forrest, do you have a book?  what do you think of it being a “passing fancy”? those shoes at the top of the page stand out to me.. and dang, that love sculpture is in the picture, what can it mean? and that bottle of perrier? the shape on the bottom of the word perrier looks like the shape of the flower beds in
lee
circle
also.
sorry, i only have gaps of moments to research, that’s why malted always catches my slackness.
also, wanted to add that on p. 108, 1st column, paragraph 5, last line: “and wearing scarlet, knee-length shorts”

cw0909

this is the way i was reading the verse, which is prob the wrong way to read it

cw0909

as im runnig out of things in park besides the boy to make it work
the only other thing i can think of is, maybe something has blown away or replaced
for a count of 15 rows and 21 end to end

If you’re talking about how you broke the verse into sections, I read it mostly the same way,  with some qualifications:
I think From End To End should be paired with Only Three Stand Watch, but lines 2-4 are probably in one group, and they are given context by line 1.
I think Gnomes Admire, Fays Delight probably gives context to the next 2 lines (and so I’d group them together too.)
I couldn’t find anything that seemed possible to match the digging instructions, even if you assume some trees might be gone. Unfortunately, there are too many trees instead of too few. If you have any other ideas and need pictures, let me know and I’ll try to remember to take a pic next time I swing by.

forrest, do you have a book?  what do you think of it being a “passing fancy”? those shoes at the top of the page stand out to me.. and dang, that love sculpture is in the picture, what can it mean? and that bottle of perrier? the shape on the bottom of the word perrier looks like the shape of the flower beds in lee circle also.
sorry, i only have gaps of moments to research, that’s why malted always catches my slackness.
also, wanted to add that on p. 108, 1st column, paragraph 5, last line: “and wearing scarlet, knee-length shorts”

slappybuns

forrest, do you have a book?  what do you think of it being a “passing fancy”? those shoes at the top of the page stand out to me.. and dang, that love sculpture is in the picture, what can it mean? and that bottle of perrier? the shape on the bottom of the word perrier looks like the shape of the flower beds in
lee
circle
also.
sorry, i only have gaps of moments to research, that’s why malted always catches my slackness.

You’re talking about a copy of The Secret? Yes, I have one, but not with me…I’ll check it out as soon as I can.
Thanks.

slappybuns

forrest, do you have a book?  what do you think of it being a “passing fancy”? those shoes at the top of the page stand out to me.. and dang, that love sculpture is in the picture, what can it mean? and that bottle of perrier? the shape on the bottom of the word perrier looks like the shape of the flower beds in lee circle also.
sorry, i only have gaps of moments to research, that’s why malted always catches my slackness.

You’re talking about a copy of The Secret? Yes, I have one, but not with me…I’ll check it out as soon as I can.
Thanks.

slappybuns

forrest, i don’t guess you could dig around
lee
circle
, huh?  but looking at
lee
circle
from google earth, it looks like 15 rows to either edge, and it’s round and looks like our clock, lol…………just partially kidding.

Although
Lee
Circle
looks like it would be a very intriguing place to {try} to bury or dig up a casque, I don’t think it could be possible.  The reason being (1) the small size of the area and (2) the presence of constant traffic ALL around the area.

slappybuns

forrest, i don’t guess you could dig around lee circle, huh?  but looking at lee circle from google earth, it looks like 15 rows to either edge, and it’s round and looks like our clock, lol…………just partially kidding.

Although Lee Circle looks like it would be a very intriguing place to {try} to bury or dig up a casque, I don’t think it could be possible.  The reason being (1) the small size of the area and (2) the presence of constant traffic ALL around the area.

and these lines not fitting that area
Only three stand watch
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours

Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Only three stand watch
I find it interesting that the phrase “From end to end” even exists in the Verse.  Since it is there, it must have some significance.  For example, if we were just talking about a brick wall 15 rows high and 21 bricks across, then there would be no need for the phrase “From end to end.”  It must be referring to something that we are not figuring out at the moment.  It cannot simply be that we are looking for something which is located in the middle of 21 things.  I think “From end to end” could be a big clue as to where the treasure is hidden.
Of course, we could be talking about the 15 by 21 brick wall if “From end to end” modified the phrase “Only 3 stand watch,” but that does not seem to fit as well as “In the middle of 21 from end to end.”  Think people, think.  What could “end to end” refer to?   :group)

Ok so how about
start at Preservation hall head down Bourbon St.
pass the statue of the boy at Lafayette Square
head down to
lee
circle
take a left.
Go a few blocks to
At the place where jewels abound  North and South Diamond St.
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
There is a median between N and South Diamond St.  Possibly it has 21 trees on it? or maybe it did at one time?
Only three stand watch
currently about 1/2 down the median are three palm trees ,they look small but maybe they are replanted…
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours  Sounds like a park to me…..
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter  near the old site of the ST Charles….
Their heads for a night!
Gnomes admire
Fays delight
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.  = Just down the river from the ferry terminal – where better for Gnomes and Fairys to meet at a ferry terminal…..

Ok so how about
start at Preservation hall head down Bourbon St.
pass the statue of the boy at Lafayette Square
head down to lee circle take a left.
Go a few blocks to
At the place where jewels abound  North and South Diamond St.
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
There is a median between N and South Diamond St.  Possibly it has 21 trees on it? or maybe it did at one time?
Only three stand watch
currently about 1/2 down the median are three palm trees ,they look small but maybe they are replanted…
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours  Sounds like a park to me…..
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter  near the old site of the ST Charles….
Their heads for a night!
Gnomes admire
Fays delight
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.  = Just down the river from the ferry terminal – where better for Gnomes and Fairys to meet at a ferry terminal…..

maltedfalcon

Just down the river from the ferry terminal – where better for Gnomes and Fairys to meet at a ferry terminal…..

Classic.  Is there a large or semi large park located at your end location falcon?

What a great find! I didn’t know about that article until now. I post it here so all can see:

From page 1…

Squid, you’re an asset to this hunt. I believe this V must point to New Orleans – it’s too perfect not to.
As for Lafayette Park not working because of its location, remember that the Chicago site is just a block away from downtown. Suitably disguised in a roadworker’s uniform and accompanied by a couple of orange pylons, anyone can bury anything anywhere.
As for the obscurity of the quote… if he made it too obvious people would have recognized it immediately and solved his puzzle within a week of publication. The Edwin and Edwina thing is even more obscure, since it probably appears in
Abroad
and nowhere else other than ancient newspaper clippings and genealogy books, yet it’s clear that he meant it to be a tie-in to Charleston. The obscure quote from Melville’s most obscure book leads to Houston’s Hermann Park. So I don’t think he’s above using incredibly obscure quotes. Devilish hard.
I have a feeling that the “sound of friends” bit may be from another as-yet-undiscovered obscure quote.

The Giant Squid

‘As the sound of friends fills the afternoon hours’ – Sorry, this verse feels worthless. Judging from Chicago and Cleveland, he’s provides LOTS of valuable info in his verses, and no fluff. This is fluff, basically, there are billions of spots across North America where friends meet in the afternoon.
3) ‘As the sound of friends fills the afternoon hours’? Sorry, that’s a throwaway line. This is the shortest verse out of all of them, and I don’t believe that the author would waste ink on something that didn’t more specifically put you in the right area.

Mr. Squid, I agree that every single line in these verses has a purpose for being there.  That is exactly why you should not ignore it just because you cannot figure out the meaning on the first go-round.
It could be a quote from a book, but I did a Google book search using different variations, and found nothing.  I think the words “friends” and “afternoon” are the most significant.  Where would there be a lot of people in the afternoon, but not in the morning?  The football game suggested by others is an idea, but a football game occurs only once per week.  The quote seems to imply that it happens more often than that, probably most days.  Since you live in New Orleans, perhaps you know of other places where this may occur.  I immediately thought of “tea time” like they have in England, or a siesta in Mexico.  Is there anything like that in New Orleans where that would occur?
Also, why does it say “friends” as opposed to just “people”?  There must be a reason for that too.  Walk around the town, and see if anything occurs to you.  And don’t get frustrated!

Egbert

Also, why does it say “friends” as opposed to just “people”?  There must be a reason for that too.

I don’t suppose there’s a Quaker meeting house near the park…

I was doing some looking around in Lafayette Square with Squid, and I’ve uploaded my pictures to flickr.
http://flickr.com/photos/chartres

The Giant Squid

I visited City Park (for Storyland), and am not impressed there. I visited Armstrong Park (before getting run off by the fuzz), and feel a LOT more positive about that location.

Hi Giant Squid,
I realy like your research, included Sarmiento’s quote (Your find has inspired me to search on this Verse for first time), but you have more points against LaFayette Square (6) than pros (2 solid, 2 ‘could’ and 2 ‘possibly’)… so, why are you more
“impressed
” on this spot than City park???
From my thought, City Park have more match item (verse and pic) than Lafayette… (see image 7 thread…)

The Giant Squid

I visited City Park (for Storyland), and am not impressed there. I visited Armstrong Park (before getting run off by the fuzz), and feel a LOT more positive about that location.

I really like Storyland for this one, Squid. The gigantic narcissus there is a good match to the clock’s flowers in P7. Pretty distinctive.

