TREASURE ISLAND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19437, 24 October 1925, Page 7

TREASURE ISLAND

THE LURE OF COCOS ANOTHER EXPEDITION A FASCINATING STORY. Received Oct. 23, 9.45 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 22. Fourteen million sterling worth of pirata treasure hidden in Cocos Island is the object of a new expedition organised by Lieut. Kealey, recently engaged in exploring in the Pacific aboard the Saint George. Treasure has been buried in _ Cocos for over a century. It is hidden in thick jungle covering the interior. Eight picked men of the party will arrive in January and stay six months, combining scientific research with a treasure hunt. Lieut. Kealey proposes to utilise the latest scientific appliances. He believes these will successfully wrest the romantic secret from Cocos Island. Ho also states that he has received special information relating to the burying of doubloons and bars of gold, which were chiefly plunder from Peruvian churches stolen during the Chilian War. This was taken to Cocos by Benito, a notorious pirate of 1818, who was hanged before he was able to sell the treasure. Thompson, Benito’s mate, later added to the treasure. Lieut. Kealey is taking a cinema camera to film the treasure hunt. There have ‘already been at least a score of expeditions to Cocos, including Pallisor and Earl Fitzwillinm, the latter’s venture being ended by a landslide, causing ft dynamite explosion, which killed several of Earl Fitzwilliam’s labourers. A life-size figure of the Virgin in pure gold is among the treasures.