Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-26
RERDY TO ROB POOR
KIDD OF TREASURE
Henry L. Bowdon of New York VIII
Try to Dig Up Ten Millions
of Pirate Gold

NEW YORK, June 25.-"Then feet
below two million pounds lie buried"
Two million hopes and a hundred
thousand dollars have followed that in
scription into Money Pit on Oak Is
land, Malone Bay, Nova Scotia. Twen-
ty-one companies and individuals have
tried for the treasure since 1875, when
it's location was first disclosed. Gold
shavings on their augers a few links
of gold chain, a few coins to clog their
dreams with luxury and then old ocean
gurgled UP in sardonic mirth, swept
away pumps and platforms and some
times the treasure seekers Maybe the
shade of dear old Captain Kidd in
dulged in a ghostly cackle. If he
buried the Oak island treasure, as the
legend says he did, he placed guard
ian above it, vigilant so long as the
tides rise and fall, who has baffled ev-
cry interloper for ia years.
h This is all going to end and Captain
Kidd's treasure will be above ground
and most of 1t on its way to New
York before June if the plans of
Henry L. Bowdoin Of A Broadway do
not miscarry. He Is a mining, mechani-
cal and marine engineer, master and
pilot and has a license as a submarine
diver He has dredged harbors and
bnilt bridges for the government and
for corporations and says that mod
ern machinery and engineering science
will solve in a jiffy the difficulties Cap
tain Kidd made to guard his treasure.
Mr.. Bowdoin stated that he has pro-
cured a mining license under which he
will be compelled to pay 2 per cent
Of any treasure he finds to the Do
minion government. Henry Sellers
owns Oak island, and Frederick. L.
Blair of Amherst, N. S.. has a lease
of It, With them Mr.. Bowdoin has
made a contract, he says, for the ap-
portionment of that ten million dol
lars, and he has ordered such ma
chinery as he will need. He plans to
start with a crew of six men for Ma
hone Bay on May 1, going by rail. His
machinery he will ship In a chartered
schooner The maximum outlay he es-
Inmates at $4,000.
Two Weeks for the Task
"Any competent engineer could clear
UP that affair in no time" he said yes
terday, land l don't want more than
two weeks for the work after get my
machinery and crew on the ground. 1t
will be a vacation, and about all
stand to lose is the wages of the men
and Ry own time, for the machinery
will be valuable in my business after
ward. 1 am not going to organize any
company, though l may take a person.
al friend or two into the enterprise"
Best evidence of something valuable
at the bottom of Money Pit is the ex-
traordinary care and ingenuity taken
by it's diggers to prevent any one else
from reaching it's bottom. Time and
again it has been cleared to depths of
about ninety feet. Pits much deeper
have been dug close by and shafts run
across to 1t. They all filled with wa
ter. Long ago some genius discovered
why the water in Money Pit was salt
and rose and fell with the tide. He
found that a shaft had been cut from
the 95-foot level to the ocean 400 feet
away, and it's mouth divided into five
drains built carefully of stone and COW
cred with sand and West Indian cocoa
fiber, which had lasted remarkably well
for $50 years and served as a sieve to
keep clear the mouths of the drains
and permit the sea water to flow rap
idly into the shaft which intersects
Money Pit.
Captain Kidd or whoever buried the
supposed treasure Mr.. Bowdoin said,
was a natural engineer. He dug his
pit inland, then cut his tunnel toward
the water rising toward the surface.
Then he built his drains on the beach,
and when all was ready blasted down
the retaining wall, and the sea flowed
ever tried to fill that croSs-tunnel. I
am going to do so. Then all 7 have to
do is pump out the water in Money Pit
and take whatever is there"
In Creighton's book store, in Halifax,
is alarge stone slab said to have been
taken from the ninety-foot level of