FB and Egbert, you’ve both inspired me to keep making this verse fit.
Let’s do a rundown of the city parks quickly.
Jackson Square – The most iconic park in the city. Dead in the middle of hundreds (or thousands at some times) of tourists. Locked at night (and, IIRC, has been locked at night for several decades), strangely, verse 7 is a better match for this park than verse 2.
Washington Square Park – In the Marigny. There is basically nothing in this park. Some trees, some slides, some bums, no more. No real ready visual cues. Around the same size as Jackson Square, if not smaller.
Armstrong Park – Just north of the French Quarter. My strongest gut  feeling is for this park. It’s large enough to poke around/dig while unnoticed.
1. The gate reminds me of the top of the clock:
http://flickr.com/photos/lomola/19171360/
2. The ball mask/Armstrong statue connection is strong:
http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=40339777&size=l
3. The word ‘Preservation’, of course refers to Preservation Hall, which exists to keep Jazz alive. If one stands at the front door to Preservation Hall, you can see (on a day with no people around)
the western bounds of Armstrong Park. Incidentally, Armstrong Park is the National Park Service’s sanctuary to Jazz music.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&g … =addr&om=1
4. And, I know this might feel like ‘reaching’, but the large hand on the clock reminds me of the ‘three-bulb’ streetlamps in the area. In most part of the city, the lamps have only a single light, Along St. Charles, the lamps have 2 lights, and along Rampart and near Canal/Elks Place, the lights have three bulbs. They also exist in the park, as well. Until I find a better pic:
http://flickr.com/photos/92702940@N00/742310834/
Riverfront Park/Moonwalk – Haven’t given this too much thought.
Lafayette Square – The verse matches. The image doesn’t. That’s all I can say. btregre’s photos should help. And, if it is in the garden at the F. Edward Hebert Federal Building, I’m not digging it up.
City Park – Also gives me a pretty good vibe. It’s huge, and most of it can be quickly ruled out, as it’s all golf courses. The flower/Storyland link is okay, but not quite enough.
Storyland is also small, and fenced in. I’m sure I could beg the attendant into letting me dig out there.
Audubon Park – Incidentally, St. Charles Avenue is this park’s northern bound. Audubon is also huge (but largely golf course). Not a lot of visual icons, however. Only one statue in the whole park, IIRC.
Harlequin/Tourmaline parks – Nope. Not there. They’re both empty lots in the middle of mid-century modern ranches that were all devastated by the flooding. And, there wasn’t anything on those lots, ever.
It’s as if I can make the images fit Armstrong, but the verses fit Lafayette. I brought my team out (well, me, btregre, and 4 other guys who were tagging along before we went drinking on Frenchmen St.), and we were all joking about that awful Jim Carrey movie, 23. In the film, Carrey’s obsessively pattern-matching 23 to everything he can find, including instances of the number 32.
I’ve been feeling that way about my 21 and my 15.

Squid – what are your feelings on this piece of property, before it was redone?
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8≪=30.027779,-90.10146&spn=0.002048,0.004211&t=k&z=19&om=1

forest_blight

Squid – what are your feelings on this piece of property, before it was redone?
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8≪=30.027779,-90.10146&spn=0.002048,0.004211&t=k&z=19&om=1

You can see a mask like the one in P7 in every small block with tiled emblems (at Mardi Gras Fountain)
(I saw this in a link you give us here:
http://www.quest4treasure.co.uk/forum/http://test.quest4treasure.co.uk/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=60180#p60180
)
This is why I like the mask as a theme (Mardi gras stuff) more than pointing us to Armstrong Park…

The Giant Squid

FB and Egbert, you’ve both inspired me to keep making this verse fit.
Let’s do a rundown of the city parks quickly…
…
City Park – Also gives me a pretty good vibe. It’s huge, and most of it can be quickly ruled out, as it’s all golf courses. The flower/Storyland link is okay, but not quite enough.
Storyland is also small, and fenced in. I’m sure I could beg the attendant into letting me dig out there.
…

Giant Squid, When you go to City Park there is another spot that must to see (following Trohn’s theories
http://www.quest4treasure.co.uk/forum/http://test.quest4treasure.co.uk/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=66096#p66096
)
I mean the gardens (exactly ‘specimen gardens’), behind conservatory, because this is a close match with top clock’s shape and there is the jewel represented. I like this spot because is an apart place and this have a semi-wall hiding from sighting…
…and please, take pics
The conservatory is a recent edification… so it’s useful to know what kind of building/fountaing/structure stand before in this place… maybe “
Only three stand watch
” stuff will be clear.
(I have to say english isn’t my first language, so forgive my odd english)

forest_blight

I don’t suppose there’s a Quaker meeting house near the park…

Actually, there is.
http://fmno.quaker.org/directions.htm
I thought about this same connection. However–Quakers are known for almost SILENT worship–therefore, the ‘sound’ of friends  would be pretty much nonexistent.  But what about something named after a Quaker? Or something that had Quaker music featured prominently?
He says the
sound of friends fills the afternoon hours
.  If y9u interpret friends as Quakers, then what could they be doing during the afternoon?  Most Quaker worship is held at the same time as other church services–plus/minus 10 AM–so ‘filling’ the afternoon hours would be a stretch for a meeting house. But it might not for a concert–or a
school
.
Which brings up another possibility for the “friends”–
http://www.friendsofmusic.org/
Note that all their concerts are held at Tulane University. Right in the vicinity.
Of course there’s even one more possibility:
http://www.friendsoflafayette.org/data/about.html 
though this one is more tenuous.

shecrab

Of course there’s even one more possibility:
http://www.friendsoflafayette.org/data/about.html
though this one is more tenuous.

…and…
http://www.friendsofcitypark.com/
(Friends of City Park was established in 1978… and you know what was doing BP around this date)

i don’t recall, and can’t really find the answer…has the West end been explored? The area where Harlequin Park, Tiara Park, Tourmaline Park and Peridot park are? Also…West end Park, Breakwater Park and Lakeshore park?  (Jewels abound…all the streets are named after jewels)
Also–the ‘fifteen rows down to the ground
must
be a wall. A block or stone wall with stones large enough so that it would be practical to find the “middle” of 21. I think the 21st block/stone from the end, in the bottom row is where it’s telling us to dig. There really aren’t any other instructions in the verse–only to place the park, or the garden, where the casque might have been buried.
Anyway, “Jewels abound” in the West end. So, apparently, do parks. There is a harlequin in the image, and there is a Harlequin Park in the West End. The clock has an arch, and the streets around Tiara and Peridot Parks in the West End are arched like this.
ck

Taking a look at Jackson Square a little bit as best I can using Flickr and Google.  The Jackson Monument in the center has him on a horse whose head resembles the horse head in the checkerboard pattern of P7 IMO.  A picture in the correct perspective will show its mouth open and ears pointed much the same as the image.  Also in the monument is the inscription “‘The Union must and shall be
preserved
.”
Jackson square is right in front of St. Louis Cathedral, where you could say three stand watch:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toshio1/1017320357/
The floor of the Cathedral has a checkerboard pattern:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quirk_phot … 541006517/
It was posted somewhere at some point in time that Mr. Priess had said that there was a casque in/at/around St. Louis.  I can’t help but think maybe he didn’t really mean St. Louis the city, but instead a park or in/around an area that bears the name.  Several of the cities we have focused on have cathedrals or parks named St. Louis.
People often get together to play music on the benches just outside the entrance to the park:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beccab/27676331/
(not the best pic, but its what I had handy when I got ready to post)
Okay, this last picture came up in some of my searches with the tags Jackson, Square, New, Orleans but I can’t find anything else to confirm that it really is part of Jackson Square.  Maybe someone in NO can confirm this location?  If it is, then it could be our 15 rows down to the ground:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monty-china/511707695/
Oh, and one more thing.  I found a picture or two that were dated pre-1981.  It looks like the park might have had a different look/layout then than it does now.
I apologize if any of this has already been posted.

Unknown

Unknown:
Okay, this last picture came up in some of my searches with the tags Jackson, Square, New, Orleans but I can’t find anything else to confirm that it really is part of Jackson Square.  Maybe someone in NO can confirm this location?  If it is, then it could be our 15 rows down to the ground:

Yes, this is Jackson Square. Or rather, just across Decatur St. from it. There do seem to be 15 steps, don’t there?

boogieman

Oxymoron and a little more oxymoron.

It is what it is.  I can not show you what is no longer there.
I have all of the major confirmers in one or two photos.
I do not have the secondary ones.
I have been over this solve a thousand times – both the
image and the verse are the minimalist of the tweleve.
I do not want it to be there (as I have documented the
demolition of the grounds) but that us where the clues
tell us.
Despite good efforts, I have seen nothing close to a complete
solve on this one –

Trohn, don’t u dare apologize for believing the casque is somewhere. You have done ur investigation and come up with a solution ur happy with.
Is there anyway to go and try to dig it up?  Don’t underestimate the power of buried treasure to get people to let you dig!!
wilhouse

Trohn

I have many
confirmers
to this, but
not fully
one hundred percent.

Oxymoron and a little more oxymoron.

My offer to eat my hat still stands, Trohn – go dig that casque up!

