LURE OF HIDDEN GOLD

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12609, 20 November 1926, Page 11

LURE OF HIDDEN GOLD

Sunken Ships Worth Hundreds of Millions

Three-quarters of a million sterling in gold ingots and coin, and a quarter of a million in silver bars, He under the restless waves of the Bay of Biscay in the hulk of the V. and 0. liner Egypt, and divers are searching for the wreck to recover the treasure.

The Egypt sank a little over four years ago, 22 miles off the Brittany coast, with bullion valued at £1,089,OQO after a collision which cost 200 lives. A year later, a Swedish sea captain located the wreck, which lies at a depth of GO fathoms and at a point where the currents aro perplexmgly swift. UNDER WATER BEAM Now, under the auspices of a French company, the powerful tug Iroise has been chartered and fitted with the latest diving apparatus. Five German divers have been engaged to descend and cut through the metal bulkheads in the ship whtb protect the treasure. They will use* metal blowpipes for their work, and the strange experiment of a beam of intense heat directed under water to the work of cutting through metal plates is to b© undertaken. If the wreck is found and the treasure room can be reached, giant steel jaws like bands will reach out to grip the gold bars and lift them to the tug. But the treasure room is in the stoutest part of the ship, behind massive bulkheads, and the mighty steel doors which guard the ingots are locked fast. When the divers have found the vessel it may be said that their work has only ju*t begun. It is estimated that £IOO.OOO or onetenth of the total value of the sunken treasure, will have been spent the enterprise is concluded. LAURENTIC’S TREASURE A similar enterprise. which was crowned with complete success, was the salving of Bold bars valued at just on five million sterling from the wreck of the Lnurentic. which was sunk by a mine off tV.<? Donegal coast in January of 1917. Salvage began in hut. at first the results were poor, and it was not until 1920 that nrv substantial amounts were recovered.

H..M. salvage ship Racer was requisitioned for the task, which included ♦he exploding of depth charges to break

The vast fortunes that lie hidden in the sea have ever been a lure that has fascinated mankind. Hidden from mortal eye repose ingots of gold and glittering gems worth many a king’s ransom. In many cases these great treasures defy the skill of the searchers, who plod on patiently in the hope of immense wealth being suddenly revealed to them.

up the body of the wreck, in order to render the gold bars accessible. Day by day buckets of gold bars were hoisted to the surface, each one being valued at between £ISOO and £2OOO, until practically tbe whole of the great treasure had been brought lo daylight again. PAVED WITH GOLD In the course of the operations, the deck of the Racer was literally paved with bars of gold for the men to tread on. Toward the end of the operations, nothing was left of the Laurentic but a mass of twisted metal plates, but in spite of all difficulties, out of 3211 bars of gold sunk, with the ship all but 39 was recovered. But for these two vessels lying on. the bed of the ocean and subject to attempts for the recovery of their treasures, there are hundreds more whoiso vast stores of gold and gems would pay the national debt a score of times. BURIED MILLIONS Conspicuous among them are the' Lizard, which lies deep down off the rock-bound Cornish coast with treasure valued at ten millions sterling; the Wilhelm dcr Zwcitcr, carrying

King’s Ransoms at the Bottom of the Sea

3700 bars of silver, also lying off the English coast; the Thunderbolt, with £20.000,000 in gold aboard, and the Florencian, which lies in Tobermory Bay with, it is reputed, £2,000,000 worth of treasure among her rotted ribs. In the period of the Great War alone, Great Britain lost 2500 ships, each of which took down to the ocean' depths softie part of the world’s store of gold and £ems. Their total value has never been estimated, but it must amount to hundreds of millions of recoverable treasure—or rather, treasure that would be recoverable if it had not sunk to depths at which no diver can hope to live. ARMADA PAY ROLL The Florentian, sunk in Tobermory Bay with the pay of the Army of the Duke of Parma aboard, was manned by men who heard the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In the seventeenth century one Archibald Miller descended in a diving bell and brought up a brhss-bound chest which yielded up a golden crown, and other beautiful examples of the goldsmith’s art. At the same time Miller brought up a bronze cannon of wonderful workmanship* said to have been cast in the workshops of the great Cellini, which is now in the possession of the Argyll family. But the greater part of the Florentian’s treasure still lies covered by the slime ami-mud of centuries: from time to time expeditions are formed to recover it, but so far without success. VIGO SECRET But the greatest treasure of all that /he sea. holds lies in Vigo Bay, where in 1702 the British Fleet sunk the treasure ships from Peru. Thirty vessels in all were sent to the bottom in that battle,, and with them went three years of the yield of what were then the world’s richest mines—millions of gold and silver. Of all that vast tVsasure, only £SO,000 in silver bnrs has ever been recovered, though countless attempts have been made to raise the sunken bulks.

There it lies, the value of a kingdom, and there, probably, it will lie while the world lasts.