£8,000,000 GOLD HUNT

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 September 1932, Page 10

£8,000,000 GOLD HUNT

LOOT FROM SPANISH GALLEONS

LEWES (Delaware), August 7

Pirate gold and other treasure, said to have been looted from two Spanish galleons and reported to be worth £8,000,000 is the prize for which New York and Baltimore salvage experts are staking a small fortune.

Despite previous attempts which failed, the modern fortune-hunters, armed with all the latest deep-water diving equipment, hope ■ to locate the wreck of the English brig De Braske, which sank off the Delawares Capes in 1798. Documents brought .from England state that the De Braske went down in 74ft. of water about a mile out in the bay directly opposite Cape Henlopen.

The present searchers have already determined that the water at this point is only 80ft. deep. They are spurred by the belief that much of the sand was washed away during the past few decades, thus giving divers a better chance to work. They further believe that the treasure ship was built almost entirely of teak, which is considered practically indestructible. The De Braske was commanded by Captain John Drew, whose body is buried in St. Jeter’s churchyard here. —Reuter. ONE DIVER FINDS £90,000. The London “Daily Telegraph’s” Marine Insurance Correspondent writes: — To marine underwriters, the prospect of recovering treasure from wrecks has a special fascination, for when they have paid a loss, rights to any recovery become theirs by subrogation. There must be hundreds of wrecks within the reach of modern apparatus, although unfortunately no exact records have been kept because underwriters have considered salvage impossible, and accepted their losses as irretrievable.

As, however, an official of the Salvage Association pointed out on being interviewed, prospective salvors can be relied upon to seek out possible. cases. On instance is that of the Noviembre, to which reference was made in “The Daily Telegraph” of last Friday. She lies sunk ten miles off the mouth of the Gironde, with copper worth about £140,000 on board, and the search which the Italian salvage steamer Rostro is making for her is, apparently, undertaken entirely on the initiative of her owners, the “Sorima” Company. • Though in comparatively few cases of bullion losses even modern diving methods are successful, there is the striking instance of the Alfonso XII., sunk off the Grand Canary in 1885. From her the giant diver Lambert recovered nine out of ten boxes of gold, each valued at £lO,OOO, but he then collapsed, and operations were abandoned. Thus the tenth box still remains to be salved, and since the depth is only 26 fathoms another attempt might be justified.

OTHER VALUABLE CARGOES. Another case which might be taken up is that of the Cambank, torpedoed off Point Lynas in 1915, from which some copper has been recovered, but not all. The Ladywood, sunk off Land’s End, and the Meadowfield, sunk off the Tuskar—-both victims of the submarine campaign of 1915—are believed to have carried copper cargoes. . , If only the wreck of the Asiatic Prince posted as missing in 1928 when bound from New York to Yokohama, could be located she might yield. reward, for she carried much bullion. The Pericles, sunk off Cape Leeuwin when homeward bound from Australia in 1910, might also be worth investirating. If any serious campaign is to be undertaken for the recovery of treasure from old wrecks a great deal ot research will be necessary. The information is available, but it is buiied in a mass of detail in underwriting books, in Lloyd’s Casualty Reports. and in the Admiralty records.