Wilhouse, Forrest, BM-
If you knew a bit better, you would know
that ‘apology’ and ‘guilt’ are not part of
my vocabulary.
The burial site here has been compromised twice-
once in 1984 and then again in 2003.
The greatest thing about this site is tradition
so once I trek over to the musuem and its archives
I will be able to get a greater quantiity of detailed photos
of the one out of the way spot that is described.
I welcome anyone to come up with a comprable solution
or comeup with anyother pairing of this verse and image.
Without those, I must rely on the shots of the demolition
of the gift shop/junior jockey club/eclipse suite to estimate
that the new buildings foundation had to be laid more than three
feet deep.
Unlike Houston though, the demolition does not mean I can not
re engineer where it was because rows ’15’ have not moved
so I still have a concrete longitude to orientate from.
‘Three stand to watch’ are gone (a colorful mural of three horse heads)
’21’ is gone ( a painted number on the wall of the mural)
All this just inside gate 15, on the side of the former gift shop.
Under neath stairs leading up to the eclipse and jockey club suites.
It  was hidden from view (barely) but in the middle of action.
The building that fronted this (as most other buildings here) have name plates
of past champions along upper facade.  Who knows which horse
names were here.
As Nixon used to say.. “Don’t worry about me.  I’ll be fine”
I am just emphasizing this solution for some of the newbies
so if they want to buy into this, they would not spend their
time tracking their other leads.

Do you still think Louisville is image9 and v2?  If so, do you think JJP just painted that legeater to be something other than the lightpost?  I’ll give the verse up, because it’s not solved otherwise, but the image cannot be Louisville, unless you have the legeater there as well.

frishkie

I’m thinking Canada (a sovereign people), specifically Quebec (want to be a sovereign people).

Unknown

Unknown:
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!

I think it is fascinating that this thread began more that two years ago with mention of Quebec, while we are currently researching Montreal.
My searches in Montreal led me to Ice Palaces of 1884 and 1885.
Although the Ice Palaces lasted all winter, metaphorically they could have melted the next morning.

I think it’s fascinating how we’ve found such solid links to both Montreal and St. Louis. The 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis involved the construction of several huge buildings – literally called Palaces – intended to be temporary (indeed, most were demolished as soon as the fair was over) in the same park as the Vandeventer Gate and the lamppost with three lions who “stand watch.” Supporting evidence included the Blues note, the latitude + longitude, the checker pattern (for the Checkerdome), the fountain at the Muny, the Gateway Arch over our guy’s eye, and a Dutch connection (Vandeventer).
But Montreal has that darned legeater, and I can’t get past that. The Ice Palace idea is good, too. Side note: Quebec City regularly builds Ice Palaces in winter, even now (at the Porte Saint-Louis, no less!!). That may be important given that BP uses the present tense in V2.

I suppose the next course of action is to find a legeater in Quebec City.  I may want to start with the architects of the Mount Stephens Club and see if anything clicks over there.  A search for buildings erected around the same time might lead to something.
I’m getting the feeling that there won’t be any legeater in St Louis.

Does this look like the flower in image9? Mount stephens Club.
Edit; should have put this in the image9 thread.

That’s pretty funny, boogie. I actually looked at that exact same picture this morning, thought about how the flower might be the calendula, then rejected the idea. I don’t think they match is close enough.
I think we should find a backhoe and level the Mount Stephen Club. But where will we ever find a backhoe?

FB, do you have a close-up picture of that column on file?
edit: still laughing bout backoe

What column?

shecrab (and all)– I am here in St. Louis, and I have puzzled this much.  I have frequently hunted in Forest Park and a couple of times in Lafayette Park.  I can check out anything y’all want.  Let’s go for it!

johann

shecrab (and all)– I am here in St. Louis, and I have puzzled this much.  I have frequently hunted in Forest Park and a couple of times in Lafayette Park.  I can check out anything
y’all
want.  Let’s go for it!

Although I have sincere doubts about St. Louis having any casques, and I’m sure it’s a fine town (as I believe any town founded by the French can’t be all that bad), I do enjoy the fact that St. Louis is in “y’all” country.  I’ll have to make a trip there, in good time.

very good 21 reference shecrab.  That was an obvious one that i just flat out overlooked.  The whole blackjack, ace, king, queen, jack thing might turn out the be of significance with this one.

Wow, Shecab!  You may have just solved a big mystery. The St. Louis location satisfies all of the clues that point to a New Orleans-type place and goes along with the people that say that New Orleans is too obvious.  This is a great find and definately worth exploring. I wish I could help you out but I don’t forsee visiting St. Louis. Is there anyone in Missouri?
Shannon

I wish I could go! I am in Ohio, so it’s a bit of a trip for me, too. I think this location certainly deserves more exploration–I’ve been trying to find other things that confirm it and have found a few images that I can’t reproduce for one reason or another. Either the images aren’t copyable from the websites, or they aren’t clear enough.
Blackjack Missouri has its own website! It’s a ‘burb outside St. Louis, but it’s an incorporated burb with its own mayor.
However, I have looked at several maps and “in the middle of 21” probably doesn’t mean Blackjack Missouri, the town. It may  mean 21st Street, which is one of the streets that runs perpendicular to our possible park, but “in the middle” would be somewhere away from the park, too–so I’m once again thinking as I have before, that ’21’ could be the 21st stone of a wall. There is a retaining wall around one of the other parks–Forest Park–close by. At the “jewel box” website, I saw a stone structure that has a similar appearance to the archway and clock of the image…but I couldn’t find it anywhere else and couldn’t get a high-res picture of it.
We need someone with a good camera to go there and take some recon photos!
Another interesting thing: the stars and moon in the picture: there is a
planetarium
nearby!
And the Worlds’ Fair Pavilion has an interesting structure as well.
Could be could be….
c

i still like 2fast’s comment on the football field having 21 lines, and the next line in the verse says “from end to end”, which could still be a football reference, i think.  i don’t know anything about football but i think i recall hearing the words  “tight ends”  ……………
, or the “end lines”
and remember, supposedly the way you get to the cask isn’t in order in the verse, so maybe the cask is closer to the tad gormley football field.
and then the part ” gnomes admire, fays delight the namesakes meeting, near this site” could just be “near storyland” ……….

Where Jewels Abound is an entire section of New Orleans. All the streets are named after jewels and so are two parks. This is where the Mardi Gras memorial is
So now we’re back to
this
verse, eh? I wondered what happened here. (I think we all got a bit sidetracked.)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=r … 1&t=h&z=16
Oh, and Fox…about Stonewall Jackson–he sort of
epitomizes
the south. And lots of people think Stonewall (Thomas) was Andrew–but he was actually more important than Andrew, even though Andrew became president.
About the ‘end to end’ line: I know there are ends in football, but I don’t think Preiss had it in mind that we should look between two of them–unless they were helping him bury the casque.  LOL…

I like that part of town for this, too, shecrab. But couldn’t “jewels abound” simply refer to New Orleans? I mean, it’s all about the beads down there.

slappybuns

i still like 2fast’s comment on the football field having 21 lines,  ……….

I think you mean “Eljayo” comment…
http://www.quest4treasure.co.uk/forum/h … 070#p67070

forest_blight

I like that part of town for this, too, shecrab. But couldn’t “jewels abound” simply refer to New Orleans? I mean, it’s all about the beads down there.

Yeah…I agree that it probably does just refer to NOLA. But it helps to confirm that NO has these streets like this—I don’t know another city that has an entire neighborhood of “jewel” streets—does anyone else?

Looking at Egbert’s link I thought of this match.  Not real good.  But standing in front of the Cathedral makes it look real good.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= … %26hl%3Den

Re: verse 2
« Reply #286 on: Today at 11:54:56 am »
Yeah…I agree that it probably does just refer to NOLA. But it helps to confirm that NO has these streets like this—I don’t know another city that has an entire neighborhood of “jewel” streets—does anyone else?
yes not as large, im sure theres more somewhere in u.s.a., i think its another confirmer to the right area in N. O. if this is the v for p-7
in north ridgeville ohio
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&i … _medium=ha

I think my girlfriend and I are going to come up to St. Louis on the 21st for the weekend.  We will probably prowl around in several parks and snap some shots on the ole’ digital camera.  Any places you recommend staying?

“Three” stand watch… too funny- –
http://pijournal.blogspot.com/2008/08/t … -pigs.html

http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/pic-jo … 20orleans/
Lots of nice Storyland pics.

Trohn

“And he’s off –>”
I can not comment on a solve that has no details.
If the clues fit the solve, then that is where it is.
As I said, I welcome someone to answer the questions
the verse poses and present a solve.
“The namesakes meeting near this site”
“Give me a name Senator, just one name.  This can all be over
now.  I need a name.”

-From end the end horse races usually had about 21 horses at the gates …don’t they?
-There was a race horse named “Fay’s Delight” (name sake)
http://www.pedigreequery.com/fayes+delight
-horses wear a fly cap, to keep bugs off eyes/ears. Race horses wear blinder hoods to keep them looking forward during a race, to keep them from being distracted. (Cover their heads..)

