SEARCH FOR TREASURE

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 August 1933, Page 2

SEARCH FOR TREASURE

AEROPLANES & “SEASCOPES” AID. Aeroplanes, electric “seascopes” and modern salvage apparatus are now being used to locate the romantic old wrecks which still lie, with their money chests and rich cargoes, along. the South African coast (writes Lawrence G. Green in an English journal). Many attempts have been made by divers in the past to reach such famous sunken East Indiamen as the Jonge Thomas in Table Bay, with her boxes of silver rix-dollars and china; the Meresteyn in Saldanha Bay; and the Grosvenor on the Pondoland coast, loaded with treasure worth a million pounds. Sometimes the divers brought up a few valuable relics; but often they were defeated by banks of sand which hid the rotting bones of the dead ships. A syndicate now operating from Cape Town has equipped a small salvage ship with the latest apparatus for exploring sunken wrecks. Mr. A. M. Carrail —or “Diamond” Carrall as he is known on the coast —is in, charge of the new enterprise. He was the first man to find diamonds on the ocean bed near the Orange River mouth, and he has had long • experience of salvage on the sea floor. Diver R. Fowley, the oldest and most daring diver in these waters, has been selected for the work under water. Recently, I watched Diver Fowley carry out the most dangerous task he has ever attempted. This was on the rockbound Cape coast of Hermanns, near the spot where the famous troopship Birkenhead went down with drums beating and soldiers paraded on the sea-swept deck. The Birkenhead carried bullion; and years ago a fisherman saw, at low tide, what appeared to be an iron box wedged between two rocks in ten feet of water. The legend of the “iron treasure chest” was well-known on the Hermanns coast for fourteen years before Diver Fowley was sent to the spot to clear up the mystery. “Nothing but a salvage job would tempt me into a place like that,” declared Fowley when ho saw the breakers rolling in and smashing over the sharp reefs. Bui he ordered his heavy helmet to be clamped down, the air pump started, ami Fowley went into the swirling sea.

The waves battered him, ami the backwash aimosL tore away lifeline and air-tube and nearly carried him out. to sea. His hands were bleeding when he emerged, and thlough the glass of his helmet we could see a deep cut in his forehead. “There’s nothing down there but <t square, flat-rock that resembles a box,” announced Fowley. ‘‘But that s salvage—lucky in one job and unlucky the next time. Now lam looking forward to tackling the Birkenhead herself. No one has ever reached her yet, but if the aeroplane fixes her exact position lam ready to go down.” BURIED IN THE SAND. Th© electric “seascope” which the Cape Town treasure syndicate is using consists of an inverted periscope with a brilliant light at the lower end. In fine weather, the sea floor may be examined with this device. and any object as large as a wreck in comparatively shallow water is certain to be detected.

Much treasure undoubtedly still lies buried in the sand below Table Bay, the old “Tavern of the Seas.” Records

of wrecks and past salvage enterprises prove that. Relics that have been recovered since the arrival of modern diving gear and dredgers were merely samples from this graveyard of lost galleons and East Indiamen.

For more than two centuries after the first Dutch settlement at the Cape, ships anchoring in Table Bay had no protection against the fierce northwest gales of winter. In one year, 1772, seven Dutch and three English vessels were driven ashore with a loss of 600 lives and cargoes with a quarter’ of a million pounds. And in the great gale of 1865 eighteen large sailing ships were lost on one tragic night. Altogether there must be more than a hundred wrecks in shallow water along the southern shores of Table Bay. A rich field of enterprise indeed.. I have rcefrred to one of the most valuable and romantic Table Bay wrecks —one which has given up a. little of its precious freight—the Jonge Thomas. She, was a. Dutch East India Company ship, homeward bound with a cargo of silk and china, and with money chests in her saloon. Fifty years ago, a syndicate was formed in Cape Town to explore this wreck.

A long iron pipe, with grass at the lower end, was used as a sort of telescope to view the sea floors; the wreck was located and buoyed. Jan Steyn, a celebrated diver in his day, made many descents to the Jonge Thomas. Barrels of china cups and saucers, rolls of light brown silk (of which the inner portidns were undamaged), and a thousand silver rix dollars were brought to the surface. The coins had suffered from the corrosive action of the sea, but the crust of sand surrounding them was sifted ,and much silver recovered. The fragile china was packed in peppercorns, which still retained their flavour after a century below the sea.

This was only a, small part of the cargo of the Jonge Thomas. Much more might have been salved, but dun ing a heavj r gale the buoy was washed away and the wreck could not be located again. With modern apparatus, however, and with the aid of an aerolane, the bones of the Jonge Thomas should not be difficult to find. At a later date, a diver found a primitive deepsea lead and some old Dutch, coins named “Spaansheinatta” near (lie spot, where Hie Jonge Thomas went down. 'These ami other finds led Io a. boom in treasure seeking expeditions. 'There was bitter rivalry between different salvage parties. Divers fought for relics below the water; and finally the Government withdrew all concessions. Since that time few serious attempts have been made to find the lost treasure ships of Table Bay. Interest ing finds, however, have been made by crews of dredgers in the ordinary course of their daily work. Ohl cannon, ships’ bells, Georgian coins embedded in barnacles, cannon balls, china cable, elephant, tusks, typewriters and Mauser rifles, have all been dragged out. of the sand. A bottle of beer, estimated to be 50 years old and covered with shells, was opened by the discoverers a few years ago. They tasted the amber liquid, found it good, and swigged itSome of the finds in Table Bay would be worth a place in any museum. There was, for example, a leaden platter such as the tough sailormen of the early Portuguese exploring ships used. Brass guns, stamped with the names of old men-o’-war, possess something more than historical value. Old glass bottles of exquisite workmanship have also been found.