What happened to the Amber Room?

I would say that, since the amber blocks were too fragile to move, obviously when the Red Army tried to do so, they destroyed the room. Rather than admit this, they just buried the shattered remains somewhere.

From Wikipedia
The Amber Room in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg is a complete chamber decoration of amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors. Due to its singular beauty, it was sometimes dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World".

Before it was lost, the original Amber Room represented a joint effort of German and Russian craftsmen. Construction of the Amber Room began in 1701 to 1709 in Prussia. The room was designed by German baroque sculptor Andreas Schlüter and constructed by the Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram and remained at Charlottenburg Palace until 1716 when it was given by Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I to his then ally, Tsar Peter the Great of the Russian Empire. In Russia it was expanded and after several renovations, it covered more than 55 square meters and contained over six tons of amber. The Amber Room was looted during World War II by Nazi Germany and brought to Königsberg. Knowledge of its whereabouts was lost in the chaos at the end of the war.

In 1979 efforts began to rebuild the Amber room at Tsarskoye Selo. In 2003, after decades of work by Russian craftsmen, the reconstructed Amber Room was inaugurated in the Catherine Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

History
Creation
The Amber Room was made from 1701 onwards in order to be installed at Charlottenburg Palace, home of Friedrich I, the first king of Prussia, at the urging of his second wife, Sophie Charlotte. The concept of the room and its design was by Andreas Schlüter. It was crafted by Gottfried Wolfram, master craftsman to the Danish court of King Frederick IV of Denmark, with help from the amber masters Ernst Schacht and Gottfried Turau from Danzig (now Gdańsk).

It did not, however, remain at Charlottenburg for long. Peter the Great admired it on a visit and in 1716, Friedrich Wilhelm I, the first king's son, presented it to him, and with that act cemented a Prussian-Russian alliance against Sweden.

In 1755 Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia had it transferred and installed, first in the Winter Palace, and then in the Catherine Palace. From Berlin, Frederick II the Great sent her more Baltic amber, in order to fill out the originals in the new design by the tsarina's Italian court architect, Bartolomeo Rastrelli.

The Amber Room represented a joint effort of German and Russian craftsmen. After several other 18th-century renovations, it covered more than 55 square meters and contained over six tonnes of amber. It took over ten years to construct.

World War II evacuation
Shortly after the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II (Operation Barbarossa), the curators responsible for removing the art treasures in Leningrad tried to disassemble and remove the Amber Room. Over the years the amber had dried out and become brittle, so that when they tried to remove it, the fragile amber started to crumble. The Amber Room was therefore hidden behind mundane wallpaper, in an attempt to keep Nazi forces from seizing it. However, the attempt to hide such a well-known piece of art failed.

German soldiers disassembled the Amber Room within 36 hours under the supervision of two experts. On 14 October 1941, Rittmeister Graf Solms-Laubach commanded the evacuation of 27 crates to Königsberg in East Prussia, for storage and display in the town's castle. On 13 November 1941, the newspaper Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung reported on an exhibition of part of the Bernsteinzimmer in Königsberg Castle.

Last days in Königsberg
Orders by Hitler given on 21 January 1945 and 24 January 1945 allowed the movement of possessions. From that day onwards, Albert Speer's administration could move culture goods of priority "I (o)". Erich Koch was in charge in Königsberg. Eyewitnesses claimed that crates had been sighted at the railway station. They might have been put aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff which left Gotenhafen (Gdynia) on 30 January 1945, and was sunk by a Soviet submarine.

Later in the war, Königsberg was heavily bombed by the Royal Air Force. It suffered further extensive damage at the hands of the advancing Soviets before and after its fall on 9 April 1945. It remained thereafter under Soviet control, eventually renamed Kaliningrad. The remains of the castle were destroyed by the Red Army during the 1960s.

Disappearance and mystery
The Amber Room was never seen again, though reports have occasionally surfaced stating that components of the Amber Room survived the war. Indeed, two elements of the room's decoration (but not the amber panels themselves) were eventually rediscovered (see below).

There have been numerous conflicting reports and theories, among them that the Amber Room was destroyed by bombing, hidden in a now-lost subterranean bunker in Königsberg, buried in mines in the Ore Mountains, or taken onto a ship or submarine which was sunk by Soviet forces in the Baltic Sea.

