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gold to the amount of 40,000,000 francs, or $8,000,000 The captain's log mentioned the amount, and as early as 1800, French sailors succeeded in bringing to the surface a box containing 1,500,000 francs' worth of gold and silver ingots. In 1856 and 1860, a private expedition succeeded in raising another 1,250,000 francs' value of the treasure.

L'Orient, a French line-of-battle ship, blown up by Nelson at the battle of the Nile, had on board specie to the amount of $3,000,000, besides other treasure, the spoil of a raid on a Roman Catholic church at Valetta, and an immense quantity of other valuables.

In 1799, the Lutine, laden with an enormous quantity of treasure, was wrecked in a gale off Holland. Salving operations during eighteen months resulted in the recovery of about $400,000. After that, numerous attempts to recover more met with no success till 1857, when $250,000 was brought up.

In 1806, sixty-two chests of dollars, to the value of $350,000, were fished up by means of a diving-bell from the Aberganenny, sunk some years previously at Weymouth.

In 1830, the British frigate Thetis was wrecked off the coast of Brazil with $800,000 in bullion on board. The hull went to pieces, leaving the treasure in five or six fathoms of water, so that it was afterward recovered, but occasioned much dispute and litigation among the salvors.

Diving operations resulted in the recovery of $400,000 in gold from the wreck of the Royal Charter, which took place close to Moelfra, off the Anglesea coast, but a vast number of diamonds are still lying about the wreck.

The Spanish galleon Montezuma, with treasure between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 in amount, went down a few miles off Townsend's Inlet, N. J. While a Spanish Goverment ship sent to recover the bullion was trying to locate the wreck, a gale arose and wrecked the searching ship upon the shores of Seven Mile Beach.

DIVERS' NOTES.

Divers in the harbor of Syracuse have discovered a

magnificent marble building, whose highest point is only three metres under the water. The building contains great stairways and columned halls. It is believed that the edifice was once used as a bath establishment or as a temple.

Divers in the clear waters of the tropical seas find that fish of different colors when frightened do not all dart in the same direction, but that each different kind takes shelter in that portion of the submarine growth nearest in color to that of the fish.

Photographs have been taken 500 feet under water. Halley's diving apparatus was invented in 1721.

THE GOLD OF THE SEA.

Dr. Henry Wurtz, formerly chemical examiner of the United States Patent Office, demonstrated thirty years ago the existence of gold and silver in sea water, in about equal quantities. Various estimates have been made of the total amounts of the precious metals held in solution in all the seas of the globe. Each ton of sea water is said to contain five-sixty-fifths of a grain of gold. As the ocean occupies two-thirds of the earth's surface, and is said to average 15,000 feet in depth, there would be 400 million cubic miles of salt water, equal in weight to a trillion, eight hundred and fifty billion tons. The entire ocean would therefore contain ten billion, two hundred and fifty million tons of practically pure gold. Generally speaking, gold is worth about $500,000 per ton. The gold of the sea would therefore amount in value to five quadrillion, four hundred and twenty-five trillion of dollars, an amount of money beyond all human comprehension. In comparison, all the money of all the exchequers of all the nations since the beginning of the world is a mere bagatelle. In comparison with it, the production of gold from 1492 until 1898, estimated at fifty-three hundred tons and valued at two billion, six hundred and fifty million dollars, is but as a nickel in the slot is to the money of the world. According to this estimate there is enough gold in the sea to pay every one on earth, one billion three hundred million people, the sum of $416,000.

The latest experiments bearing on this question are those of Professor Liverridge, of the University of Sydney. who found that in the waters surrounding Australia the quantity of gold per ton of sea water varies between half a grain and one grain.

Owing to the minute quantities in which the precious metals are held in solution, their recovery as a business proposition has generally been looked upon as impracticable. There was a company started in 1899, with à capitalization of $50,000, for the purpose of extracting these metals from sea water. It was called "The Electrolytic Marine Salts Co., of Boston and North Lubec, Me." Its plant was at the latter place. Like most efforts to recover ocean's treasures it proved only another rainbow chaser, and its wreck has become as historic as many at the bottom of the seas.

