Myers Depot Metal Detectors

Unsolved 1982 Treasure Hunt

The poem 18 th day 12 th hour lit by lamp reference to Paul revere's ride but two riders left I think his name was Dawes he left downtown Boston and went up through JFK st through Harvard past there stadium which looks like Rome's colosseum. So there is a start.
 
So people reference Revere's ride but if you know your history it is another clue. Look at a map the colosseum is on a peninsula type bend on the Charles river poem reference in the middle, back to the stairs the stadium is horseshoe shaped and the seats look like stairs the open end of the horse shoe where your back is to the stairs is the home end of Harvard's football team and if you look to the right Dawes rode in the midnight ride just pass there.
 
If Thucydides is
North of Xenophon
Take five steps
In the area of his direction
A green tower of lights
In the middle section
Near those
Who pass the coliseum
With metal walls
Face the water
Your back to the stairs
Feel at home
All the letters
Are here to see
Eighteenth day
Twelfth hour
Lit by lamplight
In truth, be free.

There used to be another Boston building called the Coliseum in Copley Square.

http://www.celebrateboston.com/architecture/coliseum.htm

The names Thucydides and Xenophon appear close together on the facade of Boston Public Library at the square.

pyth.jpg


(It's also a possible reference to the Horace Walpole quotation: "There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York"

http://quotationsbook.com/quote/28180/
 
I have a solution for this.

There are subtle references about exile at work. The first word of the first line is IF, the name of the island Chateau d'IF where the Alexander Dumas character Edmund Dantes was exiled in the Count of Monte Cristo. Thucydides was exiled from Athens. Five steps in the area of his direction could mean five blocks, a bealach in Irish etymology, is about 660 feet distance.It is five blocks of distance between the Boston Public Library where Thucydides name is on the wall to the John Boyle O'Reilly statue on Boylston at the edge of the Fenway. John Boyle O'Reilly was exiled from Ireland to a penal colony in Australia where he escaped from Fremantel Prison. He based a book on those events called Moondyne. His character Moondyne Joe hides in a depression of collapsed limestone called a karst or a sinkhole which is a real place now named Moondyne Caves.

The later part of the verse contains clues to the poem The Landlords Tale by Longfellow which contains the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. In that story he sneaks past the British warship Somerset. Just across the Mass. Turnpike from the JBO memorial is the Somerset Hotel which has a section of the Charlesgate park in front of it. There are two circular depressions (just like the description of Moondyne Caves) lined with brick and a green light tower.

The rest of the puzzle requires understanding the meaning behind 'All the letters / are here to see' and using the illustration to line up the right pieces.
 
Jinx18 said:
any info on the NY one? I am local there and would love to try it out.
Click to expand...

Hi Jinx18,

It's my opinion that there isn't a NY one, although I understand the clues that people have mistaken for indicators of that area. There's the familarity with the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Arch and the shape of Manhatten Island that looks like the illustration referred to as image12. Being a past NY'er myself, including a year in NJ, I would have a tendency to agree, but I've found very strong evidence pointing elsewhere.

Image12 points to San Juan Island in Washington. I'm very close to a solution there, but I can't be certain until I'm there in person. I use verse 9 since I've discovered that shifting four lines in the poem gives an acrostic message: TONWWASAYSSELBY or "To northwest Washington, says Selby". General W. Selby Harney ordered Capt. Pickett and his men to San Juan Island to handle the events of the Pig War. There's only a few buildings, flagpole, fence, large rock, lighthouse, and the rest is grassy landscape. With so few options, it's actually quite easy to find the matches to the pieces of the image. The hard part is figuring out how the poem isolates a few points of reference to the exact spot to dig.

The nearest casques to NY that are yet to be found would be the one in Boston from Image11-Verse3 and Milwaukee from Image10-verse8. One has been suggested to be in Montreal but I've concluded it's in Vancouver BC's Stanley Park.
 
Kalroe said:
I have a solution for this.

There are subtle references about exile at work. The first word of the first line is IF, the name of the island Chateau d'IF where the Alexander Dumas character Edmund Dantes was exiled in the Count of Monte Cristo. Thucydides was exiled from Athens. Five steps in the area of his direction could mean five blocks, a bealach in Irish etymology, is about 660 feet distance.It is five blocks of distance between the Boston Public Library where Thucydides name is on the wall to the John Boyle O'Reilly statue on Boylston at the edge of the Fenway. John Boyle O'Reilly was exiled from Ireland to a penal colony in Australia where he escaped from Fremantel Prison. He based a book on those events called Moondyne. His character Moondyne Joe hides in a depression of collapsed limestone called a karst or a sinkhole which is a real place now named Moondyne Caves.

