“Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea” by Gary Kinder. Hardcover.

“Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea” by Gary Kinder * Hardcover * Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998 * 507 Pages Condition: Dust jacket- VG, Otherwise - Like-New ———————————————————————————- A great American adventure story of the opening of Earth's last frontier. In September 1857, the SS Central America, a side-wheel steamer carrying nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, foundered in a hurricane and sank two hundred miles off the Carolina coast. Over four hundred lives and twenty-one tons of California gold were lost. It was the worst peacetime disaster at sea in American history, a tragedy that remained lost in legend for over a century. In the 1980s, a young engineer set out to do what no one, not even the United States Navy, had been able to do: establish a working presence on the deep-ocean floor and open it to science, archaeology, mining, medicine, and recovery. The SS Central America became the target of his project. After years of intensive efforts, the Central America was found, and in September 1989 sailed into Norfolk with recovered gold coins, bars, nuggets, plus steamer trunks filled with period clothes, newspapers, books, journals, and even an intact cigar sealed under water for 130 years. Life magazine called it "the greatest treasure ever found." Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea is a testament to the human will to triumph over adversity. It is also a great American adventure story of the opening of Earth's final frontier.