SEA LIFE.

SEA BIRDS.

SEA birds are always interesting objects to voyagers. They follow a vessel sometimes all the way across, ever restless and untiring. The gulls particularly, with their long, swift wings, realize the highest powers of endurance, and fly with ease against the severest storms. Some authorities say that these birds never visit the land except to deposit their eggs; otherwise they live constantly between the sea and the sky. In fine weather they fly high in the air, descending with great rapidity to seize the fish on the surface of the water. The symmetry and the strength of the gulls are remarkable, showing how nature has adapted them in every particular for the purpose of long flight.

THE PETREL.

During a recent trip across the Atlantic the passengers on one steamer had a vivid illustration of the endurance of the stormy petrel. Shortly after the ship left the Irish coast two or three of these birds were sighted at the stern of the ship. One had been caught at some previous time, and its captor had tied a bit of red flannel or ribbon round its neck and let it go. The bit of red made the bird very conspicuous, and it could be easily identified. That bird, with others that could not be so casily distinguished, followed the ship clear across the ocean. Rarely, during the daytime at least, was it out of sight, and if for an hour or two it was lost to view while feeding on the refuse cast overboard, it soon reappeared, and the last seen of it was within a few miles of Sandy Hook, when it disappeared, perhaps to follow some outward-bound steamer back to Ireland. When the fact is considered that the ship, day and night, went at an average speed of nearly twenty miles an hour, the feat performed by the daring traveler can be better appreciated. When or how it rested is inexplicable.

The stormy petrel in proportion to its size, has immense wing power, for it is the smallest web-footed bird. It belongs to every sea, and, though seemingly so frail, breasts the utmost fury of the gale, skimming with incredible velocity the trough of the waves and gliding rapidly over the crests. It does not make a practice of alighting on the water, and seldom rises higher than eight or ten feet above the surface. They have been known to perch all night on the extreme end of the flying jib boom of a vessel, keeping up a constant, low, musical whistle, seemingly an accompaniment to the noisy waters foaming and eddying around the cutwater. Petrels, in flocks, sleep upon the water at night. Off the Cape of Good Hope, on bright moonlight nights, when the weather will permit, there can be seen through strong night glasses, dozens of the sleeping petrels passing directly under the bows of the ship. They "bob up serenely” astern in the glittering wake with a plaintive whistle, swim a few yards, and, with a preliminary flutter of wings

and feathers, settle down to enjoy again the slumbers that have so rudely been disturbed.

THE FRIGATE BIRD.

Though the petrel is swift, the frigate bird is far swifter. Seamen generally believe that the frigate bird can start at daybreak with the trade winds from the coast of Africa and roost the same night on the American shore. Whether this a fact has not yet been conclusively determined, but it is certain that this bird is the swiftest of winged creatures, and is able to fly, under favorable conditions, two hundred miles an hour.

SHIP RATS.

Every ship that comes into port brings its quota of rats. When they land they become "wharf rats," "sewer rats," and "house rats." Fortunately for landsmen, the majority of them stick to the ships and remain forever “ship rats." The average sailor welcomes their appearance on shipboard, and, as a rule, a sailor would not ship on a vessel destitute of them, as their presence is a sure indication that a ship is seaworthy. When rats leave it in a body the sailors do also. The stories of their abandoning a sinking ship are founded upon fact. Mine rats will in like manner foretell the caving in of a mine.

Formerly there was only the old black English rat on the sea's ships. Wherever ships go these black rats, which are said to have come originally from India, are found. They have, in three centuries, penetrated to every mainland and island in every zone. They held full sway for two centuries on the seas; then came gradually an alien creature of black or reddish-gray body and white belly, called the Alexandrian rat, which came from tropical countries. A trifle larger and stronger, it made war to the death upon the English rodents, so that the two species could never ship upon the same vessel. More recently there has appeared a third race, a brown or Norway rat, which is a native of China and the interior of Asia. It is a huge, ferocious creature, from eight to nine

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