TREASURES OF THE SEA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10541, 24 August 1910, Page 6

TREASURES OF THE SEA.

The treasure which has been swallowed up by the sea in the course of ages is enormous beyond nil conception. As Sir Charles Lyell has remarked, millions of silver dollars and other coins have sometimes gone to the bottom in a single ship. The wrecks, even in a short period, are far more numerous than most of us ever conceive them to be. A glance at a wreck chart of the British Isles shows us the coast studded with a great number of dots, each representing a partial or a complete wreck, and if we cared to count them up, we should iind the total run. into hundreds in a single year. • It began thousands of years ago, when man iirst took "to the sea in his dug-out, his coracle of skins, or perchance on his floating log: and it is going on still day by day and hour by hour —a grim, inexorable tithing of the wealth which is begotten by international trade. In 1793 the waters of the River La Plata, in South America, were driven back and forced into the neighboring plains. The bed of the river was laid bare, and several ships which had been lost more than 30 years before were exposed to the gaze of the inhabitants of the country. One of these ships was au English vessel which had been wrecked in 1762. Several persons, braving the risk that the pent-up water might return, walked out to the waterbeaten hulks, ransacked their cabins, . and returned , laden; with- silver and other treasures, which had long been covered by the waters. After three days the water returned violently to its natural channel.

Exceptional tides have often disclosed the treasures and stores of an ancient wreck. About 40 years ago a patch of peat was exposed on the beach between West Hartlepool and Seaton Carew, and a number of Spanish silver dollars, gold coins, rings, and other valuable objects were found in it. The discovery caused great excitement in the district, and there was a rush of apprentices and other "prospectors" to the peat-bed, which became for the moment a local gold country. The coins bore dates ranging from 1720 to 1804. History recorded that a ship of Lofidon, named the Duck, had been wrecked at this spot in 1829, and at that time a number of dollars, amounting in all to the value of about £3OO, had been taken from her. It sometimes happens that the lighter spoil of a wreck, even though it will nob float, is in time washed up along the coast, and deposited with the sand and pebbles on the beach. Such appears to have been the case with certain coins which were found in the coast of South Africa about 25 years ago, near the spot where 100 years earlier an East Indiaman, the Grosvenor, had been wrecked. One of the coins was a piece of native Indian money, coined before the British conquest of the country; another was a gold coin of the Venetian ■Republic, both probably the personal possessions of some passenger by the illfated Indiaman. In the reign of Charles the Second, William Phipps, the son of a blacksmith, aided by expert swimmers and divers, and perhaps also by an early type of diving-bell, succeeded after many attempts in recovering treasure to the value of something like £200,000 ■ from the wreck of a Spanish ship, which had sunk oil the island of Hispaniola, m the West Indies.

In January, 1812, the first commercially successful passenger steamboat, lioury IMi's Comet, began to ply upon the Olvde, between Port Glasgow and Helensburgh. In the course of time the trips were extended, and Bell built other boats, and thus thoroughly established the success of steam navigation. The engine of the Comet was built by John Robertson, of Glasgow; and was of four-horse-power. The vessel was eventually wrecked in the Clyde, and the engine lav for many years at the bottom of the sea.. It was recovered, however, about .the year 1840, arid has since been carefully preserved. A curious history is attached to the east window of a. church at Quernmore, near Lancaster. It was made in England for a church at Cannes, and was shipped off to its destination. . But tjie vessel went down near ..Marseilles, and the window was given up as hopelessly lost along with the rest of the cargo. •A Greek merchant bought the wreck, and commenced salvage operations, a'nd the window was recovered. It was sold along with, other salvage effects, and, a new window having in the meantime been ordered from England for the church at Cannes, it was bought by the owner of Quernmore Park, and brought back to England. Many-interesting objects, dating from remote' times, are drawn up from the shallow waters of the Dogger Bank during the fishing operations of the fleet on the eastern coast of England, and a proportion of these find their way into public collections. At Hull there are several Bellarmine jars, or '•greybeards," which have been dredged up in this way. These jars obtain their names from a grotesque bearded face which is imprinted or scratched on the neck of the vessel, and which is supposed to represent Cardinal Bellarmine. They were very commonly used in the western parts of Europe about 300 years

ago. In one of the squares at Scarborough there is a gigantic anchor of an oldfashioned type, which was fished up near Filey Brig some years ago. It is thought to be the anchor of the Seraphis, a ship of 40 tons, which was attacked by Paul Jones in and captured after a splendid resistance. The Seraphis and a smaller ship, tile Countess of Scarborough, were convoying a fleet in the North Sea, when three or four ships under the command of Paul Jones fell upon them. The merchant fleet escaped intact, but the two warships were taken and conveyed to the Texel.