Perth Amboy evening news., 1904-01-26
DISCOVER TREASURE.
Great Riches Found at Unexpected
Times and Places.
EnEIish Workmen Uncover Great
Wealth Buried o Year In
River Dove-NotabIe
Instances

Hidden treasure has an irresistible at
traction for the human race. On the
| slightest hint from seer or fortune teller
some one is SUR to dig where the buried
treasure is supposed to be, and disap-
pointment does not discourage another
attempt when another tip is received.
Very few have ever come upon hidden
treasure, and the few have found 1t I'M
expectedly, says the Boston Transcript.
Take, for instance, that romantic un-
earthing of 200. 600 coins in the bed of the
River Dove, in Stafordshire, ~ years
ago. Some workmen were engaged in
removing a mud bank which had formed
In the center Of the river, when one of
them was amazed to find on raising his
spade that II glistened with silver coins.
Attracted by the digger's EXPLANATIONS
of establishment and delight, his fellow
workmen hurried up, and in a moment
half a dozen men were scrambling and
fighting for the treasure ,feverishly filling
their pockets, their hats and beer cam
with silver coins, which were worth their
weight in gold, for they were of the time
of the first two Edwards, and had lain
in the river for 500 years. That the bulk
OF the reasure troye was ultimately
claimed by the Duchy Of Lancaster mat
tiers little, for its finders had already APP
propriated scores of thousands of the
precious disks.
Only two years later a Few village
boys were playing at marbles one Sun
| Io.. aftarAAnn In N Nnfa ,,a- d. month
in Hampshire, when one of them caught
sight of a piece of lead projecting from
a cart rut In a rough road hat crossed
the pasture. Tugging at the strip of
metal he disclosed a hole, and through
the exposed opening he saw a pile of gilt
tering coins, bright as il fresh from the
mint. To fill his pockets, and those of
his playmates was the work of a few mo-
ments, and SO little did the youngsters
appreciate the value Of their discovery
that on their way home they amused
themselves by fiinging the coins into the
village pond.
Ultimately nearly 1000 coins were re-
covered from this buried treasure chest,
and they proved to be of the reigns Of
William |. and William II. and in a Won
derful state of preservation.
A similar discovery was made near
Wetherby, in Yorkshire, when a heavy
cart, passing over a country road stuck
fast In a rut, and on being released dis
closed a number of silver coins, which
had escaped from the burst lid of a chest
hidden under the roadway. 1t was as
sumed that the chest of coins had been
buried there in the perilous days of the
civil war, and that the gradual sinking
of the road and the weight of the pass
ing cart had at last brought it again to
the light of day.
In the year1S46a most valuable deposit
of treasure was revealed in the strangest
fashion at Cuerdale, neal Preston, in
Lancashire. Some laborers were dig
ging near the banks of the River Ribble
when the pickax of one of them struck
something harder than earth and more
yielding than rock. On removing his
pick he found transfixed at the end Of
it a large ingot of silver. Plying his
tool with renewed vigor he soon discov-
cred wealth, consisting of scores of sill
yer ingots weighing in all over 1000
ounces.
Similar fortune befell a couple of la
borers who were digging in a ditch near
Glastonbury, in Somersetshire when
they unearthed an ancient chest full of
coins of the days of the Stuarts. They
took samples of the coins to a neighbour
ing antiquary of wealth, who not only
paid the men a large sum for their treas
ure, but purchased a score or more
acres of land adjacent to the lucky ditch.
And here the irony of fortune is well IL
Illustrated, for although the a%ntiquary
spent thousands of pounds in buying and
e%xcavating his land, not a single coin
was discovered beyond those which a
stroke of the spade had revealed.
This is the kind of trick fortune loves
to play on designing man. Not very
many ysars ago, when the matched roof
of an ancient cottage neal Ripon was re-
moved a rich nest of ive-guinea gold
pieces was discovered hidden away I'M
der it. When the news of this treasure
trove came to the ears of q n"eiehboring
landowner he was so fired by the lust
of gold that he forthwith purchased a
dozen similar cottages in the district and
had them all pulled down, but not soli-
tary coin was found in exchange for the
$4,000 the experiment cost him.
M~Ontezumn's Wen and Castle.
Now that the petrifed forest of Ari-
iona has been created a national park,
and the government is taking steps 10
protect it from further spoliation at the
hands of the "Goths and Vandals," the
attention of tourists as well as scientists
will naturally be called to the many
other natural curiosities and archaeology
ical treasures to be found in the same
wonderland of America. Among these