Many different individuals and groups, including a number of different entities from the government of the Soviet Union, have mounted extensive searches for it at various times since the war, without any success. At one point in 1998, two separate teams (one in Germany, the other in Lithuania) announced that they had located the Amber Room, the first in a silver mine, the second buried in a lagoon; neither produced the Amber Room.

However, in 1997 one Italian stone mosaic that was part of a set of four which had decorated the Amber Room did turn up in western Germany, in the possession of the family of a soldier who had helped pack up the Amber Room.

The latest discovery, as reported in February 2008, is of a 20-metre pit in Deutschneudorf, a small town near the German-Czech border. The site reportedly matches intelligence from survivors who helped loot the fabled room, and initial probe reports are said to indicate the presence of a large quantity of gold or silver. Hans-Peter Haustein, mayor of the town, said "We're confident it's part of the Amber Room".

On 20 February 2008, German treasure hunters claimed to have found the Amber room. The discovery of an estimated two tons of gold or silver was made at the weekend when electromagnetic pulse measurements located the man-made cavern 20 meters underground near the village of Deutschneudorf on Germany's border with the Czech Republic.

Opening the cavern to get into the chamber cannot be completed until approximately mid-April because it may contain booby traps and has to be secured by explosives experts and engineers.

According to a recent article in Der Spiegel, Heinz-Peter Haustein - who has been leading the most recent searches into the Erzgebirge/Ore Mountains region of Germany - believes that he has found the Amber Room. Digging resumed 26 February 2008 at a site in the southeastern German town of Deutschneudorf, where treasure hunters believe there are close to two tons of Nazi gold and possibly clues to the whereabouts of the legendary Amber Room.[6] Treasure hunter Christian Hanisch said on 28 February 2008 that the hunt for Nazi Gold and possibly the legendary Amber Room will end 29 February 2008 after the two men leading the expedition disagreed.

Another recent discovery was made by the Amber Room Organization in the mountains about 50 kilometres (31 mi) east of Weimar. Henry Hatt, the German spokesman told the media that he knows where the Amber Room is hidden. According to him, it was brought to Weimar together with a treasure of the Hohenzollern and Prussian Crown Insignia. From Weimar, it was transported to the county of Saalfeld and hidden in an old underground mining chamber. Currently, the group is searching for a production company to make a movie about the discovery. The ARO claims to have solved the "biggest mystery of WWII".

As of July 2010, none of these discoveries have proven true, and with no new verifiable leads surfacing, new claims are met with a great deal of skepticism.

Destruction theory
Recently, British investigative journalists Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, conducted lengthy research on the fate of the Amber Room, including extensive archival research in Russia. In 2004 their book, The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure, concluded that the Amber Room was most likely destroyed when Königsberg Castle was burned down, shortly after Königsberg surrendered to occupying Soviet forces.

Documents from the archives showed that that was also the conclusion of the report of Alexander Brusov, chief of the first formal mission sent by the Soviet government to find the Amber Room, who wrote in June, 1945: "Summarizing all the facts, we can say that the Amber Room was destroyed between 9 and 11 April 1945". Some years later, Brusov gave a contrary opinion; the book authors insinuate that this change of opinion was likely due to pressure from other Soviet officials, who did not want to be seen as responsible for the loss of the Amber Room.

Among other information from the archives was the revelation that the remains of the rest of the set of Italian stone mosaics were found in the burned debris of the castle.

The authors' reasoning as to why the Soviets conducted extensive searches for the Amber Room in the years after WWII, even though their own experts had concluded that it was destroyed, is that it served the differing motives of several elements in the Soviet government: some wished to obscure (even from other branches of the Soviet government) the fact that Soviet soldiers may have been responsible for its destruction; others found the theft of the Amber Room a useful Cold War propaganda tool, and did not want to let go of a grievance that could be aired advantageously; still others did not want to share the blame for its destruction (through their failure to evacuate the Amber Room to safety at the start of the war).

Russian officials have denied the book's conclusions - angrily, in some cases. According to Adelaida Yolkina, senior researcher at the Pavlovsk Museum Estate: "It is impossible to see the Red Army being so careless that they let the Amber Room be destroyed." Other Russian experts were less sceptical, and had a different emphasis in their responses. Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum, was very cautious in his comments, and said: "Most importantly, the destruction of the Amber Room during the Second World War is fault of the people who started the war". In reply, Catherine Scott-Clark, one of the authors, indicated that they only came to their conclusions with reluctance: "when we started working on this issue we were hoping to be able to find the Amber Room."

