Digging for Treasure

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 22, 27 January 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

Digging for Treasure

A new company of treasure hunters is at work on Oak Island, a tiny island in the Atlantic, close to tho Nova Scotia coast. Men have been digging there at intervals for two centuries, lured by legends that boxes of gold and sacks of jewels were buried there by pirates, by exploring Norsemen, by French engineers who arc supposed to have run away with a pay ship when Louisburg, not. far to the north, was a French fortress.

F. R. Krupp, an American who has dug for gold in the Gold Coast and drilled for oil in Persia, in the course of an adventurous career, is in charge of operations. lie places great dependence on a pump capable of raising 1,000 gallons of water per mitute, which is l'ed by an electric cable from the mainland.

More than £50,000 has been spent at one time or another, it is said, in the effort to determine what fact, if any, is behind the Oak Island legend. Shafts have been sunk and tunnels excavated with great labour, but with no more reward than a few worthless trinkets, some ancient tools, oaken platforms, a piece of parchment, and vestiges of an engineering maze. Mr Krupp is confident that the treasure exists, but those who buried it put it deep in the earth and protected it with timber and stone works. lie thinks that in the course of many years the treasuro has sunk, perhaps has shifted nearer the ocean, but that it can be found with his modern machinery. But he does not expect to reach it before next spring.