MILLIONS WAITING FOR FINDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 146, 17 July 1909, Page 3

MILLIONS WAITING FOR FINDERS.

ROMANCES OF SHIPWRECKED TREASURE. If over the story o.f the treasures to be found in the bed of the ocean should .engage the pen of a novelist, his book will be one of the most thrilling volume* ol recent times, lie will Unit pleiitv of material for his work, for it estimated that at least £100,000,000 of treasure in the shape of coin, ingots, and piui'c lies buried under the wild waves and tiny islands little heard of. Among some ol the most notable fortunes waiting to be picked up is the £3,000.01)0 wJiieh sank in the ilagship Fiorentia, of the .Spanish Armada, in Tobermory Ray, oil the west coast of Scotland, in IoSB. Refuse the Spanish galleons*, returning with their harvest of four years' Jooting in .Mexico, were so hard pressed by the British in 1702, they scuttled their ships in Vigo Cay, and their £2S,- ! 000,000 of gold, silver, and precious -tones has not yet been recovered from the deep. Coctus Island is an insignificant dot of hind, sixteen miles square, but it contains £12,000,000 worth of loot which was hidden by Benito Ronito, a daring pirate. No fewer than eighteen expedi-. .turns have searched every nook, and uanny of the island, but without success.

The Alboran Island is only u lonely I rock in the Mediterranean, but about it I «omewhere there lies £1,000,000 in gold, juried by a pirate crew of the young Constitution when chased and cornered oy a British guirboat in 1831. The Black l'riiiee, j\ British ship load- ! t l d 'with £OOO,OOO in gold to pay the British soldiers, was sunk by Russian gun-lire at Sevastopol. The East Indiaman Grosvcnor wont down off St. John's, Cape Colony, with £1,000,000 on board. On the island of Mauritius is 'buried die nice little nest-egg of £30,000,000 .n gold, silver, and precious stones, which was captured by pirates from •French and British .ships, which in turn had been looted from India. A tiny island in the {Spanish main conceals £1,500,000, deposited by a Trench pirate, Latrabe, about a hundred years ago; while unothcr pirate hoard of £1,000.000 lies on a small island in the i.lulf of St. Lawrence. In the famous sea-fight off Navarino In 1827, in which seventy Turkish vessels were sunk by the combined Anglo-French-Russian fleets, something like a million pounds were lost. I When President lvruger fled from tho Transvaal it was stated that he took a. million pounds with him. Some declare t was' lost in the wreck of the Zululand ~n Dolagoa Buy; others say thai it is 1 puried in the fastnesses of the Trans-, ivaal mouutains. hying 110 ft beneath the surface of Lake Nenii are two galleys belonging to ;t;he Roman Emperors Tiberius and Caligula, which contain gold plate, jewels. ;-ind art treasures worth at least one million pounds. Captain Kidd, notorious) of all pirates, buried £1,000,000 of ill-gotten gains on .one of the West Indian islands. While if Mr. Lloyd-George felt so disposed he fould use the £10,000,000 buried in the ; river Danube to balan.ee his Budget deficiency. This huge treasure was unwillingly left there by Attila, who was 'then one of the greatest terrors of the mercantile service.—Tit Bits,