TREASURE SEEKER FINDS QUICKSILVER INSTEAD OF GOLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26980, 15 January 1949, Page 6

TREASURE SEEKER FINDS QUICKSILVER INSTEAD OF GOLD

Special Reporter

References to hidden treasure generally conjure up a mental image of gold, minted or raw. That was the picture in the mind of a Central Otago resident when he went on a private treasure hunt some distance south of the Nuggets in recent weeks, but his picture was slightly out of focus. He found treasure of a kind, but it was quicksilver, not gold. It was a one-man treasure hunt with -a quaintly modern touch, and its success, at least in part, was given verification yesterday when a Daily Times reporter saw one of the canisters of mercury.

Before he would give any details of the hunt, the discoverer made the reporter give his word that his name or place of residence would not be revealed. “ I do not want publicity and I do not want to be pestered by people,” he said. And so, to give an authentic touch of mystery to the whole affair, the discoverer must be referred to as “Mr X.” who lives “ Somewhere in Central Otago.” The idea of searching for the treasure first came to Mr X when, as a youth, he was working on the south coast of the province. From old residents he heard stories of a wreck which had once occurred on that coast, and of the 2000 gold sovereigns which were alleged to have been kept, in the ship's safe. This safe, so the story went, might have contained even more bullion, and it had been brought ashore and, for some inexplicable reason, buried in the sandhills. It was a story calculated to intrigue a youth, and to carry over into the dreams of manhood. The name of the ship could not be recalled by Mr X yesterday, but he had an idea that the wreck happened 80 or more years ago. A search of the authoritative volume “Shipwrecks: New Zealand Disasters ” provided a fair selection of wrecks of the past century, but in no instance was the story of the salvaging of the safe given. Mr X often gave a thought to the safe and its golden contents, but it was not until after he had served in two wars that he made a determined effort to discover the treasure. As an engineer in World War II he had learned to use £ mine detector and he determined to put his war-gained knowledge to good account. He managed to borrow a mine detector and set off for the lonely strip of coast. All one day he covered the ground. “ false alarms ” periodically raising his hopes. Once the detector picked out an old pick-head; another time it was scraps of iron, and then old tins. But on the second day of the search, the detector tracked down treasure of a sort. It was not a strong reaction, and Mr X found that a pit about five feet deep had to be dug before the cause of the detector’s signal could be uncovered. First one cylinder, then another and another appeared. About 18 inches in height and five in circumference, they were pitted and rust-streaked. And they were heavy—amazingly heavy for their size. Mr X worked away patiently at the stopper of one of the cylinders nad finally prised it loose. To his surprise, a silver globule of mercury emerged, spattered to the ground, and lay shining on the soil. “I didn’t know what to do vyith them,” said Mr X. “ They were too heavy to carry out—a horse and sledge would be needed for that. But I did bring out the one which had lost some of its contents. It weighed about 451 b. I buried the others—not where they were, but in a spot I can find again. I’m not sure what to do with the stuff, but they are not offering so much for it these days. The bank can hold it for me until the price goes up again.” And what of the ship’s safe with its 2000 golden sovereigns and a hint of greater riches? “I’ll look for it again when I have an opportunity,” said Mr X. “I still believe it is there somewhere, but there is no telling how deeply in the sand may have covered it by this time.” r Whether or not the quicksilver came from the same wreck, nobody can tell. Mr X thinks so, and he feels sure that there is more treasure to be found under the shifting coastal sands of South Otago. “When I find it I’ll give you a golden sovereign for a souvenir,” he told the reportei*. “ But you do not have to go there to find treasure. Why, up in the mouth of the Kawarau Gorge there is a cache of gold left there by robbers. I’ll look for that some day.” And in Mr X s eyes was the far-away, hopeful gleam of the eternal prospector. The look, in fact, of the Walter Mitty within us all.