Page:National Waterways A Magazine of Transportation, Volume 1.pdf/215

 MODERN SCIENCE MAKES A TRY FOR MILLIONS IN SUNKEN TREASURE SHIP

THE SALVAGE SHIP LYONS

SUNKEN treasure is a magic phrase that kindles the imagination and stirs the blood of everyone who has a tinge

of romance in his makeup. Even hard~ headed business men. always careful of a penny. ﬁnd an appeal in such schemes. that lures them on to put in their money to ﬁnance the search for the treasure.

Such practical business men are behind the National Salvage Association. which is conducting the enterprise of salving the $0,000,000 sunk with the old frigate La Lutine in 1700 off the coast of Holland. So far the expedition has recovered a variety of silver coins. cannon. cannonballs. grape shot and an anchor. but no great amount of actual treasure. Since the Lutine went down in a gale off the entrance to the Zuyder Zee with all but two of her three hundred souls aboard. after she struck on the coast between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. some $500000 has been recovered. Some of this was obtained by earlier expeditions. some by independent divers and some by being washed up on the shore. or brought up by dredges.

The present expedition. which has been working since the summer of 101 i. is the most perfectly equipped of any treasure-hunt in history. The salvage steamer Lyons is equipped with powerful pumps. which bring up the mud and sand in great streams. to be dropped onto a huge sieve or screen built over the stern. An auxiliary boat is used to lighter any heavy articles brought to the surface. A corps of divers is also kept at work.

At the end of the eighteenth century. Hamburg awoke to ﬁnd itself the principal commercial port of northern Europe. All Europe had shown tremendous commercial development. The war between England and France caused delays on payments in commercial transactions. and these caused the failure of many German merchants.

To make things easier. English merchandise sold to Germany was paid for by bills of exchange made payable some months later. to enable the Germans to sell the goods and collect the money before it came due. However. the rate of exchange ran as high as 30 per cent.. a rate which was prohibitive. To relieve the strain. a group of wealthy English bankers determined to send bullion and specie into Hamburg. to enable their representatives to handle their own payments on the spot and thus avoid the ruinous exchange rate.

The British Admiralty was appealed to for a naval vessel to convoy the packet it was proposed to send with the shipment. Other bankers outside of the group heard 202