DIVING FOR GOLD.

Hastings Standard, Issue 103, 25 August 1896, Page 3

DIVING FOR GOLD.

CABLES.

THE CATTERTHUN'S TREASURE

HOW THE WORK PROGRESSED

Sydney. August 22

After months of anxious work and disheartening disappointments, the bulk of the Catterthun gold is ready for circulation once more. The underwriters intend to sell five thousand sovereigns at a premium of half-r.-erown the proceeds to go to the Shipwreck Relief Society. As the divers receive 15 per cent, of the gold they recover, their share of the treasure already brought up amounts to about £SOO a-piece. The estimated cost of recovering the gold is a little over 40 per cent of its value.

The reason that the remainder of the gold had to be abandoned is that when the boxes were originally placed in the tank, liberal use was made of paper wadding to prevent them from rolling about with the motion of the steamer.

The paper now forms a layer of pulp a couple of feet deep in the bottom of the tank, and when it is disturbed the water becomes so cloudy that it is impossible to distinguish anything, even with the aid of the electric light.

Speaking of their experiences while below, the divers say the most uncomfortable sensation was one of intense loneliness, rendered greater by the %veinlness of the light in which the work was carried on. They never had the electric light on except when the lamp in the tank was found too powerful an attraction for the fish which at times gathered round them in immense numbers. Their finny friends on the C'atterthun were principally king-fish, leather jackets and young sharks, which approached without the least fear. The men also report that a large shark took up its quarters 011 the decknear the chart-room, and when entering the room they had frequently to brush almost past its tail. The monster, however, did not take the slightest notice.