I thought this was interesting. No particular significance, just interesting.
Lafayette
Name Meaning and History:
Southern French: diminutive of
Lafaye
, a topographic name for someone living near a beech tree or beech wood, from Old French fage, variant of fou ‘beech’ (Latin fagus).

i’ve tried to count the roads from Preservation Hall to Lafayette Park, i don’t come up quite to “15” (for 15 rows downs to the ground), but i’m sure there’s some little road or two that i missed, seems pretty close.
when i look at the park on google, the henry clay statue is in the middle (of the other two statues) and in the image (in the book) the jewel is in the upper middle of the square.
henry clay’s hand is raised, like the child in the image?
still, why use the flowers  and the puffed sleeves from storyland?

Unknown

Unknown:
still, why use the flowers  and the puffed sleeves from storyland?

Who says he did?  Just because they’re similiar doesn’t mean they were used specifically. The narcissus is Decembers flower, December’s birthstone is Turquoise (the gem) and the clock says 12:00–for the 12th month. Any narcissus is going to look pretty much like that.
And any long, ruffled sleeve will also look like that. Why would anyone want to depict just a
sleeve
from Storyland, when there are so many other things that make more sense?

I don’t think the casque is in the flower beds. That’s what BP said. Page 219 under “The Treasure”, paragraph 5, (c).

The difference is that there were no flowers planted in the plot by the wall where the casque was found. It was just dirt by the wall–in back of the wall, in fact, if I am remembering correctly.

Has this verse been translated yet? I didn’t see a translation on the other thread.
Courious about the afternoon hours line.
Google produces this:
It satisfies the time after, but literally translating it into a straightforward and direct expression,” Has this been more?” What if you rephrase it directly?
Not sure if it’s a good translation or not, but got me thinking the image is of a clock and it’s talking about hours and the image has three hours missing.

Verse 2. Image 7 ideas.
At the place where jewels abound
I’m guessing it’s the dense layout of lamp posts on Basin Steet.
Fifteen rows down to the ground
The south west corner of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 has 15 rows of tombs “down to the ground”.
In the middle of twenty-one
east of those 15 rows can be found tomb #21.
From end to end
Only three stand watch
Along Basin are only three statues: Simon Bolivar, Benito Juarez, and Francisco Morazan.
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
Tourist and family visiting the cemetery.  Tombs are the palaces. “The living find comfort and are consoled by visiting the burial places of their loved ones and praying for them,” is written on the plaque at the gate entrance.
Gnomes admire
Stone tombs
Fays delight
Spirits
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.
St. Louis street / St. Louis Cemetery.  (I know it sounds too easy, but only cemetery #1 touches St. Louis street.)
Im guessing the alignment of the three statues to the southwest intersects 90 degrees with a line to the middle of the 21st tomb.  That is right in the middle of the grassy center of Basin street.  Police station nearby makes it a terrible spot to look inconspicuous.  I donno.  I suggest ninja after midnight maneuvers…

Verse 2. Image 7 ideas.
At the place where jewels abound
I’m guessing it’s the dense layout of lamp posts on Basin Steet.
Fifteen rows down to the ground
The south west corner of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 has 15 rows of tombs “down to the ground”.
In the middle of twenty-one
east of those 15 rows can be found tomb #21.
From end to end
Only three stand watch
Along Basin are only three statues: Simon Bolivar, Benito Juarez, and Francisco Morazan.
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours
Here is a
sovereign
people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
Tourist and family visiting the cemetery.  Tombs are the palaces. “The living find comfort and are consoled by visiting the burial places of their loved ones and praying for them,” is written on the plaque at the gate entrance.
Gnomes admire
Stone tombs
Fays delight
Spirits
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.
St. Louis street / St. Louis Cemetery.  (I know it sounds too easy, but only cemetery #1 touches St. Louis street.)
Im guessing the alignment of the three statues to the southwest intersects 90 degrees with a line to the middle of the 21st tomb.  That is right in the middle of the grassy center of Basin street.  Police station nearby makes it a terrible spot to look inconspicuous.  I donno.  I suggest ninja after midnight maneuvers…

Wait, you think it is here?
That is akin to going to Indy….counting some bricks, and prying one up to look under it.

At the place where jewels abound
Blake wrote that Cowper’s letters “ought to be printed in letters of Gold and ornamented with jewels of Heaven, Havilah, Eden and all the countries where Jewels abound.”
Montreal used to have an Eden restaurant almost next door to the Mount Stephen Club (2025 Rue Drummond) – haven’t managed to date it though.
(How was the Mount Stephen Club found in the first place…?)
Eden is now “M:brgr”. The building was designed by Louis
Napoléon
Audet, and my favourite trail is from here to
Trafalgar
school for Girls at nearby
Percy Walters Park
(tying up the start and end of the trail with Napoleon).

Unknown

Unknown:
Another thing we should do is go to
www.google.ca
and run the “heads for the night” etc quote through this version of Google. This is the Canadian version of Google it is not likely we will get a match. We then need to find a large Canadian book collection someplace on line. Ideally it will have a .ca ending. We should run this same quote through its search features. If we get no match either place this almost definately is the New Orleans verse. Doing these additional checks will ensure that this verse does not go to Quebec City or Montreal.

We’ve already found the book – it’s “Abroad in America.” We know this because the “Edwin and Edwina” bit is also in
that same book
. Out of millions upon millions of books that have ever been published, the odds of finding two definite references from
The Secret
in some other book are vanishingly small.

Unknown

Unknown:
According to tradition, Waring Carrington, a successful Charleston SC jeweler, experienced love at first sight when he saw young Martha Williams in the late 1800s. The two were married in 1890 in a celebrated society event for which 2500 invitations were sent. Fittingly, the bride’s father, wealthy merchant George Williams, bestowed an incredibly beautiful wedding gift on the newlyweds .
This gift, presented on a rose colored pillow, was a check for $75,000 to be used for the couple’s new home at the corner of Meeting Street and South Battery, one of the most desirable locations in Charleston, SC. This gift would be generous even by today’s standards in the depressed post-war South, the loving gesture was truly extraordinary. Little did George Williams know that his gift would one day become the honeymoon destination for future newlyweds seeking a romantic getaway at an exquisite Charleston bed and breakfast. In 1946, the mansion at 2 Meeting Street was purchased by Minnie Spell Carr, aunt (and great aunt) of the current owners, who established a guesthouse. The Spell family has been welcoming guests to its elegant Charleston home ever since. The guesthouse eventually became Two Meeting Street Inn.

Has anyone considered Verse 2, Image 2, Charleston…?
At the place where jewels abound
The introduction for Charleston talks about a “jump-up”. We have the butterfly jumping, and “a bound”.
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
We have the lion, king of the beasts. Charleston was named after King Charles, and one of the largest parks is Hampton Park beside the Citadel…reference to Hampton Court Palace…? Hampton Park has quite a rich history involving a prison, a racetrack, a cemetery, and the origins of Memorial Day.
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/2 … /305249938
The park’s Wade Hampton memorial might be the mystery obelisk on the mask. Hampton Park is the green square on the map near its tip.
http://emergingcivilwar.com/2014/07/09/ … harleston/
… meeting Near this site…
There’s a Meeting St which runs nearby. (At its southern end is the “Two Meeting St Inn”.)
http://www.twomeetingstreet.com/history.htm

Unknown

Unknown:
According to tradition, Waring Carrington, a successful Charleston SC jeweler, experienced love at first sight when he saw young Martha Williams in the late 1800s. The two were married in 1890 in a celebrated society event for which 2500 invitations were sent. Fittingly, the bride’s father, wealthy merchant George Williams, bestowed an incredibly beautiful wedding gift on the newlyweds .
This gift, presented on a rose colored pillow, was a check for $75,000 to be used for the couple’s new home at the corner of Meeting Street and South Battery, one of the most desirable locations in Charleston, SC. This gift would be generous even by today’s standards in the depressed post-war South, the loving gesture was truly extraordinary. Little did George Williams know that his gift would one day become the honeymoon destination for future newlyweds seeking a romantic getaway at an exquisite Charleston bed and breakfast. In 1946, the mansion at 2 Meeting Street was purchased by Minnie Spell Carr, aunt (and great aunt) of the current owners, who established a guesthouse. The Spell family has been welcoming guests to its elegant Charleston home ever since. The guesthouse eventually became Two Meeting Street Inn.

Has anyone considered Verse 2, Image 2, Charleston…?
At the place where jewels abound
The introduction for Charleston talks about a “jump-up”. We have the butterfly jumping, and “a bound”.
Here is a
sovereign
people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
We have the lion, king of the beasts. Charleston was named after King Charles, and one of the largest parks is Hampton Park beside the Citadel…reference to Hampton Court Palace…? Hampton Park has quite a rich history involving a prison, a racetrack, a cemetery, and the origins of Memorial Day.
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/2 … /305249938
The park’s Wade Hampton memorial might be the mystery obelisk on the mask. Hampton Park is the green square on the map near its tip.
http://emergingcivilwar.com/2014/07/09/ … harleston/
… meeting Near this site…
There’s a Meeting St which runs nearby. (At its southern end is the “Two Meeting St Inn”.)
http://www.twomeetingstreet.com/history.htm

Steph I just got back from there – I’d be happy to try and answer questions if you have them.

