Treasure Hunting

Glens Falls, NY– The massive hole in front of the Cronin High Rise in downtown Glens Falls is not from replacing pipes or construction. Excavation workers are digging out the remains of an old building that was buried there. It was causing the lawn to collapse in front of the prestigious High Rise.

“We had a lot of erosion and settling,” said Robert Landry, of the Glens Falls Housing Authority. That agency runs the senior high-rise on Ridge Street.

“It was creating sinkholes, and it made it difficult to maintain the lawn. The flagpole was even starting to lean.”

Landry said the city hired an engineer to do a soil test, and it was determined a previous demolition at the site had become unstable, causing the sinking lawn. Services Unlimited was hired to excavate the site, remove the debris of the old building, fill it back in with clean fill and re-tamp the surface.

“We’ll have a new lawn and new landscaping,” Landry said. “Our goal is to be the nicest looking property in downtown Glens Falls.”

He said the excavation work should be complete by mid-August, and the lawn and landscaping should be done by September 1st. The project carries a price tag of about $50,000, which was covered by a Capital Fund grant covering infrastructure improvements.

But just what is it they are digging up? City Historian Wayne Wright said the structure was the home of Dr. George W. Little.

“Dr. Little had a conservatory on the right side of the house where he kept monkeys, birds and all sorts of plant life,” Wright said. “After he closed his practice, he handed out little spoons to the people who were still with him. Some of those spoons are still around.”

Little was eccentric, and his wife moved out of the house in his later years to settle in the Fort Edward area.

“There was a one-story addition built onto the front of the house for a storefront,” Wright said. “The structure came down during Urban Renewal in the early 1970s, and they just bulldozed it under.”

Landry recalls a pool hall at the spot in the ‘70s.

“It was the Chalk and Cue Pool Hall, and it was a popular hangout for St. Mary’s students, and since I was one of them, I used to hang out there,” he said. “Van the Shoe Man and Griffin’s Paint Store were also in this area.”

Robert Landry believes there might be a few interesting finds from this old demolished house, but they still have yet to dig and discover pieces of history. Citing and picture use from Post Star articles.

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Ostrava, North Moravia– Forty people were evacuated out of 15 houses in Stara Ves village near Ostrava after an active aerial bomb weighing 50 kilos was found there during construction works on Friday, local police spokeswoman Gabriela Holcakova told CTK.

This aerial bomb was made by the soviets during WWII and used then also. This is the second bomb that has been found in the area of Ostrava lately. The first bomb was found a month ago by a man with a Metal Detector, he revealed a bomb weighing 100 kilos in a field near Opava, north Moravia.

“The ammunition was found during excavation works in connection with the sewerage construction about 1.5 meters underground,” Holcakova said.

The bomb was found two meters from a gas pipeline which called for gas-workers and firefighters. This led to fifteen houses in the village to be evacuated and traffic was rerouted over the bomb disposal. An expert removed a detonator mechanism of the bomb that was transported from the spot then. It was disposed in a special hole, Holcakova explained.

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New from North Treasure Coast, FL - Members of the Treasure Coast Archeological Society, a club of Metal Detectorist gathered to join in treasure hunting on a local beach in Florida. Their goal is to find relics and treasure of value.

As the economy has slumped it has led more people into the hobby or even job of Metal Detecting. Since the price of valuable metals such as gold and silver continue to rise, this brings motivation to the hurting economy. Treasure hunters like these usually look for lost coins, jewelry, and other valuables such as gold and silver to bring in much needed extra money.

“More people are coming out to hunt with this economy, people see that it’s easier to find something with a metal detector than it is to win the lottery,” said Vencecia Altimus, who travels to Indian River County to hunt.

Metal detectors are sold from just one hundred dollars to thousands of dollars. However, basic detectors send signals of treasure with a beeping noise barely compare to the high end detector that displays image of treasure and item depth. Many detectorist testify that the machines usually pay for themselves, with rewards sometimes in the thousands.

