By Katie Zezima | New York Times News Service
August 8, 2007
Article Tools
E-mail Print Single page view Reprints text size: PROVINCETOWN, Mass. - As pirate treasure goes, it does not look like much.
About the size of a small car, the mass of fused black metal is spotted with rust and studded with barnacles. It smells like low tide, and at one point Tuesday morning a crab scurried from under it.
But to Barry Clifford, an underwater explorer, and the two dozen or so people gathered here to see it raised from the ocean after 290 years, the object is a treasure, a tangible piece of pirate lore.
Clifford has spent about 25 years looking for and salvaging the remains of the Whydah, a pirate ship sailed by Samuel Bellamy, who was known as Black Sam. The ship sank off the coast of Wellfleet, Mass., during a storm in April 1717.
The mass, about 12,000 pounds, is thought to be part of the wreck and to contain at least seven iron cannons. Clifford and his team plucked it from below 30 feet of sand last week.
The cannons twisted together and probably preserved artifacts. The exact contents will be determined through X-rays in the next few weeks, but Clifford expects the concretion, as the mass is called, to contain coins, weapons and perhaps bone, as others have.
Clifford said the mass may prove to be the best clue yet as to the location of more than 5 tons of gold and silver the ship supposedly carried.
He said his crews would continue to comb the ocean floor. His discoveries are documented by the National Geographic Society, which is sponsoring a touring exhibition of the Whydah's artifacts based at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Others are displayed at Clifford's museum in Provincetown.
Although the gold and silver may still lie somewhere below, Clifford believes he has already hauled riches from the sea.
"It's history, and people are learning," Clifford said. "Every artifact that's brought up is a treasure."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-piratesaug08,0,6885017.story
all have a good un........
SHERMANVILLE
