612 A. E. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands. 
down by a Captain Seymour, about 1640. This was done, according 
to Joseph Wing of Cooper’s Island, for the purpose of shipping the 
trunk, with its tablet attached, to the London Company, and _ prob- 
ably by their orders. But in towmg the trunk out to the ship, 
behind a boat, the rope broke and it went to the bottom, from 
whence it could not be raised without more trouble and expense 
than was thought warranted. They stated, also, that this tree trunk 
could be seen upon the bottom for many years afterwards. These 
depositions confirm Governor Moore’s statement, in 1612, that the 
wood was very hard and heavy, and had been mistaken for lignum- 
vite. 
In several of the depositions it was stated that a cross had been 
found in the early days nailed to a tree trunk on Cross Island, a 
small island close to the east side of Ireland Island.* This island was 
named Cross Island on Norwood’s map of 1663, but it was named 
Sober Island on the Admiralty chart, and it is now called Magazine 
Island. The cross stood with one of its arms pointing to Spanish 
Point and the other to the marked Yellow-wood tree on Ireland 
Island, where they also found three stone monuments, enclosing a 
triangular space, supposed by them to indicate the spot where the 
gold was buried, according to several depositions. 
But the natives were so superstitious at that time, and so afraid of 
the ghosts and demons that were supposed to guard ill-gotten 
Spanish treasures, that no careful search seems to have been made, 
nor is there any record of treasures recovered there, except a few 
small lots of coin and some silver spoons. 
This cross, the stone monuments, and labelled trees were believed 
to confirm a tradition of buried treasures, said to have been derived 
from two different persons, who had been told by old Spanish sailors, 
in foreign ports, that they had belonged to the shipwrecked crew of 
the Spanish vessel and had helped to bury the treasure under the 
vessel’s hatches, and to erect the cross and signs by which to find it 
again. According to one of these accounts, the vessel was that of 
one Juan Bermudez, but not necessarily that of the one who dis- 
covered the islands, for the name’ was a very common one in Spain 
at that time, like John Smith in England. 
* As this cross was of wood and in a very exposed place, it is not probable 
that it could have been put there many years before the settlement; otherwise 
it would have decayed. One of the deponents stated that he had seen the tree 
trunk to wvhich it was fastened, still standing, about 1650. 
