RICHES OF THE DEEP

Taranaki Daily News, 5 December 1929, Page 13

RICHES OF THE DEEP

LONG SEARCH FOR WEALTH. Beneath the lonely waters of Tobermory Bay, on the west of Scotland, a determined band of men has waged the last stages of a long struggle to recover from the deep the untold wealth of a past age, says an overseas journal. The time is getting short. The beginning of October marked the expiry of the diving rights granted to Colonel Kenneth Foss, who, ever since 1912, has been striving to salvage the treasures of the Spanish Armada galleon Almirante di Florencia, which sank off that part of Scotland while carrying jewels and bullion valued at £3,000,009.

Now all that remains to be done is to penetrate through the six feet of elay under which the galleon lies and cut a way through the deck to the strongroom with pneumatic saws. But for mysterious difficulties which he has to overcome there is little doubt that Colonel Boss would have laid the galleon bare some time back. Years ago, shortly before his diving rights came into operation Colonel Foss visited Tobermory to ascertain, if possible, the position of the sunken galleon. No one could enlighten him, but one evening he noticed a strange ship, fitted with salvaging apparatus, slip into the harbour, and anchor at a certain spot. He remained on tenterhooks of anxiety until at last the time arrived when he could legally start diving. On the evening previous to that day, the mystery ship hove anchor and departed.

At the first opportunity, Colonel Foss took his salvage barge to the same spot and put grabs and powerful suction pumps into action. For two years he worked there and found nothing. Only then did he realise that he had been working in the wrong position. But in 1919, when he took his barge to Tobermory for a fresh season, and went to pick up his old marks, he found another mysterious check awaiting him. An iron stake, which he had set up on shore as the key mark to his bearings, had disappeared. There was no trace either of the great stone into which it had been cemented. One of his stalwart helpers in his battle for the treasure was a woman—Miss Margaret Naylor, who donned a diving suit and went down to the ocean depths with remarkable fearlessness. She had many adventures. Once she got her foot jammed in a ladder, and the person at the top nearly pulled her head off. The second time she fell in the mud and almost stuck there.