East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1860-05-03
EAST SAGINAW, MICHIGAN, MAY 3, 1860

At one moment / thought the blaze ha
caught it, and was about to caution you
but before / could speak, you had with
drawn it and were engaged in its exam
ination. When / considered all thes
particulars, doubted not for momen
that heat had been the agent in bringing
to light, upon the parchment, the skul
which saw designed upon it. You ar
well aware that chemical preparation
exist, and have existed time out of mind
by means of which it is possible to writ
upon either paper or vellum, so that tn
characters shall become visible only whel
subjected to the action of fire.
Il now scrutinized the deaths heaC
with care. Its outer edges-the edges o
the drawing nearest the edge of the vel
lum-were far more Distinct than tn,
others. 1t was clear that the action o
the caloric had been imperfect or unc
quail. / Immediately kindled fire, ant
subjected every portion of the parchment
to glowing heat. At first, the only
effect was the strengthening of the fain
lines in the skull but, upon perseverine
in the experiment, there became visible
at the corner of the slip, diagonally op
posite to the spot in which the deaths
head was delineated, the figure of what
at first supposed to be a goat. A closer
scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was
intended for a kid
'Ha! hal said /, to be sure have nc
right to laugh at you-a million and q
half of money is too serious matter for
mirth-but you are not about to estab-
lish third link in your chain-you will
not find any especial connection between
your pirates and goat-pirates, you
know, have nothing to do with goats;
they appertain to the farming interest
But | have just said that the figure
was not that Of a goat
We'll, kid, then-pretty much the
same thing.
Pretty much, but not altogether said
Legrand. You may have heard of one
Captain Kidd. at once looked upon the
figure of the animal as kind of punning
or hieroglyphical signature. / say sigma
ture; because its position upon the vellum
suggested this idea. The deaths head,
at the corner diagonally opposite, had, in
the same manner, the air of stamp, or
seal. But was sorely put out by the
absence of all else-of the body to my
imagined instrument-of the text for my
context
Il presume you expected to find let
ter between the stamp and signature
Something of that kind. The fact is,
L felt irresistibly imprested with the pre-
sentiment of some vast good fortune i'm
pending. / can scarcely say why. Per-
haps, after all, it was rather desire than
an actual belief; but do you know that
Jupiter's silly words, about the bug being
of solid gold, had remarkable effect
upon my fancy? And then were the
series of accidents and coincidence
these were so very extraordinary. Do
you observe how mere an accident it was
that these events should have occurred
upon the sole day of all the year in which
it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool
for fire, and that without the fire, or
without the intervention of the dog at
the precise moment in which he appeared,
| should never have become aware of the
deaths head, and so never the possessor
Of the treasurer
But proceel-I am all impatience.'
well; you have heard, Of course, the
many stories current--the thousand vague
rumors about money buried, somewhere
upon the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his
associates. The rumors must have had
some foundation in fact. And that the
rumors have existed so long and so con-
could have resulted it appeared
10 me, only from the circumstance of the
buried treasure still remaining entombed.
Had Kidd concealed his plumber for
time, and afterward reclaimed it, the ru-
nors would scarcely have reached us in
their present unvarying form. You will
observe that the stories told are all about
not about money finders.
Had the pirate recovered his money,
here the affair would have dropped 1t
seemed to me that some accident-say
.he loss of a memorandum indicating its
ocality--had deprived him of the means
If recovering it, and that this accident
iad become known to his followers, who |
otherwise might never have heard that
reasure had been concealed at all, and
Who, busying themselves in vain, because
lnguided attempts, to regain it, had
yiven first birth, and then universal cur
cncy, to the reports which are now so
Have you ever heard of any
treasure having been unearthed
~ the diggcrs for money along the coast?'
Never
But that Kidd's accumulations were
is well known. / took it for
,ranted, therefore, that the earth still
eld them, and you will scarcely be sur
rised when l tell you that felt a hope,
early amounting to certainty, that the
archment so strangely found involved
ost record of the place of deposit
But how did you proceed?'
Il held the vellum again to the fire,
fter increasing the heat; but nothing
ppeared. Inow thought it possible that
he coating of dirt might have some
hing to do with the failure; so care
llly rinsed the parchment by pouring
arm water over it in tin pan, with the
kull downwards, and put the pan upon a
lrnacc of lighted charcoal. In a few