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Postal worker finds 108-year-old message in a bottle
邮递员在漂流瓶中发现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在北海一艘船上丢下这个漂流瓶。结果，这个有分量的漂流瓶沉入深海。足足在海中游荡了108年4个月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，退休邮递员Marianne Winkler在阿姆鲁姆岛度假，这个漂流瓶才结束了百年之旅。当时，它正好被冲上岸，而阿姆鲁姆岛是北弗里西亚群岛的一部分。
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.
虽然Winkler自己没什么概念，但漂流瓶中的信息确实是目前发现最早的信息。这也让Winkler 的名字写入了吉尼斯世界纪录。
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捡起漂流瓶后，首先看到让她“打破瓶子”的提示。但她因为要打碎瓶子，而犹豫起来。Winkler和她丈夫可以判断，这漂流瓶有些年月了，所以不想破坏它，Maev Kennedy在《卫报》上报导道。 待他们打开瓶子时，发现是张明信片，上面写着：拾获者将瓶子的发现地及发现方式等资料填写后，寄回英国普利茅斯海洋生物协会，随后能获得“一先令奖金”。
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.
这对德国夫妇决定按照信里的指示寄回明信片。幸运的是，该协会仍然存在。海洋生物协会对收到收信人为他们前负责人的明信片感到十分惊讶和激动。虽然这位先生在1954年已经去世，享年91岁。
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《基督教科学箴言报》上报道称，随后该协会工作人员在eBay上找到“一先令”（英国70年代流通的货币单位），并如约把它寄给Winkler夫妇。
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夫妇拾到的瓶子只是当年Bidder投入海中数千个漂流瓶之一。在1904-1906年间，他陆续投了几千个漂流瓶。每个瓶子里都有明信片。当年主要是为了收集探索深海洋流方向的信息。
译文属可可英语原创，仅供学习和交流使用，未经许可，请勿转载。
