The Northern sea is a sea of pearls, as the Northern land is a land of gold. Who knows what flotsam and jetsam may not yet be discoverable? There are rumours of old coins and ingots of silver found along the East coast of Australia. One might even come upon the remains of a Spanish galleon somewhere between Percy Island and Cape York.
Why not?
The Jardines of Somerset, near Cape York,-they hold the farthest-north cattle station in Australia and have long been owners of pearl-fishing craft,-thirty years ago were rewarded with just such a discovery of treasure trove.
The story goes that Frank Jardine"s lugger, exploring the reef (which is very near the mainland at Somerset), was driven by a sudden wind to take shelter in an inlet cove. As the tide fell, the trained eyes of some sea-going wight fell upon the flukes of a rusted anchor. They presently made fast to this relic of an ancient sea mystery and, in dragging it from the coral, bared a mass of minted coin !
They say that the whole of this sea hoard took severaltrips from Somerset to recover-a booty worth thousands of pounds. It consisted chiefly of Spanish silver dollars and gold coins of the early nineteenth century, none of the dates being later than 1820.
The treasure is said to have belonged to a lost ship, laden with coin for the pa ym en t of Spa n ish tr oops a n d Government officials in Manila. That ship was following the old Spanish route along the Australian coast when she was cast away!
Many a lusty galleon preceded her. Unless the coral hasDrawn by W.S. WemyssSpanish Treasure.
grown over their brave old bones, the treasure-seeker along the Barrier stands a safer, if less likely, chance than Captain Tom Cavendish when he lay alongside the Santa Anna on the 4th of November of 1587, and after four hours" fighting found himself in possession of a booty of 122,000 pesos of gold, to say nothing of "divers merchandise " and several sorts of very good wine!
N or a r e ch a n c e ga lleo n s o f New S pa i n o ur o n ly possibilities in the way of Northern salvage. The unfortunate Quetta alone took down 60 tons of silver with her when those sharp coral teeth tore out her iron flanks at the gates of Torres on the fatal night of February 28, 1890. Before the Barrier was charted properly in 1842-6, many a stout vessel was cast away.
If we failed of finding Spanish or other seaward riches, there would still be compensations. We would not lack for adventure; nor the good fare that should go with it. Of a surety, there would be much provender and creature comforts on this voyage of adventure to Northern Seas. With the ports of Bowen, Townsville, Cairns, Cooktown, and Thursday Island to fall back upon when the ship"s stores ran low, there would be little risk of starvation.
Furthermore, we would have fresh coconuts, turtle and beche-de-mer soups in abundance, luscious fruits, stewed pigeons, fresh fish, oysters, and tropical dainties won by our own hands from sea or shore. At low tide we would land onexposed reefs to gather food, curiosities, pearls, and coral.
Of the latter there is a variety enough to keep a collector"s heart in constant ecstasy. These reefs are, in fact, vast natural marine gardens, filled with brilliant flowers of the sea. No earthly growths present such a diversity of form and colour. We have (all moulded in the same medium by the hand of the Great Artist) stag-horns, organ-pipes, cup corals, mushrooms, bouquets, stars, brain-corals, and labyrinths.
Coloration spreads over all gradations and shades. There are violets, magentas, browns, bronzes, lemons, mauves, whites, pinks, greens, lilacs, purples, turquoises, peacock blues-all the shades of the palettes of a Royal Academy and a Paris Salon, and more.
Every growth, from the most delicate and fragile of those beautiful branched corals one sees under glass covers to 19-foot specimens described by W. Seville Kent, had its beginning in the dead body of a single polyp, a microscopic insect! Think of the countless myriads of deaths in the uncountable years to build up a reef 1,500 miles in length along the coast of Queensland. One learns with satisfaction that the world is much older than the scientists thought it.
Wonder and admiration are not lessened by knowledge that the coral insect is, in scientific eyes, no insect at all, but a "simple polyp resembling a sea-anemone, possessing the property of secreting a calcareous skeleton out of thelime held abundantly in suspension in probably every sea!" It is this simple property which enables the reef-building Barrier corals to live and die, from low water mark to a depthof 20 or 30 fathoms in the warm East sea.
It is this simple property which has been a highly impor- tant factor in the making of geography, and has added to the anxieties of navigators, particularly of those who tread a careful course from Lion Island to Bligh"s Entrance down the Eastern coast of Queensland.
E. J. Brady, in The Land of the Sun.
Author.-Edwin James Brady, a living Australian poet and journalist, was born in Carcoar, N.S.W., and educated in that State and in America. Engaged in various occupations for some years in New South Wales. Was editor of The Worker and The Australian Workman. Contributed as a free lance to many papers and magazines. Author of The Ways of Many Waters (verse), The Earthen Floor (verse), Bushland Ballads, The King"s Caravan (prose), River Rovers (prose), Bells and Hobbles (verse), Australia Unlimited (prose), The House of the Winds (nautical verse), The Land of the Sun, and The Prince"s Highway (prose).
General Notes.-See the Great Barrier Reef on a map of Australia. Where are pearls and gold found in Queensland? Flotsam and jetsam- chance findings; literally, flotsam is floating wreckage; jetsam, what is cast on the shore. When did Spanish galleons sail the sea? Name any Spanish sailors connected with early Australian maritime exploration. What English monarch was reigning in 1587? Peso (payso) was aSpanish dollar, also called " piece of eight " (think of Treasure Island). Beche-de-mer, or sea snail, a kind of large marine slug, which is dried and used for soup. A polyp is not an insect, but a boneless creature with a cylindrical body closed and attached at one end and opening at the other by a central mouth, furnished with tentacles. Write an essay on " Creatures that Wear their Bones outside. " Beche-de-mer is a French name, meaning sea spade.