The later part of the verse contains clues to the poem The Landlords Tale by Longfellow which contains the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. In that story he sneaks past the British warship Somerset. Just across the Mass. Turnpike from the JBO memorial is the Somerset Hotel which has a section of the Charlesgate park in front of it. There are two circular depressions (just like the description of Moondyne Caves) lined with brick and a green light tower.

The rest of the puzzle requires understanding the meaning behind 'All the letters / are here to see' and using the illustration to line up the right pieces.
Click to expand...

There are Somerset condos there, but I'm failing to see the green tower of light. The depressions are also CLOSE but not close enough to the painting, in my opinion. All other depictions of real life objects have been almost photographic in their detail.

From the park you also can't see any of the green roof from the Condo, not that I find it a very convincing "green tower of light."
 
xieish, thanks for chiming in. You raise some good points. I find it difficult to argue to any great extent, but I feel it's important to respond to you're questions. I don't think of any roof as a "green tower of light". There was a time when I did, but now I think that line in verse should be taken at face value; there is actually a green colored metal light pole with a box shaped base and some lights attached to the top right next to the sidewalk near the depressions. The fact that they are close but not exact raises a conservative argument which assumes all the locations follow the exactness depicted in either the Chicago or Cleveland solutions. It is yet to be proven that the remaining locations follow that pattern. It can be we are in for a radical departure from that norm and the exactness we desire is transformed into something only similar in visual artistry and more precisely determined in other ways.

In this location, the precision of being able to stand in a spot and see letters of CITGO and the SS on the gates of the Somerset is where I think the verse takes us. I think there's a "homer" sort of reference going on where we may stand at a "base" assuming the stance of a baseball player aiming a swing at a white sphere in the direction of CITGO. Homer was a writer of epic poetry in Ancient Greece. I find there's something poetic in applying a reference to him given this verse begins with mentions of Thucydides and Xenophon.

Eric
 
Kalroe said:
xieish, thanks for chiming in. You raise some good points. I find it difficult to argue to any great extent, but I feel it's important to respond to you're questions. I don't think of any roof as a "green tower of light". There was a time when I did, but now I think that line in verse should be taken at face value; there is actually a green colored metal light pole with a box shaped base and some lights attached to the top right next to the sidewalk near the depressions. The fact that they are close but not exact raises a conservative argument which assumes all the locations follow the exactness depicted in either the Chicago or Cleveland solutions. It is yet to be proven that the remaining locations follow that pattern. It can be we are in for a radical departure from that norm and the exactness we desire is transformed into something only similar in visual artistry and more precisely determined in other ways.

In this location, the precision of being able to stand in a spot and see letters of CITGO and the SS on the gates of the Somerset is where I think the verse takes us. I think there's a "homer" sort of reference going on where we may stand at a "base" assuming the stance of a baseball player aiming a swing at a white sphere in the direction of CITGO. Homer was a writer of epic poetry in Ancient Greece. I find there's something poetic in applying a reference to him given this verse begins with mentions of Thucydides and Xenophon.

Eric
Click to expand...

I've actually started to come around on this location again for a few reasons, and will be physically checking it out as soon as possible (it's currently raining out, or I'd be there now - I have off today).

The problem I'm having with it is the beginning of the verse. This location is 6-7 (depending how you count) blocks away from the BPL, and over one as well.

I really feel like "Colosseum with Metal Walls" refers to Harvard Stadium, but I haven't been able to match too much imagery there either, though it's a big area.

If you want to stick with it being Fenway, Charlesgate Park is near Ipswitch, which runs uninterrupted past Fenway Park, as does the Pike right there, both of which run right up against Fenway.

Further down, the actual building The Charlesgate has actual green towers of lit windows, though I also like your interpretation of the green lightpole.

However, one thing that's come to light - the author cryptically seemed to confirm that there is a cask in St. Louis. One of the seemingly "unclaimed" images appears to have been visually matched to something in Montreal (with the again almost photo-realistic reproduction), which casts serious doubt on this one being in Boston.

