A TREASURE HUNT.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 62, 11 September 1908, Page 6

A TREASURE HUNT.

SEARCI* FOR 20,000,000 DOLLARS WRECK OF THE GENERAL GRANT. A recent issue of the New York -. American contains the interesting anouncement that Captain Neils '"' Peter Sofensen has organised an-ex-pedition to search for 20,000,000 dollars in bill] ion, which were lost when the ship General Grant was wrecked . 42 years ago. Captain Sorensen 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 the buried gold, and has given himself just 18 months to return a rich man. He has dovisotL.a clever scheme to circumvent old oaean, "to defy swirling tides and swasfrnng waves, and he has made, capitalists believe in the feasibility of his scheme.

The captain is square-set, hardy, and florid, a Dane by birth. He-ar- . rived in America from his latest wanderings about 20 months, ago. For 30 years he has been planning another assault upon the treasure that lies 14 fathoms deep in the bowels of the hulk. Twice he has met defeat in tlie- x 3ro i ec *- Briefly told, the captain's story of the hidden treasure, ' as related in the American office, runs like this : - — WRECKED IN 1866. "On 13th May, 1866, the American clipper ship General Grant was wrecked on the west coast of the island of Auckland,, an inhospitable bluff 20 miles long, 160 miles from the southernmost land of New Zealand. The General Grant was one of four clippers owned in Boston which were chartered by a London firm of shipping merchants to put on a packet, line between Melbourne and London. "The first vessel to sail with treasure was the General Grant. Her sister ship, the General Scott, followed her. The General Grant had aboard £3.000,000 in gold bullion, shipped by the banks, 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 into a strong compartmeut under the captain's cabin. "The General Grant sailed from Melbourne on 3rd May, 1866, and was next reported missing by the^ Victorian papers. In 1868 newspaper accounts of the wreck were published in America, including this statement : " 'On 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 166 others perished.'

"Several of the passengers did escape," continued -Captain Sorensen. "One of them, Fritz William Albert, a German, worked 'for me in my oyster dredger in New Zealand in 1878 or 1879. He also told me the story of the wreck. For 42 years all that gold has lain there. I have not seen the wreck for 30^ years

about. But she still lies there, as sound as tho day she went down.

"Now we are going to get that gold. The New Zealand Government makes no claim to it. I have arranged for a concession permitting me to land a crew 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 prepare a canvas hose,.- six inches in diameter, with loops along the side, and will, fill this with' dynamite." WILL START IN A FEW DAYS. "When I go clown after the ilash I will find a hole knocked in the side of the hulk just under the cap-' tain's cabi^, and 20,000,000 dol.-in gold bullion will 'be awaiting me. .The gold is all packed in cases, each case valued, at 5000dol. The treasure can't sink into the mud, for it is hard san«l arid rock bottom. I have but to. fasten the boxes to cables and have them hauled .up.

1 "I shall start in a few days. The expedition will start from San Francisco, in one of the Spreekles vessels for New Zealand. We shall outfit the expedition in Dunedin, in tho south of New Zealand, and sail for the Auckla-nds in a chartered schooner."

Captain Sorensen has served in the United States navy. It was he who dived to the wreck .of the ill-fated Pacific, mail steamer Rio Janeiro, which sank in the Golden Gate, costing the lives of many passengers, including United States Consul Windman, his wife and dangivtex-.