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TREASURES IN VICO BAY
The story of Vigo Bay—of the bat
[?], of the sinking of the Spanish
t[?]ensure galleons, of the various at
tempts to recover the precious car-
goes, and of the inventions now per
fected to deal with the problem—-is
a story of the deepest historical and
romantic interest. In the golden age
of Spain’s history she drew from her
mines in the West Indies gold and
sil cr to the value of more than,
£9,C00,C00 a year. In 1702 a fleet of
galleons brought home the accumu
lated treasure of three years, amount
ing to some 28 million pounds in
value, with precious merchandise al
most equally valuable. Arrived safe
ly at Vigo, the seventeen Spanish
galleons were attacked by the com
bined British and Butch .fleets, under
Admiral Sir George Rooke ; and it
was to save the treasure falling in
to the victorious hands of the Al
lies that the galleons/were sunk. The
wood of which the sunken galleons
were' built is alphb a. treasure that
would repay years of work spent on
its recovery. Sea water rather im
pro es wood than otherwise, as is
pro cd by the magnificent bed made
of the galleons’ wood, owned by the
President of‘the Upper House in
Spain, Don Montcro Rios. The gen
eral cargo brought home by the gal-
Iconi included pearls, emeralds, and.
rm th sis, amber, and precious woods
from the South American forests. As
soon as the battle ended, attempts
were made to recover the treasure
by the Span-'sb Government ; who,
l.elng unable to attain success, later
bee an to grant special charters to
private companies. A series of ex
periments recently were carried out
in -Vigo Bay with inventions of a
gentleman named Pino. The machi-
was set up on board a fine
yacht, the San Clemente. The Go
vernment readily assisted in the
work with one of the finest of its
destroyers, the Audaz. The first
work wes to study the sea-bird, to
. locate the ships with; the help of the
• hydroscope, to find their names and
dimensions, to discover-the currents
and measure their force. By way of
experiment, several cannons were
raised to the surface, and a quantity
of wood was recovered, so well r pre
ser ed as to resemble stone. The
lesson learnt by these experiments
ha e hern the basis of ceaseless
work from that time until now.
Cap. Pino .returned; to Italy to; de
sign a hew apparatus, and make
such improvements in the elevators
and hydroscopes as to perfect them
for the special work of recovering
the galleons.
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