702. What distinguishes this treasure story from all others is
that it is not befogged in legend and confused by mystery and
uncertainty. And while ships' companies are roaming the Seven Seas to
find what small pickings the pirates and buccaneers may have lifted in
their time, the most marvelous Spanish treasure of them all is no
farther away than a harbor on the other side of the Atlantic.

At the bottom of Vigo Bay, on the coast of Spain, lies that fleet of
galleons and one hundred millions of dollars in gold ingots and silver
bars. This estimate is smaller than the documentary evidence vouches
for. In fact, twenty-eight million pounds sterling is the accepted
amount, but one hundred million dollars has a sufficiently large and
impressive sound, and it is wise to be conservative to the verge of
caution in dealing with lost treasure which has been made so much more
the theme of fiction than a question of veracity. After escaping the
perils of buccaneer and privateer and frigate, this treasure fleet went
down in a home port, amid smoke and flame and the thunder of guns
manned by English and Dutch tars under that doughty admiral of Queen
Anne, Sir George Rooke. It was the deadliest blow ever dealt the
mighty commerce of Spain during those centuries when her ruthless grasp
was squeezing the New World of its riches.

There, indeed, is the prize for the treasure seeker of to-day who
dreams of doubloons and pieces of eight. Nor could pirate hoard have a
more blood-stained, adventurous history than these millions upon
millions, lapped by the tides of Vigo Bay, which were won by the sword
and lost in battle. During these last two hundred years many efforts
have been made to recover the freightage of this fleet, but the bulk of
the treasure is still untouched, and it awaits the man with the cash
and the ingenuity to evolve the right salvage equipment. At work now
in Vigo Bay is the latest of these explorers, an Italian, Pino by name,
inventor of a submarine boat, a system of raising wreck, and a
wonderful machine called a hydroscope for seeing and working at the
bottom of the sea.

With Pino it is a business affair operated by means of a concession
from the Spanish government, but he is something more than an inventor.
He is a poet, he has the artistic temperament, and when he talks of his
plans it is in words like these:

"I have found means to disclose to human eyes the things hidden in the
being of the furious w