SPANISH TREASURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 6 (Supplement)

SPANISH TREASURE.

THE SUNKEN GALLEON. WHAT THE SEA YIELDED A WEST INDIAN HUNT.

I have been fishing for gold at the. bottom of the sea. Through the crystalline water of the tropics, I have looked down upon the remains of a stately Spanish galleon that, laden with treasures of Incas and Aztecs, was driven by a hurricane upon the fangs of coral reefs three centuries and more ago. I have seen her long-shanked, massive anchors, her ponderous, ancient cannon, her twisted

rigging and iron work resting upon the coral incrnsted floor of the ocean, where dazzling blue parrot fish, gaudy angel jisli, cruel-jawed barracudas and giant grey sharks swam lazily amid the twisted wreckage and Hashed like living jewels in the shafts of sunlight. And from the bed of (lie West Indian seas I have seen the fittings and the contents of the 'MO- - treasure ship come dripping over the rail of my boat as my divers wrenched them from their resting places and we hauled them upward from the ocean's depths, so wrotes A. Hyatt Yerrill rcccntlv in the New York "Herald-Tribune."

Probably no human eyes had looked upon this sunken galleon since the day she went to the bottom of the sea. No man had ever before gazed downward ■upon that centuries old hulk amid the reefs. No human being had seen her since that far distant day when, in the fury of a West Indian hurricane, the plate ships of Spain were hurled to destruction upon the coral and. never a man of the hundreds on board lived to tell the tale of the greatest catastrophe that ever befell the merchant marine of Spain. FirW Treasure Trove. In due course the vessel I had equipped for the venture dropped anchor in West Indian waters at the spot I had selected as the most promising. Our little ship appeared very small in that vast waste of waters as in the tiny launches we headed for the reefs in the distance. But it was a clear day; the sapphire sea lay with scarcely a ripple under a cloudless sky, and only the upflung breakers of the ground swell on the "boilers" broke the line of the horizon.

Never will I forget the sensation we all felt as we approached the first of these coral heads.

So transparent was the water that the bottom at eight or ten fathoms appeared within reach of one's outstretched hand, with every detail standing out clearly and sharply- Yet the objects upon the floor of that reef-filled ocean were amazingly deceptive. There were great finders of coral which looked like the massive timbers of sunken ships. There ■were strange sea growths that were the exact counterparts of chests and kegs, and again and again- we thought we had located a wreck, only to find, when the divers went down in their "hats," as they call their helmets, that our "wrecks" were but natural growths.

That first day was the only calm day •we had. For two months thereafter our little hundred'-foot ship rolled and pitched continuously. But Dame Fortune smiled upon us, and presently, as we searched the bottom of the se'a. between the reefs, one of the party discovered an anchor. Almost another epi£d two more anchors, and the next moment a great cannon was found. Excitement ran high. Here was indisputable evidence that we were above a wrecked ship, and the type of the anthers and gun left no doubt as "to the vessel's age. With straining eyes we searched the sea floor for further wreckage, but nothing ot the sunken vessel's structure was visible.

Quickly the air pump, was manned, and, wearing only their "hats," the divers dropped down* ' Intently we watched. And then came a great surprise. From our boat the two smaller anchors had appeared no larger than ordinary kedge anchors, but when, a diver grasped one and raised it upright the shank extended for more than two feet above his head! It took all our tackle and herculean labour to salvage the smallest of the three-p' the largest was more than twelve feet in length. Hand Forged Anchors. Though they had rested under the sea for more than three • centuries, these massive"; hand-forged anchors that once had served to moor a .galleon of Spain, were in a remarkable state of'preservation. Beneafch the two-inch, incrustation of lime the iron was still sound, and a little chipping and cleaning would have rendered them fit for service again. Next, efforts were: made to raise the cannon^in.hopes that it might bear the, name of the ship on whose bows it had once heen mounted. But the great gun with its ornate breech and strangely proved too much for our tackle, and when within a few feet of the surface it broke away and plunged back to its resting place.. So we left the ancient gun to the fishes and devoted all our efforts to tracing the outlines of the wreck and locating its strong room. This was a most difficult task. Xowhere was a' timber of the ship visible. All of its structure that remained was completely incased in coral sand cemented together by the carbonate of lime to form a concretelike armour two feet or more in thickness.

Such objects as had been upon the galleon's decks also were incrusted and appeared like mere irregularities on the ocean's bed or like lumps of coral. Only Tby striking every object with a heavy crowbar was it possible to determine ■which were natural growths and which were portions of the ship. Inch by inch the divers sought about and presently up came a bundle of bent and twisted iron work—hatch hands and chain plates, toggles and rings, and finally the massive iron sling which had held the "Jimmy Green" yard beneath the galleon's immense bowsprit. Cannon Powder After Three Centuries.

Obviously we had reached the bow of the wreck, and now the divers worked in the opposite direction. From amid a mass of broken coral they salvaged a swivel-gun crutch of steel almost as perfect as on the clay it was forged iii some smithy in old Spain. In another spot they came upon some irregular black lumps which we at first mistook 'for iron, but which proved to be cannon powder still capable of burning with stlong sulphurous fumes when dried.

However, the forepeak of a galleon is no place to search for treasure, and little by little our divers . worked aft—or in the direction I ac, timed was aft. For a space (hey found nothing. Then, 30ft back of the anchors and gun, they came to more wreckage—chain plates and standing rigging, iron plates, iron mast bands and other objects which convinced me that we were working where once had been the galley and the carpenter's shfick abaft the galleon's mainmast. Here was a veritable mine of antiquities. At each descent the divers salvaged new and surprising objects. They

found several massive lumps which looked like meteorites, but which, when broken apart, proved to be the remains of kegs of nails. Not a nail remained, but each had left a perfect mould in the mass of iron oxide which had formed about them. At another time we salvaged material which had every appearance of graphite. It could be whittled with a knife, it could be used like a pencil lead, and I puzzled over it for hours —until I discovered that it once was cast iron! Imagine whittling cast iron with a pocket knife!