Also, I don't know how good your copy of the image is, but here is a better one (for sure, it's a new scan): http://www.flickr.com/photos/46823115@N02/8965260966/sizes/k/
 
I'm aware of the "st.louid" confirmation from the author. I understand he was being cryptic and I've doubted from the start that it was to do with the City of St. Louis without first determining there were no alternatives. I have a solution prospect that includes the St. Louis idea not relating to that city. A contact of mine has probed the spot and succeeded in finding an object located at 2.75 feet depth. I don't know if she's performed the dig yet, but she has a permit from the city. This St. Louis doesn't have to do with Boston.

My ideas in general have been refined to consider an organized effort to guide us to a location based on notable points of interest that have visual precision, by precision I mean a peak or a top or a pole that allows one to pinpoint a location in relation to the minimum necessary points given the situation. Say you have four points of interest that make a nice square, then it would be easy to find the spot in the center from drawing intersecting lines from the corners. A simpler idea might be to have three points where two points make a line and the third point indicates a spot on the line. Suppose you have a picket fence and only two points of interest, then the best spot to consider is where the two points intersect with the fence, and then a matter of which side of the fence to dig on. Protraction is another method where you have a point guided through something acting as a crosshair to a spot. I found this worked at a playground where I stood at a water fountain and looked through the makeshift aperture created by the stair slide structure. It pointed to a specific spot of sand a couple feet away from the merry-go-round.

Today is a good day, I actually solved a real treasure hunt. It's nothing to go on about, but it was unadvertised in the form of a poem written on just one piece of paper sitting on a table at an empty coffee shop. I was the first customer of the day. I saw it and it was immediately clear to me that it meant business. I had to leave the coffee shop and follow a path based on where the sunrise is in December and I found some large lot with gravel. The riddle in the poem said to find something that smells like green paint. I found a cement blob painted red, (red paint smells the same as green paint), and I dug to find a gift card to the coffee house. LOL. I'll tell you it took me awhile and it was a fun experience to get in touch with how hard our own minds make problems that are actually much easier than perceived. It didn't help that there were natural red herrings. I read that I needed to find a rock that was made by man and I came across a huge encyclopedia of ROCK music sitting on a table at the other end of the coffee house. I was stuck looking through the index for bands like Green Day. All that was just ME making unintended things fit. I see this process happening a lot with the Secret.

Now Boston, you like the Harvard Stadium as a focus. I'd be okay with that if you could show how it makes a good marker for a point reference. Either it helps guide us to a general area where details on how to locate follow or it IS the detail needed to locate.

I've gone to extremes to link everthing possible to discrete points of interest. The citgo letters and triangular shaped icon makes a good point reference at any distance. The green light post makes a good point reference. The circle makes a good point reference by facing it's center just as the woman in the illustration stands in the middle of it's arc. The double S's on the Somerset Building's gate makes a good point reference. There was a metal walled box (for what purpose I do not know) just next to the globe light post inside the fenced area near the north corner of that section of Charlesgate. I think the square-cornered shapes on the bottom of the illustration might have been the top of that box structure.

This is a far out verse. The strangest part to make sense is the Thucydides and Xenophon bit. I researched enough to determine Thucydides was in exile from Athens and lived north on his property in Thrace. Xenophon lived in Athens. Perhaps Th[e]race is the Marathon which goes along Commonwealth. "Those who pass the Colosseum," would be those running the marathon like Pheidippides did in ancient Greece.

All the while the Boston pairing has one foot in Greece, it has it's other foot firmly in Ireland. I build on the relation of the theme of exhile and Ireland by considering John Boyle O'Reilly who was exiled to Fremantle Prison where he escaped (see Moondyne). I also consider the length of a city block of 200m as being the unit for the five steps in his direction. From the Library, travelling 1000m on Boylston takes us to the John Boyle O'Reilly statue.

My theory on why Preiss hangs the word "if" at the end of the first line is because that was the name of the prison where Edward Dantes of the Count of Monte Cristo was exiled, the Chateau d'IF.

Parts of the image and parts of the verse echo the contrast of freedom and prison, exile and escape (running).

...maybe I'm just making this harder than it needs to be but I'd be very interested in knowing what someone thinks when they stand at that small area where view of the Citgo sign is limited and standing at just the right spot where you see all it's letters narrows it down to a small area of ground.
 
This probably won't make any sense to anyone.



Line 1: Lane, the name of the first governor of the Oregon Territory, narrows things down a little.

