The Opelousas courier., 1904-08-20
MONEY SEEkERS' Obj FIJI,
WHERE FoRTuNEs HAVE BEEN
FOUND UNEXPECTEDLY.

BSCSGb VI w l&AtdII t1EC OSItH~StS
Found-Money Usually Discovered
by Accident WheAs Search Fails.
Hidden treasure AS an irresistible
attraction for the Maman ace On
the slightest hint from seer or fortune
teller some one is suis to dig where
the buried treasure isApposed to be,
and disappointment ddaN not discour-
age ,snother attempt E(en another
"up" Is received. Very Nv have eve
come upon hidden treaseHe, and the
few have found it Unexpectedly.
Take, for instance, thaR romantic
unearthing of 100000 coins n the bed
Of the River Dove, in stan Nrdshire,
u years ago. Some workA9e were
engaged in removing q E1sdbank
which had formed in the ce1per of
the river when one Of t~hemlNwas
amazed to find on raising his Aade
that 1t glistened with silver coinp6
Attracted by the Ggger,s exclaA1a-
lions of establishment and delight, It's
fellow workmen hurried up, and Ill
moment half a dozen men wesp
scrambling and fighting for the tred
ure, feverishly filing their pocket3I
their hats and beer cans with silveAE
coins, which were worth their weight
in gold, for they were Of the time on
the first two Edwards and had lain III
the river for five hundred years
That the bulk of the treasure troy4i
was ultimately claimed by the DuchJI
Of Lancaster matters little, for it'd
finder had already appropriated
scores of thousands of the precious
disks.
Only two years later a few village
boys were playing at marbles on Sun
day afternoon in a field near Bea-
worth, in Hampshire, when n OF
them caught sight of a piece Of lead
projecting from the pasture. Tug
ging at the strip of metal he disclosed
O hole, and through the exposed open
ing he saw a pile of glittering coins.
bright as If fresh from the mint. To
fill his pockets and those of his plaF
mates was the work Of a few mo-
ments, and so little did the young
sters appreciate the value Of their
| discovery that on their way home
they amused themselves by f1ng1ng
the coins into the village pond.
ultimately nearly seven thousand
coins were recovered from the buried
treasure chest, and they proved to be
of the reigns of William I. and VIII
liam II. and in a wonderful state OF
preservation.
A similar discovery was made near
Wethersby, in Yorkshire, when a
heavy cart passing v a country
road stuck fast in a rut, and on being
released disclosed a number of silver
coins, which had escaped from the
burst lid of a chest hidden under the
roadway. It was assumed 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 passing
cart had at last brought it again to
the light of day.
In the year 1916 a most valuable de-
post of treasure was revealed In the
strangest fashion at Cuerdale, near
Preston, in Lancashire. Some labor
ers were digging near the banks of
the River Ribble when the pickaxe Of
one of them struck something harder
6han earth and more yielding than
rock. On removing his pick he found
transfxed at the end of it a large in
got of silver. Plying his tool with re-
newed vigor he soon discovered
wealth consisting of scores Of silver
ingots weighing In all oVe 1000
ounces.
Similar fortune befell a couple of
laborers who were Digging in a ditch
near Glastonbury, in Sonersetshire,
when they unearthed an ancient chest
full of coins of, the days Of the Stuarts.
They took samples Of the coins to a
nefghboring antiquary of wealth, who
greatly pleased, purchased a score
or more acres of land adjacent to the
lucky ditch. And here the irony OF
fortune is well illustrated, for al
though the antiquary spent thousands
Of pounds in buying and ~excaVatine
his land. not q single coin was dis
covered beyond those which a stroke
of the spade had revealed.
This is the kind Of trick fortune
loves to play on designing man. Me-
very man. years ago, when the thatcK
ed roof of an ancient cottage near Ri
Don was removed a rich nest of five
guinea gold pieces was discovered
hidden away under 1t. When the news
Of this t~reasuretrove came to the ears
Of a neighboring land owner he was
&c fred by the lust Of gold that he
forthwith purchased a dozen similal
cottages in the district and had then
all pulled down, but not a solitary
coin was found in exchange for the
So, 900 the experiment cost him.-Bos
ton Transcript.
CAPTURING GIBRALTAR.