What if the “3 standing watch” are 3 streets from end to end? Watching for cars because its foot traffic only. I need to go to New Orleans, I have a theory.
From Wikipedia: In 1971, the pedestrian zone in the vicinity of Jackson Square was created, when three surrounding streets were closed to vehicular traffic — Chartres, St. Peter, and St. Ann.

Read my post for Image 9.
I have a detailed disection here.
Tron

At last…
knowing where to look (and when)
‘Three stand watch’ … ‘gnomes admire’
Three jockey statues spaced along the infield rail
at the finsih line.
I feel good !
If someone knows how to get a scan with more resolution
onto here, let me know.  All of the better attempts sized out.
Hope this is clear enough for you all.

Trohn

In regard to the “leg-eater” of Montreal, why would image 9
depict this reference point as inside a box?

It’s not inside a box, it’s inside a golden square.  Thus, the legeater can be
found inside the Golden Square Mile in Montreal.  Presumably, the other
image inside this square will also be found in the same area.  I would like
the unidentified image to be connected to the Club, but anything nearby
would be a good confirmer.  Most likely, this will be figured out after the
casque is located.  IMHO.

Boogieman, FB, Fox, Sooner, et. al….
“The namesakes meeting, near this site.”
As pointed out, THE refers to not gnomes and fays
because then the article would be the plural possive THEIR.
THE refers to the site where the casque is buried.
AFTER Churchill married his wife, then they woulod both be CHURCHILLS.
Mr and MRS Churchill  are THE NAMESAKES whom MET near THIS SITE
ie near CHURCHILL DOWNS and in FACT they did!
The Churchill family of the racetrack has no realtion of Winston Samuel Churchill
future Prime Minister.  A coincidence, yes.  Over a hundred years ago, yes.
Pointed out in this solve, yes.

I am now at a loss to explain the solve any clearer
except with “SEE.”

Not quite sure where you are going Trohn, or even how you started.  I would be the first to eat crow however, if you do find the next casque.  Personally tho, i think you are way off track.

Well, if that man over there is Seabass…

Sarmiento wrote about the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, comparing it to St. Peters in the Vatican City.
I think Byron Preiss, familiar with his copy of Abroad in America, noted the reference the South American statesman made while staying in New Orleans. He apropriated the quotation as a perfect means to refern to above ground tombs, some of which are quite elaborate and have roofs over those in eternal sleep. I like the idea of using a reference to an Italian structure in connection with an Italian tomb. It might be noteworthy that Bergamini, the name of Tomb No.12, may be a familhy name associated with Bergamo, Italy.
WTF was Preiss thinking? Did he use a Honduran statue and an Argentinian writer in locating the French Fay’s turquoise by way of Italian references?!!

Last line analysis:
Near this site. = close = shut or sealed = tomb or vault

Calm down now, Mr. Seabass. Try to keep it simple. The word near is as good as the word close. Using basic definitions in a dictionary in the context of the Sarmiento quote is worth consideration. He’s making a point to talk about the dome of the St. Charles Hotel. We’re not sure why. I’m looking at options. A rooftop, or a vault, or a crypt are within the bounds of reason.
I’m glad you feel the need to be humorous, and appreciate your criticism whenever it helps progress.

boom.

More info on my favorite….Lafayette Square.
http://www.lafayette-square.org/home2
This page has a little history on the park. I find this a bit interesting since we keep coming back to Mardis Gras parades…. “Lafayette Square is across the street from Gallier Hall, the former City Hall completed in 1853, a neoclassical building designed by noted architect James Gallier Sr. The building is now used as a reception hall, a theatre, and official review stand for Mardi Gras parades.”
There are also quite a few pictures of the park…..mostly restoration being done post Katrina. WhiteRabbit mentioned a theory about a possible brick wall….in the first few pictures there appear to be areas of bricks inlaid into the ground which could easily be counted.
Also, some way into the album, there is a pic of a man and woman sitting on a brick box (? trash can, grill ?) which I always thought to be a small brick wall in the middle of the park.
I could swear there was another picture of this wall posted on these boards which included discussion about counting bricks that could match up to the 15 and 21.
I really think our casque is/was here in this park. I just wish I knew more about this park when my family and I were in N.O.

Merlot Brougham

I would respectfully disagree about the image, but I definitely am open to experimenting with alternate verses.
The only other image that I don’t feel is 100% rock solid in the accepted theory is Image 11, but then you have verse 3 that just screams Boston.
So where do you go from there, knowing that there is a treasure in Canada? Please don’t say Stanley Park.
I am sold on the Quebec map in Image 9. The Golden Square Mile is absolutely huge to me. The other chatter recently about SELOY being deliberate or not reminds me that I think it would be a gigantic coincidence that there just happens to be a legeater inside of a golden square (Yes I realize it’s not actually square in image 9), but it actually represents some yet to be discovered legeater in some other city that probably isn’t even a port. I’m looking at you St. Louis, and yes, I subscribe to the “Port City” hypothesis for where the casks are buried
I already talked about Verse 10 in connection with Image 9, but I have yet to find satisfaction in why he spells “grey” with an E. More generally speaking, and I’m just spitballing here, but I’ve always had a nagging feeling about the “simple roots” being a hint that it’s buried in a Square. Be it Dorchester, or Lafayette or otherwise. The fact that Image 9 relies heavily on the checkerboard (square) patterns and uses the golden square to feature the Legeater, telling us to look within the Golden Square Mile once we arrive at Montreal…. I don’t know, that’s quite a run on sentence. But it reminds me of the “Brush and Music, Hush” technique. You’re not literally looking for a brush, just like you aren’t literally looking for a “root”, it’s just generalizing the local geography and telling us it’s buried in some municipal town square somewhere. Again, just kind of brainstorming so I apologize if that doesn’t make sense.
I also find myself coming back to the Sarmiento quote from time to time. How do we feel about Preiss’ intentions on this one? Did he really expect an early 80’s crowd to find that, figure it out and know that it was a quote by Sarmiento referring to the Hotel in New Orleans, thus matching the verse and image? Or were we supposed to take it at face value and extrapolate the “sovereign people” to be a hint at the Quebecois? I mentioned it recently, but the Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde (On Dorchester Square, within the Golden Square Mile in Montreal) is also a scale model of St. Peter’s Cathedral, just as the St. Charles Exchange Hotel which Sarmiento is referring to in New Orelans. I have trouble with the idea that Preiss would ask us to go that far in the early 80’s to find his hint that it is New Orleans based on that quote. Maybe I’m wrong. Take it or leave it, just a little stream of consciousness there.
And a more general comment for all, with no intention to piss in anyone’s Corn Flakes. I’m disheartened by a lot of the recent speculation about connecting the story to the treasure location. Preiss said in no uncertain terms, as I understand it, that the only things that are important to find a cask are the verses and the images. Nothing in the rest of the book is valid or should be used to construe direction in finding treasure.

I’m putting this comment by Merlot here, instead of where it was (I believe it was in the Image 9 thread), to keep things organized, and because I am OCD.
The Verse reads, “Here is a sovereign people Who build palaces to shelter Their heads for a night!”
There was something known as the Quebec Sovereignty Movement, which was very popular in the years before BP buried the treasures (google it). Basically, there was a political party which wanted Quebec to declare its independence from Canada, and it nearly succeeded. I believe the fight is still going on, but it was at its peak in the late 1970s. So, the “Here is a sovereign people” line could refer to Quebec, I agree. The 2nd part, “Who build palaces to shelter Their heads for a night!” could just be referring to any grandiose hotel. So, I agree with Merlot that it could very well be referring to that hotel in Montreal which looks like a cathedral. I suppose one interpretation of BP using this quote from Abroad in America, is that he NEVER intended that anyone find out where he got this quote from, and that he was just borrowing it because it was a very cryptic and clever way of referring to a hotel.
Now, I am not eliminating New Orleans either, but I am at a loss to explain why New Orleans citizens would be considered a “sovereign people.” Louisiana is a bit weird, since it uses Civil Law instead of the Common Law, like the other 49 states, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an independent nation. The Sarmiento quote is apparently the only thing which strongly ties this verse to New Orleans. Anyone have any thoughts on why Sarmiento would be calling the New Orleans people “sovereign”?

My theory? Mardi Gras parade royalty.

maltedfalcon

Its easy to say hey this verse belongs over here contrary to popular belief.
because of this one part…
except ages ago we stopped looking at the verses as a single item. There are 12 casques and 12 verses.
we have pretty much definitively identified the citys associated with the images
and then as a whole fit the verses with the cities.
So if you suggest a different verse for a city, that’s fine.
but then you also have to look at how that changes the verse/city layout for the other cities.
if your change then requires other verses to be paired with cities where its obvious they don’t fit.
then your change is probably also weak.

Very well stated, MF.

