The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1893-08-17

dredge. The submarine ditch we
made extended at right angles with a
| line drawn from Fort Monroe to the
Raps, and was about a 1000 feet in
length. There was no current there
when we finished, and the water was
twenty fathoms deep.
| began to see dimly that we had
changed the current and sent it over
the old course, through the big mud
! banks. The foodtide washing in
from the capes met this current, and
at one stage Of the tide sent it in a
circle clear around the Raps.
The mud was finally broken up.
The water was roilly for over a month.
During that time we men took a rest,
but Peran spent most of his time fix
ing up an electrical apparatus with a
galvanometer He lowereda a cable
regular telegraph cable it was-and
connected it with the big iron wedge
shaped dredge; then he fixed up
about a hundred glass jars into an
electric battery.
jim Biddle had charge of the
dredge, and his instructions were to
go out about half mile toward the
capes in line with the Raps every day
and dredge inward past the schooner.
1t was then Peran began to sit in
the cabin with his eyes on the galva~
nOmeter.
All at once there appeared to be a
great change in the lad. He was il
ritable and would allow no one into
bis cabin. When | asked if he desir-
ed me to go down to the bottom and
look around his eyes fairly blazed,
and he looked like a young panther
about to spring But all at once he
softened and reached out his hand
No. Tom" he said quietly. There's
no need. We are near the end Of our
| work"
For the life Of me [ couldn't say il
he'd found treasure or not. You could
tell nothing from his face
Well, we staid there and swept ten
acres Of the bottom with that wedge
shaped dredge, but never a man was
sent down to see if we had raked any
thing into the ditch we had made with
the dynamite.
Then the crew was paid off. They
thought the whole thing a failure
The schooner ran into Norfolk. The
dredge was broken up. The schooner
was sent back to New Bedford. Peran
took lodgings in town. He kept me
on at full wages, and sent for a com
plete new outfit for two divers.
BY this knew we We're not through
with the search We also got new
machine for sending down air which
we ourselves could control at the bot
tom. Some Of these things l don't
care to talk about, for he made over all
the ideas to me, and [ am going to
have them patented can give up
diving then, for I'll be a rich man.
He seemed to be looking all the
time for letters. and at the end of a
month big envelope was brought by
a man who looked the typical Spanish
don all over. 1t was addressed to
Don Luis De Agnado De Perano,
Duke of Castelonia, care of Mr.. Louis
Peran, Hotel Atlanta, Norfolk, Va,
United States of America"
The Spanish minister, the same nice
old fellow who ioked SO with Peran,
came down from W Washington, and the
tn rec went into secret session.
The result Of the pow WOW" was
apparent week later. A Spanish
gun boat ran under the lee of the
capes and came to anchor We went
aboard, and I'm blessed If the whole
crew, officers and all, didn't turn out
to receive US and give us d salute.
Peran had a talk with the captain, and
the next day the gun boat anchored
right over the spot where our schoon,
er used to lie. Our traps were brought
off in boat, and Peran himself went
down to the bottom every day. He
sent up in graphing irons, inside Of
three weeks, nearly 1900 bars of gold,
each weighing about fifty pounds,
besides several iron boxes all mud and
nearly rusted through. One of the
Spanish chaps told me they We're full
of diamonds and such stuff; but |
never saw them.
1t was the neatest piece of subma
line work | ever saw, Peran took me
down when he had nearly finished the
job The dredge had swept the new
bottom, where the changed current
had tom away the mud banks, as
Gle an as a fine tooth comb, and raked
everything into our ditch, where it
lay snug at the bottom. And I'm
blessed if that there galvanometer
hadn't rung bell every time the
dredge struck bar of gold, so that
Peran, sitting in his cabin ia the old
schooner, had known he had the treas
uIe safe enough. There it lay at the
bottom Of our trap to be tished up at
leisure and slowed away in tbs hold
of the gun boat in big steel boxes.
They tell me the Spanish govern
ment gave him half the find, and that
he is now a grandee, whatever that is;
that his right name is Perano, and
that he got back all the lands and
castles OF some ancestor. who lost that
lot of treasure, long ago in Hampton
Roads.
As told you, Peran was a gener-
Gus young chap, and when he was go
ing away to Spain he gave me check
for IS, 600 over and above my wages.