Show I j Fishing For Nine Million Dollars An enthusiastic crowd sail out of I this port tomorrow They are Captain Cap-tain Charles A Jones and the crew of the steamship Fortuna He goes out to the Montevidean coast to search for lost gold The captain is aNew York boy Fifteen years ago he sailed out of the port of Philadelphia on a vessel in charge of Captain Wilkie as a common seaman In the last fourteen years he has been engaged in the wrecking business OB the South American coast He is regarded as one of the most successful wr > ckers that ever braved the sea It is said of him that he has never missed bringing up any wreck that he has undertaken Altogether he is said to have raised about loO vessels large and small He has also assisted as-sisted numerous disabled ships and in some instances received heavy salvage The captain although in possession of a large fortune acquired ac-quired in his business is not yet satisfied In his goings here and there along the South American coast he became familiar with all the wrecks that had taken place along there within the last century cen-tury Among them all there was one that loomed up in monumental proportions over the heads of the othersso far as value was concerned This was a Spanish manofwar sunk near the mouth of the Bio de la Plata in the year 1800 It was a vessel sent out to collect tribute from the different Spanish possessions posses-sions and was returning to Spain with 9000000 in Spanish gold when a storm arose The ship sprang a leak and went to the bottom with every one on board The money at the time was contained in a strong iron tank or safe and is it is supposed sup-posed to this day lying at the bottom of the sea undisturbed Capt Jones and his crew six months ago located the wreck and put buoys around it to mark the place and having made arrangements with the Uruguayan government toward the protection of the wreck during their absence sailed for America to prepare pre-pare for the work of recovering the money To remove twenty feet of mud from the top of a wreck would seem at a casual glance to be an almost al-most impossible undertaking But the engineer and crew of the Fortuna For-tuna laugh at the idea The chief engineer is Charles Marsh of New York formerly in the employ of theme the-me ican CoastWreeking Company THe steward who has been withCapt Jones longer than any of the others says that if he fails in this it will be the first time he has failed since he has been in the business The crew altogethernumber fifteen men every one of them experienced divers The captain himself the steward says is the boss diver The steward also is a good diver Divers suits form a considerable item among the list of articles i stowed away in the vessels bunkers How long they will be engaged in their work of attempting to recover the treasure is not known but the I crew has been engaged for two years Phi2adelpiia Times June 5 i |