Lost Treasure on line news letter Vol. XI issue 2

[Ed - QUICKSILVER(appletree)]

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January

Volume XI

Issue 2

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THer's News

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It is with great sorrow and regret we inform you of the passing of the Washington Prospectors Mining Association’s Secretary Chuck Cox.
Chuck had been fighting cancer for the last five years and he lost that battle January 18th, according to Bill Thomas.
Chuck was a keystone in the Washington Prospectors Mining Association, filling the positions as Recording Secretary, Membership Secretary and Newsletter Editor. He will "truly be missed."

High Prices Fuel Idaho's ‘New Gold Rush’
Russell Hopton can hardly believe what he's seeing. A few minutes of sifting have exposed several large gold chunks in a dark green prospecting pan.
"I hope my wife sees this," Hopton laughs, "It's so exciting!"
Hopton has set up along the Salmon River north of Riggins with a group of friends who are also long time gold prospectors. Lately, they've had a lot more company out on the water - as high gold prices encourage a new batch of recreational gold hunters to pick up a pan in hopes of a profit.
"They've lost all sense of you're not gonna get rich," Hopton's friend Alan Trees explains, "They don't hear that. They just hear rich!"
Alan Trees has seen the frenzy of Idaho's new gold rush up close. He and business partner Mark Hollon run a Riggins-based company called Gold Dredge Builders Warehouse and have seen plenty of people stricken with gold fever - willing to pack up their whole family and head to the hills.
"I heard a knock at the door at five a.m. and there's this guy who'd grabbed his kids and they were sittin' there at my front door," Trees explains, "He says, ‘I know I can make it. I'm ready to feed my family!'"
Trees has decades of experience as a gold dredge designer and manufacturer. He had taken a break from the business - until the recent surge in demand for his gold dredges and Gold Grabber high-bankers.
When using a dredge, a diver uses a hose to suck up material from the bottom of a river. That raw material is then filtered and any gold ends up deposited in a tray at the back of the dredge. High-bankers are made for use on the banks of a river. A prospector shovels dirt into the machine then retrieves gold that has been separated from the dirt.
Working in his shop with partner Hollon, Trees explains how gold fever takes hold so easily in rough economic times - especially with gold currently hovering at around $1,000 an ounce.
"Before the first of next year you're going to see $1,600 an ounce gold," Trees explains, "That's just going to fuel interest."
"In the great depression, when people lost their jobs people went mining," Hopton reflects as he shovels huge piles of dirt into a bucket and then into a Gold Grabber. Those old time prospectors had it hard and Hopton thinks about them a lot when he's out on the water.
He, Trees and the others gathered to find gold on a Saturday morning, know the thrill of uncovering hidden treasure will keep them searching - no matter how the price of gold changes.
Courtesy of http://www.kivitv.com

Mapping Out History
While none of the 40 or more history buffs who gathered at Caldwell Snyder Gallery in St. Helena Sunday were around back then, all of them got a glimpse of what the topography of the valley looked like.
On Sunday evening, St. Helena Historical Society unveiled a rare map of Napa County circa 1876. The map was a gift to the society from St. Helena resident Marie Oliver.
“I thought I’d like to give it to the historical society,” Oliver said.
The map previously belonged to Oliver’s husband, Reginald Oliver — the founder of El Molino Winery in St. Helena — who took possession of it after buying an old real-estate building in the south part of town where the map hung. When Reginald passed away in 2005, the map went into storage until about two years ago when Oliver discovered it while cleaning out a closet.
Along with the map, Oliver provided the historical society with some seed money to have it restored. It took the society about a year to restore the map, said Mariam Hansen, the group’s research director, at a cost of $9,000. But for the 150 or more members of the St. Helena Historical Society, the map is a treasure worth every penny of the money spent on it.
“It is a very valuable record of property ownership,” said Hansen.
“It’s the oldest map we know of, of Napa,” added Skip Lane, society president.
On Sunday the map was displayed encased in a custom, hand-carved wood frame. Conservator Antoinette Dwan described for the group some of the challenges she faced during the restoration process.
“This was a really wonderful project, really complicated,” she said. “It was used quite a bit. It was rolled and rolled.”
Dwan said the map had several creases on it and was lined with a dirty coffer that insects had attacked over the years. One of the most challenged aspects of the restoration was separating the map from a backing that was not supporting it anymore, she said.
After Dwan was finished her work, the map was taken to Hammerfriar in Healdsburg for framing. Jill Plamann, who was entrusted with the job, said the hand-carved frame was inspired by the era that the map represents.
A bevy of ranchos populated Napa back then, with names like Rancho Carneros, Rancho Yajome and Rancho Mailacomes. The map shows the parcels of land, complete with the name of the property owners as well as a number that represents the size of the parcel. Among the names are N. Coombs, J.V. Cook and A. Wright.
Insane Asylum Tract was the name of the piece of land where Napa Valley College is today. Steele Lain Kellog and Stuart, and Sacramento Savings Bank were two of the Upvalley businesses featured on the map.
St. Helena was a very different place in 1876.
According to Hansen’s synopsis, St. Helena had five churches, saloons, builders and general stores; four stables and blacksmiths; three shoe stores and hotels; two drugstores and one brewery. St. Helena also had 13 wineries.
“The United States celebrated the 100th anniversary of Independence,” she told the crowd. “A grand celebration was held in Napa for the whole county with a wondrous parade. In St. Helena, flags waved in profusion. A continuous roar of every known type of explosive was heard, from Chinese firecrackers to a six-pounder cannon. Trains from Napa were covered with flags and pictures of presidents.”
The map will be on display at Caldwell Snyder Gallery on Main Street through the end of the month. The Historical Society will then move it to the St. Helena Public Library for viewing. Anyone interested in donating money to the historical society can do so by visiting www.shstory.org.
Courtesy of http://www.napavalleyregister.com

