The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1881-12-23
FABULOUS WEALTH.
e52, 600. 900 I'm Money and Jewels In the
Sea or LeWes, Delaware.


Beading PENN Times.l
The International Submarine Diving
Company, whose vessel, the Mary D.
Leech, has been quietly ergg>ged IN
searching for the location OF Her
Britannia Maiesty's brig, De Brook
which foundered June 10, 179o, ON
Lewes, has been rewarded with unmls;-
taxable evidences of the lost vessel,
During the past eighty-three years mo-
effort. with the exception of that made
by the British Government in 1880, has
been made to recover the fabulous treas
ure which is known to have been sunk.
It has been abandoned as being ire
vocably lost, because the depth OF water
is so great that all appliances heretofore
invented for raising heavy bodies were
useless. The International Company,
which was organized In Philadelphia for
no other purpose than to rsssse the abaTl-
doned treasure, is fitted up with all that
ingenuity can devise. The most wonder
full piece of mechanism on board is Az
immense diving-bell, in which aNVar
has communication with the upper worl6l
by telephone wires. He is supplied with
the means of making his own air, and
for light in his exploration he is provided
with a powerful electric flame, which,
when in operation, reveals to him every
outside object with vivid distinctness.
At the side of the bell is mechanical
arm with machinery so perfect that IN
every movement it resembles the action
of the human arm, even u2to the pick
ing up of pin.
According to papers in the possession
of Samuel S. McCracken, pilot,a whose
grandfather was the only survivor, and
who was engaged in plotting the vessel
into the harbor, about $50, 600, 900 OF
specie and jewels went down with her.
The money was taken by the De Brook
from an intercepted Spanish fleet while
on her way to Halifax, England, from
successful cruise on the Spanish Main.
With the specie were taken two hundred
prisoners. When the vessel foundered
the prisoners were in irons On the lower
decks, and were all lost. Captain James
Drew, who commanded the vessel, and
whose body was recovered two days
afterward, lies buried in st. Peters
Church-yard, in Lewes. Two years after
the wreck the British Government sent
two frigates to raise the De Brook, bu1
without success. Forty years ago, while
McCracken was on cruise, circulars
were posted around Sussex County, of
fering $50, 900 for information that would
lead to the discovery of the sunken
vessel. It had been supposed up to the
present that the hull had been swept
away by the action of the tides. The
International Company, to keep its real
object from view, had been working az
another sunken vessel, near where the
De Brook was supposed to have
foundered. McCracken, who is to re-
ceive majority of whatever treasure Isl
discovered, in an interview, says that;
De Brook lies in fifteen fathoms of wafer.
The divers, in going down, found long,
irregular ridge, about fifteen feet high,
eighteen feet wide, and sixty feet long.
On each side are piles of loose stone,
supposed to be the ballast thrown from
the frigate in the effort to raise the
wreck in the year 1900. The work will
be vigorously pushed forward.