The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-04-06
ST.FRANCOIS COUNTY BANK
TREASURE AT THE
BOTTOM OF THE SEA

Millions of dollars worth of prop
erty has been recovered from the
oceans depths by divers. One of the
greatest achievement in this line
was by the English diver, Lambert,
who recovered vast treasure from the
Alfonso XII, Spanish mail steamer
belonging to the Lopez line, which
sank off Point Cando, Grand Canary,
in about $50 feet of water. The sal
wage party had recovered about half
a million in coin and precious metal
when it returned to land. For nearly
six months the operations were per-
severed in before the divers could
reach the treasure room beneath the
decks. Two divers lost their lives in
the vain attempt, the pressure of wa
ter being fatal. The diver recovered
$450,000 from the wreck and got $22,-
900 for doing it.
One of the most difficult feats ev-
er accomplished by diver was the
recovering of the treasure sunk in the
steamship Malabar off Gale. On this
occasion the large iron plates, half an
inch thick, had to be cut away from
the mail room, and then the diver had
to work through nine feet of sand.
The whole of the specie on board this
vessel-upward of $1,000, 000-was
saved, and as much as $4,000 was
gotten out in one day,
1t is an interesting fact that from
time to time expeditions have been
fitted out and companies formed with
the intention of searching for buried
treasure beneath the sea. Again and
again have expeditions left New York
or Sap Francisco in the certainty of
recovering tons of bullion sunk off
the Brazilian coast, or lying undis-
turbed in the mud of the Rio de la
Plata. At the end of 1885 the large
steamer Imbuss sank off Trincomalee
with very large amount of specie
on board. This was another case of
a fortune found in the sea, for very
large amount of the treasure was re-
covered.
Another wreck from which large
sum of gold and bullion was recovered
by divers was that of the French ship
EOrient. She is stated to have had
no less than 100000 aboard besides
her treasure.
Another case, notes the Book of
Wonders, is that of Lutine, warship
of 80 guns, wrecked off the coast of
Holland. This vessel sailed from the
Yarmouth Roads with an immense
quantity of treasurer for Texel. In
the course of the day a heavy gale
set in, and the vessel was wrecked and
went to pieces. Salvage operations
by divers during Is months, resulted
in the recovery of $2,000,000 in specie.
Humorous scenes do not play much
of a part on the oceans bottom, yet
even beneath the waves there are
laughable scenes at times. A diver
had been engaged to inspect a sunken
vessel off the coast of Cuba. Arriv-
ing on the scene he discovered num-
Der of native sponge divers, who de-
scend to considerable depths, diving
down from their canoes to the sunken
vessel trying to pick up something of
value. They paid little attention to
the arrival of the wrecking outfit and
did not notice the diver descend, I'M
til what appeared to be horrible hui
man-shaped monster, with an immense
head of glistening copper and three
big, round, CLASSY eyes, came walking
around the ships bow and made a
deep bow to them. That was enough.
They shot surfaceward like skyrock-
cts, climbed frantically into their ca
noes and made away.-Rehoboth Sun
day Herald,