RECOVERING LOST GOLD

Manawatu Times, 25 March 1926, Page 12

RECOVERING LOST GOLD

Will the £1,000,000 in specie that went down with the liner Egypt when she sank off Ushant in May, 1922, be added to the already big total of sunken bullion that has been recovered from the bottom of the sea during more or less recent years? We shall know this spring, when the German divers with the strange apparatus that took part in tho abortive search for the lost submarine Ml make their attempt to penetrate to the strong rooms of the liner. The Egypt lies in 360 feet of water. No treasure has ever been retrieved from such a depth, but hitherto only the flexible diving dress has been employed. One hundred and eight-two feet is the greatest depth from which sunken buillion has been recovered by the use of th 6 ordinary diving dress. A Spanish diver, Angel Arastarbe, descended as far ais this and brought up £12,000 in bar silver off Cape Finistorre. This record was made in 1897. Closely approaching it was the feat of tho well-known British diver, Alexander Lambert, who, at a depth of 162 feet, succeeded in forcing his way into the treasure room of the Spanish mail steamer Alphonso XII., which was wrecked off La's Palmas. Lambert recovered seven chests containing £70,000 in gold coin, and later another diver recovered an additional £20,000 s

A third instance of successful trca-sure-troving in deep wafter happened off the Leuconno. Hock, near Shanghai when a diver named Ridyard descended to the wrecK or the Hamilla Mitchell and recovered £40,000 of specie. Much larger sums than these have of course, been regained from Individual wrecks, but not from such great depths. The Admiralty salvage of the vast treasure of (the Laurentic, torpedoed otf the North of Ireland daring the war, is a recent example About £IOO,OOO has been recovered during the past century of the £500,009, which was the British frigate La I.utino, wrecked off the Dutch coast in 1799. Bullion to the amount of £300,000 was salved from the wrecked Malabar; from the Oceana over £400,000 in specie was brought up, and £120,000 from the lost Queen Elizabeth.

Queer things sometimes happen to ,thc clivers engaged in these enterprises. Some years ago, while working on a wreck off the coast of Chili, a diver succeeded in recovering a

a large box of bar silver. He fixed it in a sling to be raised to the surface when it suddenly slipped out, fell on him and crushed him to death. An incident more apropriate to the sensational film than to real lif© occurred during the salvage operations on the wreck of the famous warship Royal George at Spithead in the middle of last century. Two divers, jealous of each other’s achievement, quarrelled at the bottom of the sea. They came to blows, and were drawn up |to the surface by the life line, fighting and struggling with each other. One of them had a window of his helmet smashed in the fight, and was almost dead when hauled up. It is said that after this desperate adventure Ithe two rivals became the best of friends.^