A TREASURE HUNT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 221, 11 September 1908, Page 4

A TREASURE HUNT.

SEARCH FOR 20,000,000 DOLLARS. WRECK OF TIIE GENERAL GRANT. A recent issue of the New York American contains the interesting announcement that Captain Neils Puter Sorenson has organised an expedition to search for 20,000,000 dollars in bullion, which were lost when the ship General Grant was wrecked 42 years ago. Captain Sorenson claims to know where 20,000,000 dollars in gold bullion lies buried at the bottom of the ocean just where he can get at it, and shows documents to prove the existence of the wreck laden with gold, tallow, and wool, just where it has lain for 42 years. The captain has organised an expedition to go after tire buried gold, and lias given himself just 18 months to return a rich in.ni. lie has devised a clever scheme to circumvent old ocean, to defy swirling tides and smashing wave.-, and lie has made capitalists believe in the feasibility of his scheme.

the captain is sijuare-sel. hardy, and florid, a Dane by birth. He arrived in America from bis latest wanderings about 211 months ago. For 3D years lie has been planning another assault upon the treasure that lies 14 fathoms deep in the liowels of the hulk. Twice'lie has met defeat in the project. Briefly told, the captain's story of the hidden treasure, as related in the American ollice, runs like this:— "On .May 13th, 1800, the American clipper ship General Grant was wrecked on the west coast of the island < f Auckland, an inhospitable bluff 20 miles long, KiO miles from the southernmost land of New Zealand. The General Grant was one of the four clippers owned in Boston which were chartered by a London firm of shipping merchants <o put on a packet line between' Melbourne mid Loudon. "The first vessel to sail with treasure was the General (Irani. Her sister ship, the General Scott, followed her. The General Grant had aboard .c;i,O0O,O0O in gold bullion, shipped by the banns, and another million pounds in value of gold bars, in boxes, which 150 returning miners were taking back home with them. It took fifteen days to load the gold aboard the vessel at Melbourne, and the treasure was locked in a strong compartment under the captain's cabin. " The General Grant sailed from Melbourne on May 3rd, 1800, and was next reported missing by the Victoria papers. In 1808 newspaper accounts of the .wreck were published in America, including this statement: "'Oil 21st November last the ten survivors, after eighteen months' hardship and privation on the island were picked up by the whaling brig Amherst, Captain Gilroy, and taken to Bluff Harbour} New Zealand. The cave into which the General Grant was thrown is 25 fathoms deep and 250 yards long, and the masts just reached to the top. The Captain and 108 others perished. "Several of the passengers did escape" continued Captain Sorenson. One . f them, Fritz William Albert, a German, worked for me ill my oyster dredge in New Zealand in 1878 and 1870. lie also told me the story of the wreck. For 42 years all that gold has lain there. 1 have not seen the wreck for 30 years about. But she still lies there, as sound as the day she went down. "Now we are going to get that gold. The New Zealand Government makes no claim to it. X have arranged for a eon-ecssion-permitting me to land a erew on the island. I shall doubtless find the hulk sound and strong. I shall have to blow out the side. To do this I will propare a canvas lioae, six inches in diameter. with loops along the side, and will fill this with dynamite."

WILL START IN A PEW DAYS. "When I go down after the flash 1 will find a hole knocked in the side of the hulk just under the captain's cabin,, and 20,fl0(),000dol in gold bullion will l>c awaiting me. The treasure can't sink into the mud, for it is hard sand and rock bottom. 1 have but to 'fasten the boxes to cables and have them hauled up. "I shall start in a few days. The expedition will start from San Francisco, in one of the sSpreekcla vessels for New Zealand. Wo shall outfit the expedition in Dunedin, in the south of New Zealand, and sail for the Auckland* in a chartered steamer.'' Uaptain Sorenson has served iu the United navy. It was he who dived to the wreck of the ill-fated Pacific mail steamer Kin Ja-aiero, which sank in the ("-olden (iale, costing life lives of many passengers, including United State* Consul Wildman. his wife and daughter.