Line 2: Highway No. 2, now known as sections of Interstate 84 and the Historic Columbia River Highway, Exit 22 at Corbett. Take the turn and follow the road up to the high cliff vista that looks over the river gorge and the Crown Point Vista House. There you'll see a large boulder in a ring of stones. The significance is written on the interpretive marker about two men who built America's first scenic highway in order to preserve the beauty of the area while incorporating accessibility in transportation. It was known at the time as the Good Roads Movement. This site is dedicated to the Portland Women's Forum and was once the home of the Chanticleer Inn until it burned down.

Line 3: the arc of lights that marks the hairpin curve around the Crown Point Vista House which is a major focal point of the view from the Portland Women's Forum site.

Some of the lines are perfectly clear from reading the interpretive markers and the plaques. The options available in the panaramic view are easily picked out to match what is in the illustration. The hard part is figuring out what is meant by "wingless bird ascending" and where is the "white stone" located.

The wingless bird is a nod to current events. On May 18th, 1980, the erruption of Mt. St. Helens sent a huge plume of ash into the sky. An ascending plume having no wings but being a word that is also used to refer to the feathers of a bird.

There is no stone that is white. The white fencing might be considered, but I think it wasn't there in 1980. The thematic relevance of the reference to the volcanic erruption of Mt. St. Helens and the idea that the explorer is planting a flag at the top of a rock is sending us a hint to figure a mountain peak into the location effort. There isn't a good angle of view on a mountain that makes sense. The closest mountain is Mt. Hood and it's to the southeast. Using a map it's possible to take an exact compass angle and apply it to the setting depicted in the illustration. Call that position A. I use a yellow arrow to show how to line up the large boulder in the center with the tree in the background. Next, use the compass reading to find the white stone, it lines up in the direction of Mt. Hood, position B. Take a few steps back, south of the monument and notice that the stone at position B relative to the boulder closely resembles the position of the white glacier in the illustration relative to the main rock formation. The glacier itself looks like the central boulder btw. Go to the west side of the stone at position B and begin counting off paces in the direction of the large tree. You'll stop at a spot just next to the tree. I think a good probing on that spot should connect with a casque.
 
Kalroe said:
I'm aware of the "st.louid" confirmation from the author. I understand he was being cryptic and I've doubted from the start that it was to do with the City of St. Louis without first determining there were no alternatives. I have a solution prospect that includes the St. Louis idea not relating to that city. A contact of mine has probed the spot and succeeded in finding an object located at 2.75 feet depth. I don't know if she's performed the dig yet, but she has a permit from the city. This St. Louis doesn't have to do with Boston.

My ideas in general have been refined to consider an organized effort to guide us to a location based on notable points of interest that have visual precision, by precision I mean a peak or a top or a pole that allows one to pinpoint a location in relation to the minimum necessary points given the situation. Say you have four points of interest that make a nice square, then it would be easy to find the spot in the center from drawing intersecting lines from the corners. A simpler idea might be to have three points where two points make a line and the third point indicates a spot on the line. Suppose you have a picket fence and only two points of interest, then the best spot to consider is where the two points intersect with the fence, and then a matter of which side of the fence to dig on. Protraction is another method where you have a point guided through something acting as a crosshair to a spot. I found this worked at a playground where I stood at a water fountain and looked through the makeshift aperture created by the stair slide structure. It pointed to a specific spot of sand a couple feet away from the merry-go-round.

Today is a good day, I actually solved a real treasure hunt. It's nothing to go on about, but it was unadvertised in the form of a poem written on just one piece of paper sitting on a table at an empty coffee shop. I was the first customer of the day. I saw it and it was immediately clear to me that it meant business. I had to leave the coffee shop and follow a path based on where the sunrise is in December and I found some large lot with gravel. The riddle in the poem said to find something that smells like green paint. I found a cement blob painted red, (red paint smells the same as green paint), and I dug to find a gift card to the coffee house. LOL. I'll tell you it took me awhile and it was a fun experience to get in touch with how hard our own minds make problems that are actually much easier than perceived. It didn't help that there were natural red herrings. I read that I needed to find a rock that was made by man and I came across a huge encyclopedia of ROCK music sitting on a table at the other end of the coffee house. I was stuck looking through the index for bands like Green Day. All that was just ME making unintended things fit. I see this process happening a lot with the Secret.