Since the book came out, a Russian veteran has given an interview in which he confirmed their basic conclusion as to the fate of the Amber Room, although he denies that the fires were deliberate. "I probably was one of the last people who saw the Amber Room", said Leonid Arinshtein, a literature expert with the nongovernmental Russian Culture Foundation, who was a Red Army lieutenant in charge of a rifle platoon in Königsberg in 1945. "The Red Army didn't burn anything", he said.

A variation of this theory is common currency amongst present-day residents of Kaliningrad. This is that part at least of the room was found in the cellars after WWII by the Red Army, in relatively good condition. This was not admitted at the time in order that blame should continue to rest upon the Germans. To preserve this story access to the ruins of the castle, which were substantial after WWII, was restricted, even to historical/archaeological surveys. During the 1960s, access to the site was suddenly withheld and the ruins were blown up by the Army, sealing any access to the underground area. The Dom Sovetov was built over the central area. The remains of the room may still be sited underground; however, as mentioned above, amber which is not cared for will crumble into dust. It is presumed that this is what has happened and that the Russian authorities, even after the fall of Communism, have been unwilling to admit this.

Gold rush shipwreck offers up treasures off Welsh coast after 150 years

From The Telegraph: Gold rush shipwreck offers up treasures off Welsh coast after 150 years

For more than 150 years it has lain tantalisingly close to the shore. Now the ship that sank in a storm in 1859, claiming 450 lives, is giving up its most precious secret: gold.

But this treasure trove is not in a distant tropical lagoon – it is near the Welsh ferry port of Holyhead, in the remains of an ironclad steam clipper called the Royal Charter.

A team of explorers diving to the ship, which sank off Anglesey while returning laden with riches from the Australian gold rush of the 1850s, has brought gold coins and nuggets to the surface and expects to retrieve more.

The ship foundered on rocks just yards from the shore after a hurricane hit on the final leg of its journey from Melbourne to Liverpool, on Oct 26, 1859. On board were gold prospectors returning with their fortunes.

By daybreak the ship had sunk and about 450 passengers and crew, along with the gold, had been lost.

Related Links

You might like:Amy Winehouse dies aged 27 of a suspected drug overdose23 Jul 2011(Telegraph News)
Top Chinese gymnast found begging on the street18 Jul 2011(Telegraph News)
Girls urged to strip to support Vladimir Putin as president17 Jul 2011(Telegraph News)


From the Web
FORM THE WEB
:5 Tips on How to Handle Sudden Wealth12 May 2011(Black Enterprise)
Chesapeake Bay Retriever24 Apr 2011(Petside.com)
The Best Treasure Hunting Beaches in Vero Area, Florida31 Dec 1969(USA Today)
[what's this]
Vincent Thurkettle, a full-time gold planner who is
leading the expedition, said: "We have got some gold dust, nuggets and coins, as well as about 200 artefacts. And there is more gold down there."

The finds have all been reported to the Receiver of Wreck, who administers all shipwrecks. People connected to the passengers can claim ownership – although claims are thought to be unlikely. The gold will then be returned to the team or sold to a museum, with a fee passed to the explorers.

The treasure has yet to be valued and the team have declined to say how big their haul is. However, the value, particularly of the coins, will be inflated because of where they were found.

Mr Thurkettle said: "To have a coin from the Royal Charter will probably be worth double or treble what it would otherwise be worth."

His team of about 12 divers and gold planners have been visiting the wreck for the past seven summers, but only now have they agreed to reveal details. They estimate there's another two years' worth of exploring left.

The wreck lies just off the village of Moelfre, on
Anglesey's east coast, in clay beneath about 15ft of water, and sand. To search for gold, the team blow away the top sand. They then use a machine to suck up sand and clay to be sifted for gold fragments. Mr Thurkettle has been to
Melbourne to find out how much gold was on board. He said: "But you find yourself getting absorbed in the story. These people were coming home having struck gold and were only two to three hours away from Liverpool.

"And yet they go from such hope to such disaster, yards from safety."

The tale of the ship's loss gripped Victorian Britain. Her captain had tried to anchor in Moelfre Bay to escape the storm but the vessel's chain broke and her engine was not strong enough to keep her off the rocks, where she was battered by 60ft waves and 100mph winds. The ship snapped in two while less than 50 yards from the coast.

