The Lost Galleon of the California Desert

n the morning of November 12, 1870, Charley Clusker set out from San Bernardino, California, looking for a 255-year-old Spanish ship loaded with pearls and other treasures. A veteran of the Mexican-American War, Clusker, then 60, was a lifelong adventurer who had come to California years earlier in search of gold. According to newspaper reports, he discovered a Spanish galleon in the Colorado Desert, in the southeastern corner of the state, but had been