a retired postal worker on holiday on Amrum Island, found it in 2015. It was washed up on shore. Amrum Island is one of Germany's North Frisian Islands.
直到2015年某天，退休郵遞員Marianne Winkler在阿姆魯姆島度假，這個漂流瓶才結束了百年之旅。當時，它正好被衝上岸，而阿姆魯姆島是北弗裏西亞羣島的一部分。
Though Winkler didn't know it, the message in a bottle was the oldest ever recovered. It earned Winkler a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
雖然Winkler自己沒什麼概念，但漂流瓶中的信息確實是目前發現最早的信息。這也讓Winkler 的名字寫入了吉尼斯世界紀錄。
When Winkler first found the bottle, she could see a message inside telling her to break it open. But she hesitated to actually break it open. Winkler and her husband could tell that the bottle was old and they didn't want to damage it, Maev Kennedy reports for the Guardian. When they finally got the note out, they found it was actually a postcard addressed to G.P. Bidder at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, England. It promised a one-shilling reward.
Winkler撿起漂流瓶後，首先看到讓她“打破瓶子”的提示。但她因爲要打碎瓶子，而猶豫起來。Winkler和她丈夫可以判斷，這漂流瓶有些年月了，所以不想破壞它，Maev Kennedy在《衛報》上報導道。 待他們打開瓶子時，發現是張明信片，上面寫着：拾獲者將瓶子的發現地及發現方式等資料填寫後，寄回英國普利茅斯海洋生物協會，隨後能獲得“一先令獎金”。
The Winklers filled out the card and posted it in an envelope. Luckily, the Marine Biological Association still exists. According to a press release, the association was surprised and thrilled to get a postcard addressed to its former president, who died in 1954. He was 91-years-old.
這對德國夫婦決定按照信裏的指示寄回明信片。幸運的是，該協會仍然存在。海洋生物協會對收到收信人爲他們前負責人的明信片感到十分驚訝和激動。雖然這位先生在1954年已經去世，享年91歲。
According to Corey Fedde at the Christian Science Monitor, the staff searched around on eBay to find a shilling, a unit of currency that went out of circulation in Great Britain in the early 1970s, to send to Winkler.
Corey Fedde在《基督教科學箴言報》上報道稱，隨後該協會工作人員在eBay上找到“一先令”（英國70年代流通的貨幣單位），並如約把它寄給Winkler夫婦。
Winkler's bottle was not the only one Bidder sent to sea. Between 1904 and 1906, he released thousands of bottles. He placed postcards inside them. The bottles were part of a research project to map currents in the North Sea.
Winkler夫婦拾到的瓶子只是當年Bidder投入海中數千個漂流瓶之一。在1904-1906年間，他陸續投了幾千個漂流瓶。每個瓶子裏都有明信片。當年主要是爲了收集探索深海洋流方向的信息。
譯文屬原創，僅供學習和交流使用，未經許可，請勿轉載。