If “in the middle of 21” had anything to do with cards,
21 is achieved by an Ace and any of either 10-J-Q-K. Same as saying only combinations of cards from that selection can make 21 and in the middle might suggest the Q, since 10-J-(Q)-K-A presents a nice middle option.

bpa73j

Here is my thinking. Lee Circle
There use to be 21 trees in a circle and in the Midle is Lee(middle of 21)
Its literally 15 steps(rows) down to the bottom (ground)
A famous hotel is built there in lee Circle (shelter)
General Lee is looking towards St. Charles Avenue(Gnomes Admire)
Dryades Street and Cours de Naides (now St Charles Avenue) were named after wood and water sprites respectively. They originate @ Lee Circle. (Fays Delight)

Good thoughts here bpa. I’ve never heard these details…I like the new view.

bpa73j

Here is my thinking.
Lee
Circle
There use to be 21 trees in a
circle
and in the Midle is
Lee
(middle of 21)
Its literally 15 steps(rows) down to the bottom (ground)
A famous hotel is built there in
lee
Circle
(shelter)
General
Lee
is looking towards St. Charles Avenue(Gnomes Admire)
Dryades Street and Cours de Naides (now St Charles Avenue) were named after wood and water sprites respectively. They originate @
Lee
Circle
. (Fays Delight)

Good thoughts here bpa. I’ve never heard these details…I like the new view.

I’m a bit new to the party, just heard about The Secret last week (it was published before I was born, by a few years.) I’m cracking away at several of the casques, but I just spent a few hours on the New Orleans casque and I think I have some ideas (not sure if they are going to contribute, I didn’t read through all 45(!) pages of discussion thus far on the verse and presumed linked painting of the clock.)
Jackson Square is a popular site for speculation, and I think it’s spot-on. Aside from the obvious similarity between the aerial view and the clock face, there are other clues that suggest it as the correct locale.
1. Of course, there is Preiss’ hint about St. Louis, which matches up with the St. Louis cathedral on one side of the square. 2. 15 rows down to the ground corresponds with the 15 steps leading up to the Moonwalk across Decatur Avenue from the square. 3. “In the middle of twenty-one, From end to end, Only three stand watch” could easily refer to the 21 doorways of the three historical buildings along Chartres St. (“On the north side of the square are three 18th-century historic buildings”, wikipedia), or it could refer to the three towers on St. Louis cathedral, as others have posited. 4. The quote regarding “sovereign people” is probably the strongest hint, though there are others.
From there I start picking up clues from the grandfather clock painting, because the verse does not seem to dole out exact coordinates. On the other side of Decatur from Jackson Square is a patch of pavers surrounded by an arch of stone:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Jackson+Square/@29.9570446,-90.0623761,3a,75y,53.11h,86.55t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-uFO1164vybY%2FU643MYWrmKI%2FAAAAAAAAnqc%2F03yW7onz7pg!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2F-uFO1164vybY%2FU643MYWrmKI%2FAAAAAAAAnqc%2F03yW7onz7pg%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i7320!8i3660!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xdeff093f17dfbe8f!6m1!1e1
. You can see it embedded in the ground, with space for poles, like there used to be something else there.
There was something there! At some point, probably in the late 80s, there was a fountain:
https://img0.etsystatic.com/064/0/7739551/il_570xN.800924934_5s0q.jpg
In 1985, this is the only image I could find. Note no fountain flowing:
http://byrnes.org/railfan/amtrak/image_37.jpg
I don’t know the date on this image, but clearly no fountain and no pavers:
http://www.pps.org/images/stories/nola_jacksonsquare.jpg
That area was redone in 1976 to freshen up Washington Artillery Park (the area across Decatur from Jackson Square) and I think it’s possible that there was turf or disturbed earth in the area of the fountain when Preiss came through. If you envision Jackson Square as the clock face, with St. Louis down by the 6 and the Mississippi up past the 12, you can see that the location of the turquoise in the painting is a near-perfect match for this little spot of earth where there was once a fountain. The moon above is a good match for the Moonwalk aka the raised walkway along the Mississippi, so named because Moon was the nickname of the mayor (?) who pushed the project through in the 1970s. The second hand pointing to 3 corresponds to the direction that the statue of Jackson is pointing, and the gray squares point to the correct latitude/longitude of Jackson Square (the 29 and the 90).
If I am correct, either the casque is long gone, having been dug up and discarded in the alterations that have happened since 1981, or it’s buried beneath those pavers. Sigh…

First post, putting out a couple ideas that I haven’t seen mentioned before:
this line:
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Intrigued me, since the End to end part seems superfluous, so I looked into things that it could mean if it isn’t just extra text.
I found this street:
West End Street, named after the neighborhood it’s contained in
And this location
Both are nearby hotspots people on here have mentioned (jewel streets and shoreline respectively). I haven’t seen anything that marks 21 or 15 near them unfortunately that makes it obvious. There is a building with 15 windows going down near World’s End but that seems super contrived.
Really interested in this one, love the Hermes Krewe, Washington Artillery Park (clock = jackson square?) and Mardi Gras theories. Hopefully it’s solveable in 2017
Also something separately, when the author said the jewels’ values determined how hard the puzzle was – I think what he really meant was the month of the year determined the difficulty, eg. January the easiest, December the hardest. I’m sure people have figured that one out though.

Random thought:
Here is a sovereign people
In the book’s mythology, the “sovereign people” are the “slender, golden people”, Prince Yi and his mother
Hsi Wang Mu
, “Queen Mother of the West”.
Gnomes admire / Fays delight
“From impossibly distant Cathay they had travelled, bringing with them to safety, to the wonder and joy of every Fairy, what all had thought never to see again – a fire-breathing and terrible, winged and wonderful Dragon.”
Can’t remember if anyone’s looked at Image 1 / Verse 2. Should be pretty simple really…a pearl…how hard can it be?
Maybe Image 1 is a representation of Hsi Wang Mu.
Who build palaces
Palace of Fine Arts / Palace of the Legion of Honour…?

Krayz

Also something separately, when the author said the jewels’ values determined how hard the puzzle was – I think what he really meant was the month of the year determined the difficulty, eg. January the easiest, December the hardest. I’m sure people have figured that one out though.

Unknown

Unknown:
Last night one of the wiki users sent me a 1982 article about Byron Preiss and The Secret. Most of the information covered things we already know, but there was one interesting tidbit that was new to me: The differing values of the 12 gemstones are meant to reflect the differing difficulties of the 12 casques! This seems bizarre to me, because I would have thought that turquoise was the least valuable of the stones and it goes with what I think is the most difficult casque (New Orleans). But I don’t have any particular knowledge of the value of gems (and I’m not sure Preiss had any knowledge about the relative difficulty of his puzzles). So let’s give it a shot and see if it tells us anything.

I’d like to see the original source for that quote…(not doubting it, just curious).
In general, there’s been a tendency for people to make simple things cryptic as this hunt continues to go unsolved, but if he said the jewels’ values determined the difficulty, I expect that’s what he meant; it would be logical, after all. I haven’t seen a quote or the actual wording though, which makes it more ambiguous.
I can’t remember if it’s been discussed already on this forum, but here’s the original post from the Wiki.
Someone suggests:
Diamond – Africa / Charleston (?)
Sapphire – FOY
Ruby – Houston
Emerald – Chicago
Garnet – Roanoke
Topaz – New York
Aquamarine – Cleveland
Peridot – Boston
Pearl – San Fransisco
Amethyst – Milwaukee
Opal – Montreal (?)
Turquoise – New Orleans

and here is poor me still trying to find reference of this miraculous quote by Sarmiento…

ok ok ok…. I finally found this:
“JSTOR: A United States Tour by Sarmiento in 1847Previous experience had taught Sarmiento that every city in the United States had …. Behold the sovereign people which builds for itself palaces under the …”
as an intro to a google search…but when I go to the link it is not included.  How does the whole section go?  Yup, I would have to say that this is pretty definitive indeed.
Quotes…looks like we need to comb through the unsolved V’s to locate quotes…

Egbert

I just finished catching up on this thread.  Wow, I don’t see how this verse is anything but New Orleans.  The Sarmiento quote makes that conclusion unavoidable, IMHO.  It seems that instead of trying to fit this verse in with other cities, we could probably pinpoint a pretty close location if we put our heads together and just concentrated on New Orleans while we examine the rest of this verse.   :group)

I did, at one time, think that the verse and picture were probably indicative of St. Louis. I no longer think that. I’m back with NOLA. The St Louis theory did not pan out well in detail. Only in, er, theory.