Diver Who Found Wreck: 'We Knew It Had To Be There'
Stonington - During a dive trip off Block Island in 2002, Mark Munro of Griswold heard about the century-old sinking of the wooden coasting schooner Jennie R. Dubois and how the wreck had never been found.
The story intrigued Munro and, soon after, he and his eight fellow members of Baccala Wreck Divers began spending up to a half-dozen weekends each summer looking for the 249-foot-long Dubois, which was built in West Mystic and was the largest coasting schooner built outside of Maine.
At first the Dubois was just another shipwreck for Munro but the more he researched the ship, the more he became interested in its history and connection to the area. Adding to the intrigue was that no one had been able to find it.
“It just became a challenge for us. We knew it had to be there,” he said. “It was one of those mysteries we wanted to put to rest.”
Munro scoured newspaper reports of the sinking, did research at the National Archives, Mystic Seaport and the Block Island Historical Society and talked to people on Block Island who had knowledge of the sinking from their families. A 4-inch thick binder holds the research he has amassed.
The work paid off in June 2007 when Munro spotted some unusual images on the side scan sonar he had obtained to search for wrecks. He did not immediately think the sonar target six miles southeast of Block Island could be the Dubois but he reminded himself to check the spot in the future.
That opportunity came a few months later in September when he and another member of the group made the 100-foot descent to the target.
When Munro got to the sandy bottom, he saw his dive partner sitting next to what appeared to be the metal hoisting engine of the ship.
As the two swam, they spotted more and more of the ship's debris spread across one-third of a mile of ocean bottom.
”By the time we surfaced we were pretty sure we had found what we were looking for,” Munro said.
Munro and his team announced their discovery three weeks ago. They will present their findings to the public on Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. at the Mystic Yachting Center in West Mystic. The program will take place on the 107th anniversary of the ship's launch into the Mystic River from the same location.
Munro said Baccala and his own group, Sound Underwater Survey, are recreational groups that enjoy diving and looking for wrecks. He said the members, who are all from southeastern Connecticut, make weekend trips during the summer and spend one week each year diving off Cape Cod.
”We just like being on the water. We enjoy diving, finding new wrecks and learning about their history,” he said.
The group has two boats, one owned by Munro and a larger 42-foot boat owned by longtime diver Jack Fiora of East Haddam, who first told Munro about the Dubois. They have found about 16 wrecks over the past five years, many off Block Island and Fishers Island.
The Dubois, which was en route from Philadelphia to Boston, sank less than 19 months after its launch when it collided with he steamship Schoenfels on a foggy morning. All 11 crewmen from the Dubois were rescued by the Schoenfels.
When the fog cleared, people on Block Island could see four of the ship's five masts sticking up above the surface even though the hull rested on the bottom. A short time later, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dynamited the ship so it no longer posed a hazard to navigation.
The search for the Dubois, covered 17 square miles of ocean. While the group has not found an item, such a bell with the ship's name on it, Munro said the group found portions of the ship in the locations they should be, according to the plans for its construction. Members also found anchors and chains, wood ribs and rails, and equipment that would have been found on a coasting schooner of the time.
”There was no other vessel like the Dubois that went down in that area,” added Munro. “It all fits together.”
He said the group spent the rest of 2007 and 2008 videotaping and studying the wreck. They also kept their discovery quiet so their work would not be disturbed by other divers. He said the group did not take any items from the wreck except for a few bronze drift pins. He said the group now will turn over the exact location of the wreck to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration so it can be placed in its shipwreck data base.
Munro said his group now is searching for two other wrecks and is working on a third.
Courtesy of http://www.theday.com

