In November 27, 2024, a British engineer discovered a bottle while carrying out maintenance work at an old lighthouse. Inside the bottle was a note with a long string of text, perfectly preserved. This message in a bottle is believed to be 132 years old. So, what was written on it?
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 36-year-old mechanical engineer Ross Russell from the Northern Lighthouse Board found the bottle hidden in a wall while working on the Corsewall Lighthouse in northern Scotland.
The Corsewall Lighthouse is located at the northern tip of a peninsula in southwest Scotland and has a history dating back 209 years.
When dismantling a cabinet, Russell discovered something deep in the wall that he couldn’t reach with his hand. He and his colleagues tied a rope to the end of a broom handle, extended it into the wall, and pulled out a glass bottle about 20 centimeters long, containing a note.
They waited for 77-year-old lighthouse keeper Barry Miller to arrive before they “unbottled” it.
The glass bottle had many small bubbles within the glass, a convex bottom preventing it from standing upright. Its cork stopper had expanded and stuck to the glass, with the metal wire rusted that secured the cork stopper. They drilled into the cork with a wire to pull it out and retrieve the note inside the bottle.
They discovered that the message in the bottle was written by engineers and lighthouse keepers 132 years ago, when they were conducting maintenance and installing new lighting equipment at the lighthouse.
The message read:
“Corsewall Light & Fog Signal Station, September 4, 1892. This lamp was installed by engineer James Wells, technician John Westwood, engineer James Brodie, and worker David Scott, between May and September 1892, and relit on the evening of Thursday, the 15th of that month.
The supervisors at the time were chief keeper John Wilson, 1st assistant John B Henderson, 2nd assistant John Lockhart.
The lenses and equipment were provided by James Dove & Co Engineers Greenside Edinburgh, and installed by engineers William Burness, John Harrower, and James Dods of that company.”
Miller expressed that his hands were shaking when they opened the bottle. He said, “It’s so exciting, like seeing our past colleagues as if they were right there. It’s like touching them, as if they were part of our team, not just the four of us there. We’re all there sharing what they wrote because it’s tangible, you can see their handwriting style.”
He added, “You know what they did. You know they hid it in a place that wouldn’t be found for a long time.”
For Russell, finding this message in a bottle was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that left him thoroughly amazed.
He mentioned that he and his team would return the bottle to its original hiding place along with their own message.
He said, “It’s a strange coincidence to find this note while using the equipment described on this note.”
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