Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-02-22
SEEKING HIDDEN TREASURE.
Lure That Draws Men to the Worries
Most Dangerous Places.


runs, and man tolls for gold, hidden
treasure will hold a lure for the human
heart. 1t draws men to far and desert
countries. over high mountain ranges,
through sckly swamps, among the
sand buried ruins of old cities, across
tropic seas to uninhabited islands to for
eign coasts and roadsteads in which
galleons may have sunk at their an
chors in old sea fights, to wild bays ana
lcchs where the ships of the Armada
dove to their doom. around and up ana
down the world, in a feverished quest
fer glittcring wealth beyond the lot or
him who tolls day by day in prosaic
labor near his own roof-tree.
Who has not read with eager interest
the myth OF Kidds buried loot? All up
and down the coast of America, on
beaches, islands, headlands. are holes
in the ground where men have delVed
and sweated in search of that same
treasure, which exists only in tradition,
and never was buried at all.
No more persistent Illusion has been
harbored by generation after generation
than that Kidd buried great wealth IL
thunder along the New England coast.
Some little inquiry reveals that when
tie freebooter lay in Jail at Boston,
awaiting deportation to England, all the
treasure he had brought north with him
rom the West Indies was turned over
Il tie governments representatives by
the owner Of Gardeners Island, in Long
island Sound, to whom. an unwilling
custodian, it had been intrusted while
the pirate came to Boston to make over
lures for conformation of his crimes. In
the State archives of Massachusetts,
may he found an inventory of all this
! treasure, very carefully drawn account
! ing for every shilling. Kidd brought
no other treasure to this coast. and
what he left with his ship ''in cove
IN Hispaniola," was afterwards sold to
| a merchant in the island of st. Thomas.
| Yet in the minds of millions Kids
| treasure and its varied burial places
are as firmly intrenched as the legend
| OF Mother Goose and the sacred myth
J Santa Claus III the heads Of chillren
TIE treasure seeker whether sitting
H. Lis library and Speeding his quest en-
! TIE stored rage of history or romano"
or actually voyaging to dive or dig. has
always before him the tantaliZing un-
certainty that makes treasure hunting
the most exciting of all human occupa-
tons. Always the great question is
before him: Where?
Where is the rich city of the Great
Khan. OF which Marco Polo left map.
where gold and silver were so common
they were traded for fiat money made
from the inner bark Of the mulberry
tree?
Where lies the great treasure Pope.
Innocent VII is said to have buried
near the old papal palace of Avignon
in the south of France?
Where is the treasure King John is
supposed to have secreted in one of his
castles?
Where is the wealth the Romans are
supposed TO have buried in the great
wall in the north of England?
Where is the tomb of Alaric. the Goth
"crammed with the richest spois of the
first sack of Rome?'
Where did Genseric. the vandal. hide
the five shiploads of gold. silver and
Jewels he gathered in Italy and took
to Carthage?
Where are the treasures of Solomoq's
temple and of Babylon?
Where is the Hungarian cave ir
which Attila stored his millions oi
plumber, and which he strove to tel
as he died?
Where is the tabled lake of FL Dora
do in the South American highlands
where the Indians sunk tons of gold il
sacrificial ceremonies?
The treasure seeker never tires. Nc
less than a score of fruitless expedi
tons, for example, have sailed to the
Cocos islands, off the coast of Peru. t
hunt for pirates treasure. Each ha:
cost a moderate fortune. So eager has
been the search that rival parties have
met on the islands, and blood has beer
spilled. Still the treasure remains hid
den to lure on future generations.