Ties to Mariners’ Good-Luck Statues Run Deep
Washington - A recent Columbian story took a look at a Billiken, a museum artifact unearthed by archaeologists during a construction project in downtown Vancouver.
Turns out the piece of glassware, which spent most of the previous century in a garbage pit, has some distant family members in the area: Billi-kinfolk, you might call them.
Two Columbian readers let us know that the Billiken still is a much-loved image in a couple of local homes. One of them also reflected on its role as a good-luck piece: The ‘‘god of luckiness” angle might have been a marketing gimmick, but the towboat skipper who left his Billiken behind never made it back home.
The image has been recreated in many formats, including coin-shaped tokens. Lea Hornbeck of Washougal came across one of the copper good-luck pieces several years ago.
The token includes the date 1908, when the Billiken was patented. But native Alaskan artists have taken a shine to the design, and Hornbeck has a small ivory Billiken carved by one of them.
“I have a friend who lived in Alaska,” he said. “He saw my coin and gave me the Billiken to go with it.”
Lois Mullins has two of the ivory figures from Alaska. One had belonged to her late husband. Cecil Mullins went to sea at 17, and was on the first oil tanker that steamed into Pearl Harbor after the United States entered World War II, she said.
Cecil became a master mariner who captained cargo vessels to the northern-most point in the United States — Point Barrow, Alaska.
He needed a bit of good luck to make it through some perilous waters: “He went overboard three different times during 48 years at sea,” she said.
Her other ivory Billiken originally belonged to a mariner friend of theirs, Lois Mullins said.
“He showed it to me one day. I admired it, and he offered it to me,” she said.
She refused to take it, but “When he went on his next trip north, he left it at the office where I worked for the navigation company.”
She never saw their friend again, she said.
“They found the barge in the Gulf of Alaska. It was still tied to the tow boat, which was at the bottom.”
Courtesy of http://www.columbian.com

Peek In On Local Treasure Divers
TAMPA - A search for sunken treasure on the ocean floor plays out like a cold case mystery on "Treasure Quest," a new Discovery Channel series that follows the undersea salvage work of Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration.
The 11-part series, debuting at 10 p.m. Thursday, takes viewers along on the hunt for the Merchant Royal, a trading ship loaded with gold, silver and jewels that went down in the English Channel in 1641.
A mix of adventure, science and history, "Treasure Quest" details the work of the world's only publicly traded company dedicated to deep-ocean shipwreck exploration.
"It's a chance to show people what we do and what's involved in locating, identifying and then recovering artifacts," says Odyssey co-founder and CEO Greg Stemm.
"We're doing more than just recovering lost treasure," he adds. "Our goal is to map the entire ocean bottom."
Odyssey made headlines in recent years with two major discoveries: the SS Republic, a steamship that sank 100 miles off the coast of Georgia in 1865 while carrying a fortune in gold coins, and a Colonial era shipwreck near Portugal that yielded $500 million in silver and gold coins.
The company is selling the Republic coins and has a traveling museum exhibit based on the find. But the 17-ton treasure from the Colonial ship, dubbed The Black Swan, is in limbo while a U.S. federal court considers Spain's claim to it. A ruling is expected early this year, Stemm says.
Meanwhile, with more than 3 million shipwrecks at the bottom of the seas, Odyssey presses on with new projects, such as the search for the Merchant Royal.
Stemm, who has been in the ocean salvage business since the 1980s, is featured prominently in the series.
Viewers are also introduced to some of the 42 crew members of the Odyssey Explorer, a 251-foot vessel equipped with an archeology lab. Chief among the crew are project manager Tom Dettweiler, who led the team that discovered the Titanic, and field archeologist Neil Cunningham Dobson.
Vital to their undersea exploration is ZEUS, a 10-foot-high, 8-ton custom minisub.
Stemm says Odyssey has state-of-the-art equipment that is light years ahead of other salvage operations.
"If you were to compare it to racing, it's like we are Formula One and they are on lawnmowers," he says.
"Treasure Quest" taped the crew as they worked in the English Channel from March to November 2008.
In addition to coping with rough seas and murky waters, they found the Channel littered with hundreds of wrecks. "It's not a pristine place like a rain forest, it's more like an industrial waste site," Stemm says. "Wood deteriorates, things become corroded, and the heavy metal chains of fishing trawlers cause a lot of damage."
This kind of salvage work is costly. Stemm says it would take about $10 million to match Odyssey's recovery equipment, and operating costs run about $35,000 a day.
"You won't get rich doing this," he adds. "You have to have a love for the sea and the curiosity about what lies beneath. The history is just as fascinating to me as the treasure."
Over the course of 11 episodes, the Odyssey crew makes some interesting finds, including an elephant tusk that had been on the ocean floor for centuries, ancient ships' cannons, valuable slave trade bracelets, and lead ingots valuable today because the lead is used in the electronics industry.
They also visit the sunken Lusitania, the British luxury liner torpedoed by a German sub in 1915. The current owner contracted Odyssey to do an archeological survey of the site.
For Stemm, it was a thrill to share his work on camera.
"I grew up watching Jacques Cousteau's TV specials. He was the first to pull back the curtain and show us what's in the ocean. I like to think that we are pulling it back farther to show more. Shipwrecks tell wonderful stories of the past and we are passionate about sharing those stories and the treasures recovered."
For information on Odyssey Marine and "Treasure Quest," visit www.shipwreck.net.
ON TELEVISION
Treasure Quest
WHAT: An 11-part series about undersea salvage of shipwrecks
WHEN: 10 p.m. Thursdays
WHERE: Discovery Channel
Courtesy of http://www.tradingmarkets.com