As these Metal Detectorist are not always welcome, it is not prohibited in Florida to metal detect along the beaches. Although these rules do not apply everywhere. It is against park & recreation rules to dig up large holes. Although detecting is allowed one must keep the ground intact which defeats the purpose of detecting.

Seems as though one should play it safe and not risk getting in trouble with the state… Good luck hunting treasure hunters!

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Colorado Boulder researcher Craig Lee makes frequent trips during summer trekking for treasure and usually strikes gold. However, this time he has found a much more valuable find, 10,000 year old artifacts.

As global warming increases, icy tombs that preserved these artifacts are now melting and emerging from the ice. Pieces of animal remains, Native American baskets, and clothing are among the typical discoveries found from Lee’s frequent trips to the Rockies back in 2007. But his most significant find so far has been a wooden stick that happens to be a 10,000-year-old birch sapling. There has been a long process that took nearly 3 years to verify the artifacts. The weapon, called an atlatl dart, is rare because of its impeccable condition and age, Lee said.

“We haven’t been able to disclose the discovery until now due to restrictions from science journals and the lengthy process of actually verifying our find,” Lee said.

Spear-like artifact found in melting ice patches

Melting has increased all around and in the Rockies which leads to the increasing popularity of artifact hunting in the area.

“So far we’ve been successful during every search,” Lee said. “I think that really shows the effects that global warming is having on our environment. It’s visible to us and the artifacts are the proof.”

It seems this bittersweet view into our past has come from the destructiveness of our inhabitants. Our environment is suffering, and yet this may be an extraordinary find, our global warming has evidently taking its toll.

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This article really warms my heart and hits close to home for any beach-combers.

Volunteers scoured 33,000 miles of shoreline worldwide - 90 miles in Brevard County, Florida alone - and picked up more than 6 million pounds of trash and debris that were harmful to seabirds and marine mammals.

In Brevard county alone 5,188 bags of trash (about 103,000lbs!) were collected by over 2,000 “Keep Brevard Beautiful” volunteers.

“The debris ranges from the relatively harmless, although annoying and an eyesore, to items that annually result in the death of hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine mammals caught in abandoned fishing lines and netting.

A third of the items found came from smokers. The volunteers collected and cataloged nearly 2.3 million cigarette butts, filters and cigar tips.

In all, 57 percent of the trash was related to shoreline recreational activities, 33 percent from smoking-related activities, 6.3 percent from fishing or waterway activities, 2 percent from dumping, and less than 1 percent from medical and personal hygiene activities, said the report.”

What the report DOES NOT mention is the hundreds of metal detectorists who scour Florida beaches year-round! But I wanted to take a moment and say “Thank You!” to all of those beach combers who, I know, pick up trash and clean the beaches as they search for lost treasures.

Spring is here and the beaches are packed, so good luck out there!

~ Liz ~

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There’s a new video game being released soon called Halo 3, and there are commercials for it ever 15 minutes. The game has nothing to do with this post except that the commercials made me think about the halo effect and metal detecting.

If you’re new to metal detecting, you may have buried a few coins to test how deep your metal detector would work, and you may have been disappointed. The reason new coins are so difficult to detect is because of the absence of the, “halo effect.” The most basic definition of the halo effect is that the coins become electrically more associated with surrounding earth materials and the molecules of the metal begin to “leak” into the surrounding soil.

Sergei from metaldetectingworld.com has a great description of the Halo Effect and how it relates to constructing a test garden. If you’re just starting out in the world of treasure hunting, make sure you visit his site. His site gives advice and tips for fans of metal detecting.

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On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. The aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

We will be participating in this event. Metal detector enthusiast as a group seem to be very aware of environmental concerns, so this should be a fun event. If you have any ideas for a story, please let us know in the comments.

Here’s a video from the Organization that started it all:

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