A Maltese seaman made it to shore with a lifeline, allowing a few survivors to reach land. But only 39 of the estimated 490 on board were saved. Many of the dead were killed by being dashed on to the rocks. Others drowned, weighed down by the gold in their money belts.

The storm was one of the worst of the 19th century and became known as the "Royal Charter gale" with about 200 vessels lost around the British coast. Charles Dickens, at the height of his fame, went to north Wales to report on the aftermath.

At least 79,000 ounces of gold were on the boat – worth £77.6 million today. Soldiers and coastguards salvaged some before many of the bodies had been recovered. The press upset villagers by accusing them of stealing the gold.

About 80 per cent of the haul was recovered, leaving the tantalising prospect that, even after the latest find,
millions of pounds' worth of gold remain on the sea bed.

Weather hits bid to detonate mine

From Suffolk Free Press (from 17 July): Weather hits bid to detonate mine
Attempts to detonate a live 2,000lb Second World War mine picked up by a dredger off the Essex coast have been hampered by the weather.


The device was found eight nautical miles off the coast of Clacton on Friday morning and experts had planned to discharge it on Saturday.

But conditions have stopped Royal Navy divers from making contact with the mine - which they moved from the dredger onto the sea bed - in order to carry out a controlled explosion.

A Royal Navy spokesman said high winds and poor sea conditions meant it was not possible to dive on Saturday morning.

"It is looking unlikely they can dive safely today because of the weather," he said.

Stewart Oxley, spokesman for RNLI Walton and Frinton, said the mine was believed to be "in very good condition" and "was still a viable destructive force".

The Royal Navy has denied reports that it had lost the mine.

"They know where it is. When it's safe to do so they will get down to it and dive on it. They put it on the sea bed safely," a spokesman said.

A one-mile exclusion zone remains in place around the area.

Museum rediscovers its antique instruments

Musical instruments might not seem like a subject for Volcano Seven, but its the circumstances in which they were found that I find intriguing. How can a collection of anything be forgotten in a museum?

Well, that's the thing with museums. They display 10% of their collection, the rest of it is stored underground or wherever their storage facilities are, and never see the light of day. And if their administrative folks aren't competent, who knows where items will end up.

From The Columbus Dispatch: Museum rediscovers its antique instruments

CINCINNATI — The recent rediscovery of a collection of more than 800 antique musical
instruments, stored beneath the Cincinnati Art Museum and largely forgotten for decades, has caught the attention of curators in some of the nation’s top museums.

The items span four centuries and represent more than 20 countries, making the collection important in the eyes of museum officials and instrument specialists, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported yesterday.

The instruments include African drums, a Burmese crocodile zither, a Chinese version of a hammered dulcimer and a native American ceremonial rattle.

“You don’t find these things in many places,” said J. Kenneth Moore, curator in charge of the musical-instruments department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “You just find them in a handful of places.”

Aaron Betsky, director of the Cincinnati museum, said the instruments, like other collections, had not been given due attention because there wasn’t enough room for them at the museum, which put off a planned expansion and has laid off workers.

Conservators plan to clean dozens of the instruments to use in an exhibition to go along with the 2012 World Choir Games next summer in Cincinnati. Some of the pieces might then be integrated into the museum’s collection but likely won’t be displayed in a dedicated gallery.

“This is really about instruments from around the world,” Betsky said. “And it was collected for the visual intensity of the pieces, not necessarily for their functionality.”

Many of the pieces came from wealthy Cincinnati industrialist William Howard Doane, who collected instruments as he traveled around the world. He started lending them to the Cincinnati museum in 1887, a couple of years before the Metropolitan Museum of Art began its instrument collection, and he ended up donating about 650, the newspaper reported.

A Lost World? Atlantis-Like Landscape Discovered

From Live Science: A Lost World? Atlantis-Like Landscape Discovered
Buried deep beneath the sediment of the North Atlantic Ocean lies an ancient, lost landscape with furrows cut by rivers and peaks that once belonged to mountains. Geologists recently discovered this roughly 56-million-year-old landscape using data gathered for oil companies.

"It looks for all the world like a map of a bit of a country onshore," said Nicky White, the senior researcher. "It is like an ancient fossil landscape preserved 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) beneath the seabed."

So far, the data have revealed a landscape about 3,861 square miles (10,000 square km) west of the Orkney-Shetland Islands that stretched above sea level by almost as much as 0.6 miles (1 km). White and colleagues suspect it is part of a larger region that merged with what is now Scotland and may have extended toward Norway in a hot, prehuman world.

