Powerful suction pumps worked by steam were set going to clear away this bank, and they bored into it steadily for three weeks while the divers dug shafts to clear away obstructions. At length, a massive silver candlestick was fetched up, and the sand pumps clanked more industriously than ever. At the end of the summer, about one hundred square feet of the bank had been removed, but the whereabouts of the galleon was by no means certain.
As soon as the weather became favorable in the following spring, Captain Burns and his crew returned to the quest with more men and machinery than before. It was really impossible that such a business as this could be carried on without some touch of the fantastic and the picturesque. There now intrudes a Mr. Cossar, employed as "the famous expert, who, by means of delicate apparatus can indicate where metal or wood is buried in any quantity underground," and he spent the summer taking observations and buoying the bay with floats or markers. At these places boring was carried on means of steel rods to a depth of one hundred and forty feet, while the dredges were busy exploring the vicinity of the sand bank.
The area thoroughly explored was increased to eight acres in 1906, in water from seven to fourteen fathoms deep. That famous expert, Mr. Cossar, and his delicate apparatus were reinforced by Mr. John Stears of Yorkshire, one of the most notable diviners of England. He operated with no more apparatus than a hawthorn twig and professed to be able to locate precious metals no matter how many fathoms deep, and more than this, mirabile dictu, to tell you whether it was gold, or silver, or copper that made his inspired twig twist and bend in his fingers. Mr. Stears was taken as seriously as Mr. Cossar had been, and the findings of one confirmed the verdicts of the other. The powerful salvage steamer Breamer with a large crew searched where the diviner told them to go, and several pieces of silver plate were recovered amid the excitement of all hands.
The Breamer continued work in 1907, but during the next year the waters of Tobermory Bay were unvexed by the treasure-seekers. Then the syndicate went into its pockets for more cash, got its second wind, so to speak, and wrapped its operations in a cloud of secrecy, quite the proper dodge for a venture of this kind. A new and taciturn crew was hired for the Breamer, and whatever was found under water was hidden from prying eyes. The additional funds raised amounted to $15,000, and Captain Burns was told to obtain the best equipment possible. It was reported in the autumn of that year that "Mr. Cossar, the mineral expert, by whose skill the scope of the operations was more or less controlled, had broken down in health owing to the severe strain, and had gone home to recruit," but John Stears of Yorkshire with his hawthorn twig was still finding treasure which refused to be found by divers.
Diving to find the treasure galleon in Tobermory Bay. (Photographed in 1909.)
The salvage steamer Breamer equipped with suction dredge, removing a sandbank from the supposed location of the Florencia galleon in 1909.
The five-year concession from the Duke of Argyll had expired and was renewed by a syndicate organized in London, the manager a Col. K. M. Foss, an American, who appeared in Tobermory and conveyed an impression of cock-sure Yankee hustle. He announced that his agents were making historical researches in the libraries and museums of Europe and had already convinced him that the lost galleon was crammed with treasure; that the chart relied on in past searches was all wrong, and expressed his surprise that the extensive salvage operations of recent years should have failed to locate the exact position of the wreck. In a word, Scotchmen might know a thing or two, but your up-to-date Yankee was the man to crack the nut of the lost Florencia and deftly extract the kernel. The appearance of this Colonel Foss in this storied landscape of Tobermory Bay has a certain humorous aspect. He hardly seems to belong in the ensemble of the search for the treasure galleon which has been carried on for centuries.