Now Boston, you like the Harvard Stadium as a focus. I'd be okay with that if you could show how it makes a good marker for a point reference. Either it helps guide us to a general area where details on how to locate follow or it IS the detail needed to locate.

I've gone to extremes to link everthing possible to discrete points of interest. The citgo letters and triangular shaped icon makes a good point reference at any distance. The green light post makes a good point reference. The circle makes a good point reference by facing it's center just as the woman in the illustration stands in the middle of it's arc. The double S's on the Somerset Building's gate makes a good point reference. There was a metal walled box (for what purpose I do not know) just next to the globe light post inside the fenced area near the north corner of that section of Charlesgate. I think the square-cornered shapes on the bottom of the illustration might have been the top of that box structure.

This is a far out verse. The strangest part to make sense is the Thucydides and Xenophon bit. I researched enough to determine Thucydides was in exile from Athens and lived north on his property in Thrace. Xenophon lived in Athens. Perhaps Th[e]race is the Marathon which goes along Commonwealth. "Those who pass the Colosseum," would be those running the marathon like Pheidippides did in ancient Greece.

All the while the Boston pairing has one foot in Greece, it has it's other foot firmly in Ireland. I build on the relation of the theme of exhile and Ireland by considering John Boyle O'Reilly who was exiled to Fremantle Prison where he escaped (see Moondyne). I also consider the length of a city block of 200m as being the unit for the five steps in his direction. From the Library, travelling 1000m on Boylston takes us to the John Boyle O'Reilly statue.

My theory on why Preiss hangs the word "if" at the end of the first line is because that was the name of the prison where Edward Dantes of the Count of Monte Cristo was exiled, the Chateau d'IF.

Parts of the image and parts of the verse echo the contrast of freedom and prison, exile and escape (running).

...maybe I'm just making this harder than it needs to be but I'd be very interested in knowing what someone thinks when they stand at that small area where view of the Citgo sign is limited and standing at just the right spot where you see all it's letters narrows it down to a small area of ground.
Click to expand...

I don't want to know your St Louis solution (it's yours/your colleague's), but I have to ask what picture/verse you are using for that, because there are very few unmatched ones at this point.

I went to Charlesgate today. I went all over the city today, but I ended the day at Charlesgate, having walked the complete Comm Ave mall from the Public Gardens. There's nothing there. I don't mean for sure, like I dug it up, but the imagery just doesn't really work once you're there.

The depressions in the ground aren't actually the same shape as the globe/arch in the painting. You cannot at all see the Citgo sign from the depressions. You need to go to a complete other section to see it. The rooftops across the street do not actually look like the Pandora's Box in the painting. The S on The Somerset does not at all match the backwards S on her apron.

Basically, the images just don't match up. There's not a single tile that looks like it matches any of the ones standing behind her for blocks. I examined every statue along the way, we walked over each section of the park. I see where, possibly, you could place it and make it work for the final pieces of the poem, but none of the images actually line up.

There are actually 4 lamp posts right there, not 3.

If it is in Charlesgate it's not near the depressions. Truthfully, I see absolutely nothing pointing Painting 11 to Boston, and I can find other libraries that have Xenophon's name engraved on them.

I've tried to match the bird. Someone on another forum checked out Cambridge Common today and reports no visual matches. The pig on the Harvard gate doesn't match the potential pig's head in the bird claw. Just nothing really seems to point at Boston. I still have a passing interest in some areas around Harvard/the stadium, but that's mostly because I found a document referring to Harvard Stadium as a Colosseum with metal walls and wanting it to be true.

edit: Seriously if this isn't the St Louis one, you have to be considering NYC or Houston - every other image has been established with direct visual imagery or visible coordinates.
 
You are making excellent observations and I can't argue that some or all things just don't match a high visual standard. There's much to be discussed.

I put verse two to image seven for New Orleans.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

scoundrel
Last Four Bottle Hunts
Replies
9
Views
189
LovestheShiny!
L
aviationgale
Been thrifting but not posting....
Replies
7
Views
126
GTimberMT
GTimberMT
scoundrel
What Would Have Been My Second Best Bottle Find.
Replies
0
Views
79
scoundrel
scoundrel
wolf-n-wa
Coin star done me good today
Replies
8
Views
320
hoser
hoser
C
The History Channel
2 3
Replies
52
Views
1K
treasureguy56
T
Back
Top Bottom