History beneath the seafloor
The discovery emerged from data collected by a seismic contracting company using an advanced echo-sounding technique. High pressured air is released from metal cylinders, producing sound waves that travel to the ocean floor and beneath it, through layers of sediment. Every time these sound waves encounter a change in the material through which they are traveling, say, from mudstone to sandstone, an echo bounces back. Microphones trailing behind the ship on cables record these echoes, and the information they contain can be used to construct three-dimensional images of the sedimentary rock below, explained White, a geologist at the University of Cambridge in Britain.

The team, led by Ross Hartley, a graduate student at the University of Cambridge, found a wrinkly layer 1.2 miles (2 km) beneath the seafloor — evidence of the buried landscape, reminiscent of the mythical lost Atlantis.

The researchers traced eight major rivers, and core samples, taken from the rock beneath the ocean floor, revealed pollen and coal, evidence of land-dwelling life. But above and below these deposits, they found evidence of a marine environment, including tiny fossils, indicating the land rose above the sea and then subsided — "like a terrestrial sandwich with marine bread," White said.

The burning scientific question, according to White, is what made this landscape rise up, then subside within 2.5 million years? "From a geological perspective, that is a very short period of time," he said.

The giant hot ripple
He and colleagues have a theory pointing to an upwelling of material through the Earth's mantle beneath the North Atlantic Ocean called the Icelandic Plume. (The plume is centered under Iceland.)

The plume works like a pipe carrying hot magma from deep within the Earth to right below the surface, where it spreads out like a giant mushroom, according to White. Sometimes the material is unusually hot, and it spreads out in a giant hot ripple.

The researchers believe that such a giant hot ripple pushed the lost landscape above the North Atlantic, then as the ripple passed, the land fell back beneath the ocean.

This theory is supported by other new research showing that the chemical composition of rocks in the V-shaped ridges on the ocean floor around Iceland contains a record of hot magma surges like this one. Although this study, led by Heather Poore, also one of White's students, looked back only about 30 million years, White said he is hopeful ongoing research will pinpoint an older ridge that recorded this particular hot ripple.

Because similar processes have occurred elsewhere on the planet, there are likely many other lost landscapes like this one. Since this study was completed, the researchers have found two more recent, but less spectacular, submerged landscapes above the first one, White said.

Both studies appeared on July 10 in the journal Nature Geoscience.

H.L. Hunley is rotated upright; 'stealth-like' craft now visible

From The Washington Times: H.L. Hunley is rotated upright; 'stealth-like' craft now visible

VIENNA, Va, June 28, 2011 — Word has been received that at long last, the H.L. Hunley has been rotated and put into her original upright position in the climate controlled tank at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, SC.

The Confederate submersible/submarine was resting on her starboard side at an approximate 45-degree angle when finally raised from the ocean floor in August 2009. Due to the sediment inside which had not been disturbed in over 100 years, and the presence of the remains of the eight men who had sailed her, it was felt that a full examination of the contents should be made before any attempt was made to right the seven and one-half ton ship, which was 39’ long.

It took two days to accomplish the shift in position of the craft, which had been held in place by large slings. Moving in micro steps of two millimeters a day, the repositioning was finally accomplished, providing the scientists and conservators with the first glimpse of that side of the Hunley’s hull. Apparently no specific damage was evident on the long-hidden side, which means that the scientists will still continue their hunt to ascertain what caused the ship to sink.

Talking with Kellen Correia, Executive Director of the Friends of the Hunley organization today, she said that “seeing the Hunley right side up has given us a whole new view of it – it looks stealth-like now.”

They will soon remove the keel block supports, she said, as well as the slings. “It’s hard to realize that over a half million people have come to see the Hunley in the last ten years,” she related, “and we hope that the new positioning will bring even more to our facility.”

Ms. Correia continued that “within the next two to four weeks, the trusses will be completely removed” from the little craft, although what the ultimate preservation process will be is not known at this time.

History records the fatal steps that led up to the ultimate Hunley’s launching, which made her the first of her kind to sink an enemy ship during warfare. On February 17, 1864, sliding out of Charleston Harbor late at night, she quietly approached the U.S.S. Housatonic, a Union blockade ship preventing ships from entering the Harbor, and fired a 135 lb. torpedo attached to a 150` detonation rope into the Housatonic’s side.