Hidden under a limestone crust was an iron kettle. To one side the divers found a crudely-made, hand-forged, five pronged grapnel which no doubt had once been in the ship's longboat. Every moment was filled with intense interest and excitement; no one could know what the divers might unearth next. No one could say when the remains of a perforated canvas bag might bo drawn on board, and we would find it filled with gold or silver bars or masses of pieces of eight. Not Shining Discs.

And here let me pause in my narrative to remark that pieces of eight and doubloons and golden onzas buried under the sea for 300 years are not the bright and shining discs described in fanciful tales of treasure trove and pictured by imaginative artists. Instead, they are shapeless lumps that no one would recognise as coins, that might easily be mistaken for masses of dead coral. Through the centuries the coins have become firmly cemented together by oxides and lime which, covering the metal, has retained more or less perfectly the form of bags or kegs or chests in which they were once contained.

Working about the spot where the ship's galley had once stood, the divers salvaged many a strange and totally unexpected object. There were pewter plates on which the coarse fare of the galleon's company had been served. Three grindstones were found —worn and out of true from the sharpening of many a knife and sword and pike and halberd. There were articles and utensils of iron and copper whose original purposes remain a mystery. There were broken porcelain plates and wine jars with blue designs still clear upon the cracked glaze. There were countless fragments of the galleon's rails, covered with lime crust, with some of the tough hard wood still intact. We found a pike-head as bright as silver, still bearing the gold damascening upon its surface. We even found the ship's sounding lead— a rudely hammered lump of metal weighing about ten pounds, its smaller end perforated by two holes instead of by one, as modern soundings are. Cooking Pot Rich in Gold.

From the vanished galley we also salvaged, scouring brick, and when one of the divers' prying oars struck metal, and there was the dull gleam of yellow amid the broken crust, everyone was on the qui vivo But the find proved to be an amazing, immense copper kettle with huge bronze legs and a long copper spout. Obviously it was an extemporised cooking utensil, for it was built up of sheets of copper of varying thickness riveted together, and with the crudely cast bronze legs'riveted in place. But it was not the workmanship of the. thing which drew our interest; it was the fact that there was scarcely any verdigris upon the metal, that it showed a dull, purplish-black patina, and that it was enormously heavy. Had the legs been of solid gold they could scarcely have weighed more. But the puzzle was solved at last—the thing was made from copper—probably from Peru-—smelted from ores rich in gold. Probably the long dead cook who had sweated over the galleon's galley fires had never dreamed that ho was boiling the crew's soup in *a kettle containing more gold than lie could earn by years of toil! The battered old pot was a real find in another way also. The portion which had been, hidden beneath the crust of lime was filled with loose sand. Obviously the hard, concrete-like coating was merely a floor above sand which had filtered in an dcovered the wreck; buned in this Ave would find her timbers and her treasure intact. Salvaged Platinum. There were amusing incidents, too. Once a diver brought up some strips of bright metal and remarked that he guessed they were remains of old sardine tins. But 'if the Dons had used that metal for sardine containers —well, the empty cans would be worth more than their weight in gold to-day! For the strips our diver had found were platinum! Of all the metals we salvaged, only platinum had retained its pristine colour J and brightness.

But to the Spaniards platinum was not a precious metal. They regarded it as almost worthless, too soft for most things and of value only' for making the most ordinary and cheap utensils. Probably it had been used for repairing pots and pans and similar things.

Slowly the civers worked beyond the site of galley and carpenter's shack. Another great gun was discovered lodged •among the coral growths. Twisted portions of ironwork of the mizzen rigging were found, and.at last they came upon the massive .wrought iron hangers that had supported the ship's huge rudder. They, had reached the stern of the wreck. Beneath their feet, under the corals and the limestone crust, was the lazarette, the floor of the high etern castle and the galleon's strong room.

Feverishly the divers laboured. Our time was getting short. Each day the wind was increasing; each night it blew a gale. . Our ship rolled in the everincreasing seas and snapped viciously at her anchor chain. We were working against time, and the treasure hunt had become a submarine mining proposition. Our diving launch, moored between the hungry coral reefs with only a few feet to spare, might part a line and be smashed to matchwood at any moment.

A Fortunate Cargo. But dangers were forgotten for the time. Only a few feet of crust and sand separated us from the treasures in her hold. We felt that luck had been with us from the start, that it would stand by mi to the end. And when at last we hoisted our diving gear aboard and battened down the hatches above the limeincrustad mound of metal in the forehold, hoisted the anchor and sailed for home, we felt tha 4 ; our faith in Old Lady Luck had been borne out. «>

The clutchinj reefs had stretched out hungry talons "in vain; the sea had taken" no toll of men or craft; no wraiths of dead hidalgos or Spanish mariners had materialised above their ocean graves. We had succeeded where countless others had failed. We had discovered a centurics-okl galleon, a treasure ship lost 300 years ago.

But we had no intention of abandoning the ancient wreck for ever. Some day not far distant we will again gaze downward through the glass-clear water upon all that remains of that stately old galleon. Some day our divers will again invade the haunts of strange fish and hungry, sharks. Once again they will dig and delve on the ocean's floor. The concussion of dynamite will send coral trees tumbling to destruction, and from the rent and broken limestone crust and shattered timbers we will salvage the remainder of the galleon's euuken treasure.