Search For Bullion In Wreck Of General Grant

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27533, 15 December 1954, Page 15

Search For Bullion In Wreck Of General Grant

“The Press’* Special ■ Service

W HI jTsTNGTON, December 14. New Zealand’s most romantic wreck, the sailing ship General Grant, which was wrecked on the Auckland Islands in 1866, is to be attacked once again for the gold said to- be on board. It was reported from London during the week-end that a salvage party of six Australians and Englishmen had finally left for New Zealand in a 60loot motor-vessel, the Absit Omen. Already this expedition, which plans ♦2 use television equipment to locate the wreck, has had almost as chequered a career as the whole history of salvage attempts on the General Grant.

Expeditions to the wreck have been Planned in plenty, but' few have got as far as the Auckland Islands, which he 290 miles south of Bluff. This one narrowly avoided disaster in the North Sea four months ago. The party, led by Mr W. J. Habens, completed arrangements with the Manne Department and the Lands and Survey Department some time ago, but its • plans have been held up by a series of misfortunes to the salvage craft

In the meantime one local expedition has been planned and abandoned and another, the idea of a group of young Dunedin men, has been planned for next winter.

Mr Habens’s expedition has negotiated a lease with the Lands and Survey Department for two chains of the foreshore of Auckland Island directly above the cavern where the wreck is generally supposed to lie. Although details of the expedition’s plan of attack on rhe wreck are not known here, it is understood that the party intends to work from the shore, lowering an underwater television camera into the cavern. /

Payment of Royalty It is not known how the party intends to recover the bullion should the television camera locate any. However, confident that they will locate the treasure and recover it, Mr Habens’s team has agreed to pay to the Crown the usual 10 per cent, royalty

The Marine Department, while being helpful to bullion seekers, is not fully convinced that there is great hope of success, but should the gold be found the Treasury coffers will be wide open. “We don’t know whether there is any , gold there,” said a Marine Department spokesman. “If it should be there we don’t know whether it is recoverable and, what is more, we are not even sure that the wreck has been located in the cavern before.” Mr Habens has advised the department that his expedition hopes to begin the salvage early next year. He would have brought his team to New Zealand earlier but that his ship was almost wrecked in the North Sea in August while on the way from the Clyde to London to pick up stores. Bad weather again delayed the start from the Channel Islands last week. Just what bullion lies in the wreck is anybody’s guess, and over the yeai’S the guesses have been wishful to varying degrees. The manifest showed there was 2576 ounces of gold oh board, or about £30,000 worth, but hopeful treasure-seekers have given greater weight to legend than officialdom lias and have estimated the value of the bullion at anything up to £2,000,000. The legend has grown from the presence on board the General Grant of some 40 goldminers, each of whom was supposed to have been carrying a fortune on his person. Another story ‘is that three tons of spelter—zinc or zinc alloy—shown on the ship’s manifest was in reality gold, but described as spelter to evade Australian gold-export tax.