I will post it here again for convenience. Fox, this quote is translated into English elsewhere, but we know “Abroad in America” is the right source because the exact same book contains a reference to twins in Charleston being named “Edwin and Edwina” after Edward Wilmot Blyden. The presence of both references in the same book gives a great deal of credence to both.
To clarify my position, this quote is not intended to be a specific reference to the St. Charles Exchange Hotel (which no longer exists), but rather to the people of New Orleans. Hence, it is a specific tie to New Orleans.

forest_blight

I didn’t think of the Bill Maher resemblance, but you’re right!
For the record, I’m not too enthusiastic about the arch theory. One can find arches and circles everywhere, so they’re just not diagnostic unless some detail or other makes it an exact match.
So far as I can tell, the verses do not have direct references to locations. “Direct,” I guess, would entail including a phrase like “Incidentally, the casque is buried in New Orleans” into a verse. Anything short of that should perhaps be considered indirect. But some references are less indirect than others.
I like some of the evidence you’ve presented, I just don’t think it is as overwhelming as the evidence in favor of New Orleans. I like the baseball player reference, for instance. Were they doing this sort of thing c. 1981?
I think it is potentially fruitful to imagine ourselves in BP’s position, as he constructed the riddles. It is more likely that he wrote the riddles after burying the casques than before. Without having been there, he could not have known the layout of these locations in the detail necessary to write about them. Perhaps he already knew a couple of choice spots, but all 12?
So let’s say he buries the casque in St. Louis and wants to write a cryptic riddle. He notes that St. Louis is near St. Charles County, so he needs a veiled reference to something involving St. Charles. So far, I could go along with that, except that St. Louis isn’t in St. Charles County. One would have to exit St. Louis City, traverse St. Louis County, and then enter St. Charles County. Even granting that BP really means to refer to St. Charles County, I think it highly unlikely that he could come upon the St. Charles reference in
Abroad
in his search because the St. Charles Exchange Hotel is not in the index of
Abroad in America
. It would be a fantastic coincidence to have buried the casque in St. Charles County, then just happen to encounter the exact sort of phrase he needed to provide a cryptic reference to it. A more parsimonious explanation is that he buried it in New Orleans, then simply flipped through the index of
Abroad
until he found what he was looking for. This would not have been difficult, since there is only one page in the entire book that mentions New Orleans, p. 110.
So sure, I think it’s
possible
that V2 refers to St. Louis rather than New Orleans, but to say V2 could “as easily” be St. Louis as New Orleans is a tough sell. Maybe I am alone in thinking this.
Granted. If we try hard enough, we could get any numbers 0-9 out of P7. But you have to really try to squeeze a 38 out of it, when 29 is sitting right there. Parsimony.
I think our collective efforts would be wasted trying to make P7 to fit St. Louis, when there is much stronger evidence in favor of New Orleans for this one.

I just finished catching up on this thread.  Wow, I don’t see how this verse is anything but New Orleans.  The Sarmiento quote makes that conclusion unavoidable, IMHO.  It seems that instead of trying to fit this verse in with other cities, we could probably pinpoint a pretty close location if we put our heads together and just concentrated on New Orleans while we examine the rest of this verse.   :group)

Quite true.  I have extensively explored the Botanical Gardens.  I cannot imagine someone digging there without getting immediately arrested.  But there are possibilities.

Where would you think one might be, for instance? The online info about this place is pretty good.

I have been pondering the “only three stand watch” line from this verse and wondering what it could mean in the St. Louis location scenario.
There is a park that I don’t believe was explored–or if it was, I couldn’t find evidence of it. The Missouri Botanical Gardens. This seemed like it might just be one we overlooked.
And there’s a sculpture there, called “Angel Musicians” by Carl Milles. It consists of three musician angels on top of large pillars in the reflecting pool in front of the Climatron. Ordinarily this would have elicited just a nod from me–there are groupings of three things in a lot of places, and so what? However, this one is significant for another reason. They are ONLY three parts of the original sculpture of FIVE angels. The line reads, “
ONLY
three stand watch.”  The original five angels are in the sculptor’s home garden in Sweden.
As vast as the Botanical Gardens may be, there might not be that many places to hide the casque, since the book states that no casque will be hidden in any public or private flower beds.

WhiteRabbit

Although it’s reminiscent of “the end of ten by thirteen” or “beneath the tenth stone”, perhaps we need to get a bit more creative in pinpointing a spot for this one. I’m currently thinking of trying to map the clockface onto the park and finding the position of XXI or something. Or, for instance, I’m puzzled by the arrows that seem to stretch from I to X.
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
…21 symbols.

WR – I’ve actually been working on a “more creative” solution myself, trying not to get too creative. I’ve wondered if some of images are used to pinpoint the dig spots, as opposed to the verses. I’ll try to post it tonight after I collect my thoughts and figure out a decent way to state it. BTW… I still like the “Education and justice” line as a possibility for Soule College (College tapped in stone) and Gallier Hall (blind lady justice), right next door to each other and across from Lafayette Square.
FB – That quote is effing hilarious!

In thinking about the final lines, “the namesakes meeting / near this site” I realize this is a case of immense possibilities.  I’ve been content to think of it as St. Louis meets St. Louis, but I don’t see that as essential to the purpose of locating the casque when other factors have already been utilized for the purpose of linking my theory to this location, so I need to reevaluate.
If I’m standing in the middle of Basin St. in front of the old Cemetery and looking around for a set of useful references to pinpoint a spot, what single object might represent a “meeting of namesakes”?  Looking around I have some palm trees, light poles, street signs, the plaque and entrance to St. Louis cemetery No.1, the Francisco Morazan statue, some nearby buildings such as the steeple to St. Jude’s church (but that’s too distant given there’s other closer options).  I’ve already identified the No.21 tomb as a key component through the verse.  The Sarmiento quote helps orient to the rooftop of the tomb idea.  From the Basin St. neutral ground you can see the roof peek over the wall and I think that works visually with the image which shows the semi-round turquoise below the sky and above the “wall” face of the clock.  I think the time, 12 o’clock points in the tomb’s direction and the near 3 o’clock points in Morazan’s direction.  I think Morazan is one of the three who stand watch.  Does the last section of verse help identify Morazan specifically?  He’s more than 10 feet tall, respected, admired even, and represents a gift to New Orleans for being the gateway to North America from Central and South America, more specifically, Honduras.  Do gnomes admire Morazan because he’s a tall statue?  Do fays delight because gateway = entrance?  Is Central America the meeting of North and South America, namesakes of Amerigo Vespucci?

Let’s try to expand on this idea…
Ever since I started working on this hunt I always thought there was more to the gnomes and fays lines. It just seems randomly out of place. One idea I had was to take the first letters, G A and F D, and maybe find names or streets that are our “namesakes”. Maybe. Who knows.
I liked WhiteRabbit’s ROMAN IDES GEM anagram so I started looking for possible anagrams for “fays delight”. Didn’t get much out of it so I started both lines from scratch. There’s a million single words you can get out of both line but this is what I got using all the letters.
GNOMES ADMIRE FAYS DELIGHT  =  THE GOLD FAIRY MAIDENS GEMS
May be something to look into even if we just use some of these words and rearrange or anagram others. Maybe FAIR MAIDEN, GOLDEN FAIRY MAID, THE OLD MAID, THE ORLEANS MAID (Joan of Arc?), GOLDEN HAIR MAID (Cinderella? Rapunzel? Storyland?). I’m sure we need to use all the letters but these can be part of it.
Need to work on this…

I expected someone to pickup on the idea that gnomes, tiny little guys, must look up at people.  Admiration is the same this ng in a different sense.  Fays, enchanting folk, entrance or charm people, hence the use of the word delight, a simple definition sense.

Unknown

Unknown:
Viewing galleries in front of the hall are reserved for Mardi Gras royalty

forest_blight

When we get to the point where anagrams are seriously entertained as the way to find the treasure, the terrorists have already won.

I recently heard from someone in New Orleans who’s keeping an eye on the forum and might be taking a wander round Lafayette, so I was interested in brainstorming this one a bit. I know it’s old hat but I hadn’t picked up on the Gallier Hall stuff before.
Is that, like, literally…? Maybe this is another connection with the “sovereign people”…?
The only thing that’s missing is the 15/21 connection.
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
Although it’s reminiscent of “the end of ten by thirteen” or “beneath the tenth stone”, perhaps we need to get a bit more creative in pinpointing a spot for this one. I’m currently thinking of trying to map the clockface onto the park and finding the position of XXI or something. Or, for instance, I’m puzzled by the arrows that seem to stretch from I to X.
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
…21 symbols.
It’s hard to resist the possibilities of anagrams, and I was thinking about “Mardi” and “admire” myself earlier, but I don’t honestly think it’s the way. I always remember:
(I noticed there was a nearby “Lafeyette Square” sign featuring a graphic of Louisiana, the shape of which has been compared to the knight/dragon, though I don’t know how long it’s been there or how common such signs are.)

Unknown

Unknown:
Viewing galleries in front of the hall are reserved for Mardi Gras royalty

forest_blight

When we get to the point where anagrams are seriously entertained as the way to find the treasure, the terrorists have already won.

I recently heard from someone in New Orleans who’s keeping an eye on the forum and might be taking a wander round Lafayette, so I was interested in brainstorming this one a bit. I know it’s old hat but I hadn’t picked up on the Gallier Hall stuff before.
Is that, like, literally…? Maybe this is another connection with the “
sovereign
people”…?
The only thing that’s missing is the 15/21 connection.
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
Although it’s reminiscent of “the end of ten by thirteen” or “beneath the tenth stone”, perhaps we need to get a bit more creative in pinpointing a spot for this one. I’m currently thinking of trying to map the clockface onto the park and finding the position of XXI or something. Or, for instance, I’m puzzled by the arrows that seem to stretch from I to X.
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
…21 symbols.
It’s hard to resist the possibilities of anagrams, and I was thinking about “Mardi” and “admire” myself earlier, but I don’t honestly think it’s the way. I always remember:
(I noticed there was a nearby “Lafeyette Square” sign featuring a graphic of Louisiana, the shape of which has been compared to the knight/dragon, though I don’t know how long it’s been there or how common such signs are.)

Have you considered the poem “The Gnome and the Fay”, by Frank F. Sherriff?

Nice find!

