whole area we had previously searched from the surface, 

 he gave up the eflFort. There was absolutely nothing to be 

 seen of the remains of a lost treasure ship anywhere in 

 these waters, beyond what we had aheady found on our 

 previous search. The attempt to use the magnetometer was 

 also abandoned. It was impossible to keep it in adjustment 

 or to use it successfully in such a location, where it must 

 be operated in waters the depth of a few inches at one in- 

 stant and eight to ten f atlioms the next. 



Ed believes there is not a chance of finding the treas- 

 ure ship until better electronic equipment is developed 

 than is available today. He feels sure that whatever may 

 be left of the ship is completely hidden in the coral. But it 

 is also his conviction that the Hispaniola treasure was well 

 salvaged, and that Phips's divers erred in their belief that 

 some of the cargo still remained in a part of the hull so en- 

 crusted in coral that it could not be reached. 



"They were only banging against a coral head that 

 looked like part of a ship," Ed claims. "It would be abso- 

 lutely impossible for a wooden ship to have survived in 

 these waters any number of years. Whatever broken re- 

 mains were left are undoubtedly completely hidden and 

 are now an integral part of the reef, for coral probably 

 grows faster and bigger on the Silver shoals than any other 

 place in the western hemisphere. 



"Even if the day comes when it would be possible to 

 take electronic equipment over these reefs and actually 

 ascertain the location of the galleon v^nreck," he maintains, 

 "if the treasure is still there, the explorer will then be faced 

 with the huge problem of dynamiting and dredging into 

 the heart of these coral reefs to secure it. We have already 

 learned what difiBculties this will entail." 



I asked him about the remains of the old sailing ship 

 we had uncovered close to the spot where the Spanish 

 galleon may have gone down. He said that Mendel Peter- 



The Silver Shoals 293 