The Union ship sank in less than five minutes. After coming to the surface to flash a signal to the crew waiting on shore, the Hunley sank beneath the waves, where she remained for over a century.

Before that final fatal voyage, two previous attempts had been made to pilot the Hunley — on August 29, 1863 and on October 15 of the same year. While three men survived the first effort, all eight were killed in the second, including Horace L. Hunley who had first envisioned the concept of the submersible.

Despite the loss of so many men in the efforts, it was easy to again enlist a crew for the final run, with Lt. George E. Dixon in the lead.

We visited the Hunley several years ago in North Charleston, and it was the highlight of our trips that year. To actually stand on the catwalks surrounding the tank in which the craft hung in a specially prepared water bath, and see the Hunley herself, frankly was a thrill that was absolutely fantastic. It was difficult to envision how eight men of normal height and weight could have stayed inside her, manning the crank that ran down the center of the interior, was impressive.

The H.L. Hunley
Outside the museum was a full size replica of the ‘little fish boat’ as it was termed, and visitors were allowed to go inside to get the feel of what it must have been like on that dark, cold night in 1864. Now I’m a little less than five feet in height, and trying to sit at the seats inside and operate a hand-crank was a close fit even for me, giving a greater appreciation of what those men of normal height had to contend with.

Entry into the Hunley was through two “man holes” with openings roughly 14” x 15,” no easy feat.

Forensic examination of Lt. Dixon’s remains indicated that he was 5’9” tall, and had sandy brown hair. If I recall correctly, wear on the inside of his lower teeth revealed that he had been a pipe smoker. He obviously came from a well-off family, as he had a fine gold watch, a diamond ring and a diamond pin in his pockets, no doubt presents for the lovely Queenie upon his return. He had lived in Mobile, Alabama early in the War years, active in the community and had joined the local Masonic Lodge.

It was at the Conservation Center that we saw the famous $20 gold piece carried by Lt. Dixon, the story that resonated with so many people who heard it.

His fiancée, Queenie Bennett, had given him a gold coin engraved with the words “My life Preserver – G.E. D.” before the Battle of Shiloh, and when he was struck by Union fire, the shot literally left the gold coin bent, the way it was found deep in the Hunley, near his remains. Examination of his remains confirmed that he had previously sustained a gunshot injury shot his upper left thigh, with small lead fragments embedded in the bone!

Ever since the Hunley sank, and Clive Cussler with his National Underwater and Marine Agency, a private group funded by the adventure writer and marine archaeologist, stated that he had found where she lay, various efforts began to raise her to the surface and to find out what happened to the crew.

There are several theories as to what happened; one which occurred to me after reading the books on the Hunley, that the actual attack on the Housatonic and resulting concussive shock felt through the water, rendered the Hunley crew unconscious, where they remained as the oxygen was dissipated within the craft by their breathing and the lit candle.

Others think that it could have been damaged by fire from the Housatonic, though no fire damage apparently has been noted, or that another Union vessel coming to aid the Housatonic may have damaged it. Further examination may tell the final story, though examination of the crew’s remains apparently gave no indication.

When entry was made into the boat upon it’s raising in 2009, the remains of the eight men were found intact, each at his station, in a seated position, with no indication that they had fought to get out or near the opening, etc. Thus death must have come easily and quietly to those brave early sailors, whose job was to turn the heavy iron cranks which propelled the Hunley through the water.

The little submarine may never sail the ocean waters again, but the contribution of her and her intrepid crews will provide scientists and historians with ample food for thought for many years to come.

The Warren Lasch Conservation Center is located at 1250 Supply Street, (old Charleston Navy Base), North Charleston, SC; its number s (843) 743-4865.

Lure of Charles Island Difficult To Resist

From CTPost: Lure of Charles Island Difficult To Resist

MILFORD -- Standing on the shore of Silver Sands State Park, it's difficult to resist the tantalizing pull of Charles Island, the half-mile distant wildlife sanctuary connected by a sandbar that's visible at low tide.

One of those who attempted to walk to the island on Independence Day was Rocco Daddio Jr., 34, of Hamden. Authorities said he was walking with a 9-year-old boy about 3:30 p.m. when they were swept off the sandbar by the incoming tide.

The boy was rescued by a jet-skier, but Daddio drowned. His body was recovered by rescue workers more than two hours later.

