Is there a more tragic page in the history of any ocean than this?--a page to which must still be added the burning of the steamer _Erie_, with a loss of one hundred and seventy lives, the sinking of the _Pewabic_ with seventy souls off Thunder Bay Light, in Lake Huron, the loss of the _Asia_ with one hundred lives, and scores of other tragedies that might be mentioned. The Inland Seas have borne a burden of loss greater in proportion than that of any of the salt oceans. Their bottoms are literally strewn with the bones of ships and men, their very existence is one of tragedy coupled with the greatest industrial progress the world has ever seen. But there are no books descriptive of their “attractions,” no volumes of fiction or history descriptive of those “thrilling human elements” that tend to draw people from the uttermost ends of the earth. This field yet remains for the writers of to-day. And romance walks hand in hand with tragedy on the Inland Seas. For two or three years past a new epidemic has been sweeping the world, an epidemic which has attracted attention in every civilised land and to which I might give the name “treasuritis”--the golden _ignis fatuus_ of hidden treasure which is luring men to all parts of the world, and which is bringing about the expenditure of fortunes in the search for other fortunes lost on land or at sea. While South Sea treasure-hunts have been exploited by newspapers and magazines, while Cocos Island and the golden Pacific have overworked the imaginations of thousands, few have heard of the treasure-hunts and lost fortunes of the Lakes. So businesslike are these ventures of the Inland Seas regarded by those who make them, that little of romance or adventure is seen in them. How treasures are lost, and sometimes found, in the depths of the Great Lakes is illustrated in the tragic story of the _Erie_. This vessel, under command of Captain T. J. Titus, left Buffalo for Chicago on the afternoon of August 9, 1841. When thirty-three miles out, off Silver Creek, a slight explosion was heard and almost immediately the ship was enveloped in flames. In the excitement of the appalling loss of life that followed, no thought was given to a treasure of $180,000 that went down with her--the life savings of scores of immigrants bound for the West. For many years the _Erie_ lay hidden in the sands, seventy feet under water. In 1855, a treasure-seeking party left Buffalo, discovered the hull, towed it into shallow water, and recovered a fortune, mostly in foreign money.