Pan Fans Join a 21st-Century Gold Rush
With pan in hand, Phil Lawrence is looking for gold.
He's new to the pursuit, but he's read books on the art of panning and joined a local group that provided an instructional tape. So off he goes to streams and creeks near Nevada City, California, where he lives, trying to find bits of the sparkly stuff.
"You don't just stick your pan in the water and instantly see nuggets," says the 53-year-old semi-retiree, who works as a night custodian at a local school.
"You gotta do a little research to figure out where the gold flows as it washes down from the mountains"—say, an area in the creekbed with little shelves or where the current slows and swirls.
He picks up a batch of gravel in his pan and begins the "panning action"—a shake and dump technique. Since gold is heavier than just about anything else in the stream, its nuggets should settle on the pan bottom as lighter minerals rise.
Lawrence is one of tens of thousands of Americans taking part in a mini-gold rush in the 21st century.
The high price of gold was a motivating factor for many. The economic meltdown has been as well—no matter what the dollar does, gold will always be worth something.
A year ago, the Gold Prospectors Association of America would sign up about a hundred new dues-paying members a week. During peak times this year, about a hundred people a day were paying the $67.50 annual fee, which gives them the right to pan on mining claims staked by other association members.
On a good day, Lawrence will have a "eureka" moment: "You find a few specks, it's a big thrill. You know you're the only one in millions of years to set eyes on that particular bit of gold."
So how rich has he become? Not very. A few hours of panning might yield about an ounce of gold, in the $800 neighborhood these days, down from its more than $1,000 figure over the summer. In his year or so of panning, he guesses that he's found the equivalent of about $100 worth of nuggets.
"If I wanted to increase my income," he jokes, "I'd be a whole lot better off to get a job at McDonald's."
A lot of newcomers are disappointed by the slim pickings. Yet Lawrence and others have found that the very act of panning can be its own reward.
"To go out for a day on the river, listen to the birds and the river babbling as it goes over the rocks," he muses. "There's nothing like it."
Some gold seekers go a bit further in their pursuit. Gloria Marie's tools include a crowbar (which doubles as a walking stick), a four-pound (1.8-kilogram) sledgehammer, a chisel, and a hand-suction device.
If she finds a crevice in the bedrock that seems to be in the right place for gold to have settled in its waterborne journey, she'll work an hour or so to widen that crack, then suck up the debris inside and pan it for nuggets.
There are no guarantees. "I tell you, I've done a lot of panning at an optimum location, and there's nothing there but black sand."
On a lucky day, she'll swirl the debris in her pan and uncover nuggets that range in size from "a pea to a pumpkin seed." She hasn't sold any but has turned a few into jewelry.
Diehard panners invest a little more in equipment. A motorized dredging machine, for example, costs around $1,000 to $5,000. Floating on pontoons, the device has a nozzle that suctions up vast quantities of material from the creekbed or riverbed.
Or maybe they'll try a metal detector, costing a few hundred dollars to $4,000. Prospectors with a detector might find a pencil eraser-sized nugget in the one-pound (.45 kilogram) range or "pounds of quartz riddled with gold," says Jim Hutchings, president of the Sacramento chapter of the Gold Prospectors Association of America.
"They've come up with [quartz] chunks the size of bowling balls with two, three, four, five ounces of gold running through the rock."
A hydrochloric acid bath eats away the quartz, leaving an unusual gold specimen that could fetch several thousand dollars from an interested collector.
At the very least, in tourist areas, gold panners sell their chunks of gold to souvenir shops, who mark up the finds and re-sell them to visitors happy to pay $5 for a jar of gold that's only worth about two bucks.
Then again, says Ken Rucker, general manager of the American Gold Prospectors Association, a very lucky panner "might go out for the first time and find a $10,000 nugget."
As for panners who are in it for the fun, they've learned a trick to amplify what they've found.
"Most guys I know keep the gold in water," Lawrence says.
"It's an ego booster—the water tends to magnify the gold so it looks like you've got a lot more than you really do."
Courtesy of http://news.nationalgeographic.com