Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1888-07-26
POSTSCRIPT.

Here concludes the remarkable narrative
Of Mr.. Paul Rodney. 1t is to be wished that
he had found the patience 90 tell us a little
more The circumstance of his dying in
1928 worth S3l 600 leads me to suspect TINT
his associate, Tassard, greatly exaggerated
the value of the treasure | am assured that
he lived very quietly, and that the lady he
married, who bore him two children, both of
whom died young, was of a nun-like sim
plicity Of character, and loved show and ex-
travagance as little as her husband Hence
there is no reason to suppose that he squan-
dered any portion of the fortune that had in
the most extraordinary manner ever heard Of
fallen into his hands. | have ascertained
that he very substantially discharged the
great obligation that his relative Mason laid
him under, and that his three men received
81 600 apiece. 1t is possible, then, that the
pirates were themselves deceived; that what
they had taken to be gold or silver ingots
were not oil so; or it might be that the case
of jewelry was less valuable than the admir-
ring and astOnished eyes of plain sailor,
who admits that he had never before seen
such n sight, figured it. Be this, however,
as it may, it is nevertheless certain, as proved
by Mr.. Rodney's last will and testament, that
lie did uncommonly well out of his adventure
On the ice
Whatever may be thought of his story of
tie Frenchman's restoration to life in other
directions Mr. Rodney's accuracy seems UNI
ilapeachable. 1t is quite conceivable that a
stoutly built vessel, locked up in the ice and
thickly glazed, should eontinue in an excel
lent state of preservation for years. The
confession of his superstitious fears exhibits
honesty and candor. It is related that O
Capt. Warren, master of an English merchant
ship, found a derelict in August, 1875, that
bad long been ice bound, with her cabins
filed with the bodies of the frozen crew.
Ellis own sailors, however, would not suffer
him to search the vessel thoroughly, through
superstition, and wished to leave her imme-
diately" a pity they did not try their hands
at thawing one of the poor fellows; the result
might have kept Mr. Rodney's strange ex-
perience in cOuntenancel
Accounts of vast bodies of ice, such as Mr..
Rodney fell in with, Will be found in the
"South Atlantic Directory.n For instance:
"Sir James c. Ross crossed Weddels track
in lat. IS degs S., and where he had found
an open sea Ross found an ice pack of an i'm
passable character, along which he sailed for
100 miles and again, when only deg be-
yond the track of Cook, who had no occasion
to enter the pack, Ross was navigating
among it for fifty-six days
"But these appear Insignificant when COM
pared with a body of ice reputed to have been
passed by twenty-one ships during the months
of December 1854, and January, February,
March and April, 1855, floating in the South
Atlantic, from lat "A degs. s., long 2s degs
W, to lat. 40 dogs. s., long 20 dogs. w. Its
elevation in no case exceeded 300 feet. The
first account of it was received from the
Great Britain, which, in December, 1851, was
reported to have steamed fifty miles along
the outer side Of the longer shank. One ship
was lost upon it; others embayed.n