"He was one-of-a-kind, and a jokester," said his boss at Lee Partyka Chevrolet-Mazda in Hamden, sales manager Andrew Quintyne.

"An incredible human being, always with a smile on his face. He was a vital part of the dealership and our sales team, and no one will be able to replace him."

Most of those on the beach Tuesday morning said they treat the sandbar with a good deal of respect, particularly after the July 4 tragedy.

"As far as going out there to the island, never," said Sladjana Pokrajac, 21, who was in charge of several children attending a private day camp Tuesday morning.

She said she was at the beach with her brother as the emergency unfolded. "As soon as I heard what was happening, I stayed out of the water." She said she soon left with her brother. "I didn't want him to see what was going on."

Like many who spent their summers on the beaches of Milford in their formative years, she said she did walk on the sandbar on occasion.

"But I was always too chicken to go all the way," she said.

"The rocks are very slippery," said Carl Lucas, of Southbury, who was walking on the sandbar with his wife Monday morning. "We have walked out to the island, but when you do, you don't have much time to get back to the beach again."

"He must have been caught by the current," said Mike Cumpelik, who now lives in Florida but grew up in Milford. "You have to use common sense if you can't swim. It seems like such a fun idea to do -- to try to walk out there."

A father, walking with his 6-year-old son, said they wouldn't venture out very far.

"My son wanted to go out all the way, but that's too dangerous," said Andrew Bordley of Wallingford.

Officially, the island is closed to the public between May 24 and Sept. 9 because it is a nesting site for herons and egrets, and a warning sign to this effect is posted on the beach. But on a typical sunny weekend in July and August, dozens of beach-goers attempt the walk to the island.

On June 8, responders from the Milford Fire Department and pleasure boaters rescued three teen-agers who, like Daddio, were swept into deeper water while walking on the sandbar. A week before that incident, three other children were pulled out of the water by a pleasure boater near the same spot.

The 3,000-foot sandbar is almost completely submerged at high tide. At low tide, the first 1,500 feet or so seems wide, dry and secure, but the sandbar narrows the closer one gets to the island. About 1,000 feet from the island, it becomes little more than a narrow row of slippery rocks, so not much of a current is needed to knock unsuspecting walkers off of their feet and into the water.

There are three signs posted by the state warning of the danger. Two are on the beach -- one facing east, the other west ­-- and a third is on the sandbar itself. They read: "DANGER! Sandbar floods twice daily with strong currents and undertow."

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has no plans to change the wording of the signs, or to add more signs.

"We do believe that the wording on the signage that we have right now is fairly strong, and it should be enough to deter people from going out there," said Dwayne Gardner, a spokesman for the DEEP. "The island is also off-limits this time of year because of nesting shorebirds."

The 12-acre island was owned by United Illuminating between 1949 and 1981, when it was purchased by the state, along with 59 acres of beach property for $522,950. In the late 1940s, UI had considered placing a power plant on the island, cooling it with water from the Sound.

In the late 1980s, as plans for development of the state park were taking shape, a proposal was floated to build a boardwalk connecting Charles Island with the Silver Sands beach, but this plan never materialized.

It was thought at the time such a boardwalk would limit beach erosion at Silver Sands, in addition to making the walk out there a good deal safer. But the city and the state squabbled over details; Milford wanted a jetty with a walkway on top, but the state DEEP wanted a raised boardwalk structure that would allow a natural flow of water to take place.

In the 1960s, the state had considered turning Silver Sands into a rival of Hammonasset State Park in Madison. To this end, more than 220,000 cubic yards of sand was dumped there, but it all washed away within eight years.

The island was known in earlier days as "Hard Luck Island," owing to the people who tried and failed to start businesses there, including a farmer who wanted to set up a tobacco plantation. There used to be a monastery there, too, but that washed away in a storm.

In 1982, state crews succeeded in placing a concrete cap on a 20-foot-deep well on the island that was viewed as a safety hazard.

In 1984, the Milford Harbor Commission wanted to establish an pleasure boat anchorage between Charles Island and the mainland, in part to keep speeding boats away from swimmers. That idea was soon scrapped.

In 1992, treasure hunter "West Coast" Don Johnson, president of Sunken Treasure Inc. of Fort Myers, Fla., was slapped with a cease-and-desist order for selling stock in a Charles Island treasure-hunting scheme. Johnson said he would search for Captain William Kidd's rumored treasure on the island. But the DEP never granted him a permit to dig for the pirate's supposed riches.