SUNKEN TREASURE

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 25, 24 October 1921, Page 5

SUNKEN TREASURE

It is reported from Johannesburg that another attempt is to be made to recover the vast treasure that was carried in the East India Company’s ship Grosvenor, which foundered off the coast of Pondoland in 1782. It is estimated that the treasure on board the Grosvenor is now worth three timbs the amount if was when she sank. The valuables on the ship included aj parcel of emeralds, of which no finds are being made today, as well as other precious stones, and gold and silver ingots. The total value of specie on board in 1782 was .£1,714,710. The Grosvenor lies in eighteen to twentylive feet of water. The opinion of the expert who had charge of the operations which were carried' out fin 1907 for the recovery of tho treasure, was that tho vessel was intact from keel to hull. During this hunt for the sunken treasure, about ft thousand gold, silver, and copner coins were recovered, some from the sand of the creek in which tho ship is buried. Unfortunately the sea in the vicinity of tho sunken ship remains cnlrn only for limited periods, and this fact mode the work of searching difficult and costly. In the result, the operations had to bo abandoned as hopeless. A second syndicate was formed, and, another search made, this time with a Government dredger, but, like the other attempt, it was unsuccessful. It is stated that, descendants of some of the female passengers on the Grosvenor aro still to be found in Pondoland, and that ono of the male passengers who survived the disaster, wrote a book, giving an account of the ship, and the fate that overtook her. As to the new attempt that is being made to recover the ship’s treasure, one shareholder in the syndicate that financed the 1997 operations says lie has full faith that the ship and her treasure are there, and he adds that according to the report of tho diver Nelson who went down on the earlier expedition, the Grosvenor is intact. It is proposed in this new effort to wrest these sunken millions from the ocean to have a funnel 90 feet, from the shore to the ship, and. in tho opinion of the shareholder referred to, there is every reason to believe that the operations will bo successful. In other quarters it is regarded as a gamble—but Johannesburg loves a gamble.