With BP’s penchant for obscure literary references, we should consider the possibility of other lines having some meaning. So I spent some time on:
Gnomes admire
Fays delight
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.
So I looked up all the references to
fays delight
and
fay’s delight
in Google Books, just to be complete. The possessive form appears in three sources:
Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance
, by Lucy A Paton, 1963, p. 156:
Corinth, a tragedy; and other poems
, by Charlotte de Humboldt, 1838, p. 94:
Whispers of Fancy
, by J. W. Schenck, 1856, p. 91:
“No thought can equal the Fay’s delight, As she practiced each well known lay;
Then giving her hand to…”
The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper
, by Alexander Chalmers and Samuel Johnson, 1810. From the poem “To the Moon” by Robert Lloyd:
The Eclectic Review
, by Samuel Greatheed et al., 1815. On C. Leftly’s posthumously titled poem, ‘Flights of Fancy’:
The Reader’s Handbook of Allusions, References, Plots and Stories
, by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, 1889:
Ireland’s Abbey Theatre: A History, 1899-1951
, by Lennox Robinson, 1951:
“It seems clear that there were two dominant factors in the Society, first the Fays’ delight in drama and then an intense patriotic feeling on the part of the players. Sinn Fein was beginning to stir.”
Prominent Edwardians
, by Dudley Barker, 1969:
“While the Irish National Theatre had remained an indigent, homeless group, it had been dominated by two factors, as one of Yeats’s assistants put it — the Fays’ delight in drama, and an…”
Flowers; their moral, language, and poetry
, ed. by H. G. Adams, 1844:
Fairylife and fairyland, a lyric poem, communicated by Titania through her Secretary, Thomas of Ercildoune
, 1870:
The remaining references were other publications containing the same poems and quotes.
A third possibility, one that I don’t think we’ve considered, is that Fay is a person’s name (as in Fay Wray or Morgan Le Fay), not a generic word for “fairy.” Maybe there was a famous “Fay” or Faye,” and if we could identify her we could identify the source of her delight.
A fourth possibility is that Fay is… wait for it trohn… a thoroughbred race horse! There was a racehorse named “Faye’s Delight,” foaled in 1974. Another (?) horse from Australia was named Fayes Delight. I found references to this second horse from the late 1990s.
A fifth possibility, one that has been brought up before, is that it could be a play on words for “face the light,” which would be meaningful only if we had already found the proper spot.
I could find no references to gnomes admiring anything.

that’s cute about the little fay cormac
i found this photo of the child on the statue:
http://flickr.com/photos/8261799@N04/2306140570/
trying to connect the verse with lafayette park i found st. charles avenue is called “The Jewel of America’s Grand Avenues:
http://www.planning.org/greatplaces/str … avenue.htm

If this helps… please add my name to the credits…
Chad and Kim McGarrah
At the place where jewels abound  … most would agree New Orleans
Only three stand watch… 4 possibilities here…. this park has 3 statues… one statue has 2 children and 1 bust = 3… twice across different streets bordering the square park are buildings with 3 figures adorning the building.
Here is a sovereign people    Who build palaces to shelter  Their heads for a night!  ….. definately a tourist town… a night …MartiGras?
from Wiki…. it is posted as a Quote from Domingo Sarmiento referring to the St. Charles Exchange hotel in New Orleans …. only a couple of blocks from the park and on the same street… the original architect also built  the town hall across the street from the park which has one of the sets of 3 figures… peace justice and liberty I believe…
Gnomes admire (are jealous?)  Fays delight  The namesakes meeting  Near this site.
now my favorite part…. the Fay’s Namesake…………….
Lafayette Park
…  La Fay ette …. the little Fay????
also…
A plaque in the park is actually marked with the lattitude and longitude…
My wife also pointed out that the girl in one of the statues… her dress is drapped looking much like the right narcisus flower…
http://picasaweb.google.com/LafayetteSq … 9612893442
and the boy in the same statue is the exact same posture as the small figure of the boy on the clock.
http://picasaweb.google.com/LafayetteSq … 5097802994
http://picasaweb.google.com/LafayetteSq … 4670215010
I may be able to help more but am not from there… was last there in 2007
Good Hunting,
Chad

Cormac

Fays delight  The namesakes meeting  Near this site.
now my favorite part…. the Fay’s Namesake…………….
Lafayette Park
…   La Fay ette …. the little Fay????

Cormac

and the boy in the same statue is the exact same posture as the small figure of the boy on the clock.
http://picasaweb.google.com/LafayetteSq … 5097802994

Cormac

A plaque in the park is actually marked with the lattitude and longitude…

Wow…I really like that….
and…
Wow.. I really like this!!!
do you happen to remember what exactly the lat/lon plaque stated?
This all sounds very promising indeed.  Where have you been all of this time?

This park is RIGHT next to the St Charles Hotel.  It appears 4 statues placed in each of the corners but I am wondering if only 3 of them are “standing” people…or…only 3 of them are military (standing watch).
I would have definitely checked this park out had I known about it while in N.O.  It looks a little small and completely surrounded by buildings but this sounds really good

Not sure when it happened but it looks like 1/2 of L Sq is gone, replaced w/ a building.  When looking at this Sq on Google Maps, it looks like the building to the north of the Sq was built over half of the park.  I looked the Sq up on Mapquest and the circular area w/ a crosslike structure in the top center part of the park on google maps used to be the center of the park.   :-\
like this :
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?zoom=13&c … d%20States
I could have saved face and deleted this entire post but I will leave it so that everyone can laugh…looks like what I thought was a building built over 1/2 the park is just a wierd angle of a tall building adjacent to the square.  I’m a dodo..
…or is it?  dang, I give up, I am toooo tired to figure this out.
I will leave it up to you guys.  Is the whole Sq still there or is 1/2 of it built over w/ buildings?

The latitude of Lafayette Square is 29.948N. The longitude is -90.07W.

Yes, xlurker, that is it; yet, it is the east entrance that is located at the Jewel Box (link to photo at bottom of the link you posted).  It is hard to see in the photo that the east entrance is rounded like a shallow U.  Thank you for posting the link.

Did anythng come of the New Orlean’s thoery?
“At the place where jewels abound” sure sounds like Mardi Gras to me
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Only three stand watch
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
“Gnomes admire
Fays delight
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.” — look for something to do with “La Fayette” — or Lafayette (which, in French, I believe translates to “The Fairy” (female form of the word) As in the French General who came to our rescue during the Revolutionary War, I believe–especially if he met another person with a fairy name and someone put up a historic marker over it.)
Just a minor thought I felt worth mentioning.

The key about “afternoon hours” is that BP was letting us know that the way to find some clues was is the afternoon sunlight….not 3:00 in the morning when it’s dark.
Here’s what I mean. The greenish gem in Image 7 Is above the 12 on the clock and has an odd shape to it. It also has a strong highlight at the top of the gem. The large clock hand (upside down Central District Street Lamps) points to the gem. The little hand with the circle is indicating the teasure spot and is just shy of 3:00.
When standing in the center of Lafayette Square you’ll be next to the Henry Clay statue. This is the center of the clock. If you look toward the Hebert Building you see one of the 4 green lamp posts that surround the Clay statue. The lamp indicated is the one that is just shy of what would be 3:00 in the park.
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9481952 … 312!8i6656
When the sunlight is shining (afternoon hours) it creates a nice, highlighted, green color on the bottom of the lamp that has a similar shape to the stone in Image 7. BP is letting us know that this is where he buried the casque…on the inside of this green lamp post.
From this position on Google maps that I included you can see the Hebert Building in the background. If you look above the trees onto the building you see the maroon colored checker pattern…the background idea for Image 7. If you look passed the lamp you will notice bas relief on the building called “Harvesting Sugar Cane”. This is what I see as the gnarled up hand in the image holding the Armstrong Mask. And also if you look on that same building to the left you will see the other bas relief called “Flood Control” which is what the verse “Only three stand watch” refers to.

the key was never “afternoon hours”, it’s key should be the “sound of friends”
afternoon hours in general is called post meridiem, or pm

You suggest ninjas…I suggest another location.

I am suggesting a neutral area of grass, so it’s not IN the cemetery or in a flower bed.  Fox, are you suggesting another location based on my posted theory or just another one altogether?
What do you think about the plaque quote or this usage of namesakes meet?

gManTexas

This makes me think about two lines of the verse which have everyone stuck:
“Gnomes admire
Fays delight”
Is it possible that the Gnomes would be looking up and the Fays looking down? Gnomes being tiny and Fays (fairies) being larger or in the trees?

gMan, I’m going to say it like this because I know how much renovator likes this, ….I see the gnomes as the 3 statues (financial gnomes) in Lafayette Square Conservancy. Fay’s delight is Lafayette Square and Lafayette Street.

.

…No, no – let Duigenan search the papal chair
For fragrant treasures long forgotten there;
And, as the witch of sunless Lapland thinks
That little swarthy gnomes delight in stinks…
– Thomas Moore

That reads like it was originally in German.

The sign I’m using as a confirmer for this spot is similar to the one I’ve suggested for New York.

It’s been suggested that in the middle of twenty-one could be the number 10.5
If twenty-one is thought of in 24-hour time, then that could also mean 4.5 (halfway to 9 o’clock).

What are you talking about Fox?
I agree more less Forest Blight I am just a little conserned that the verry first idea that this goes with Quebec City may be right. I do not think this is the case but I can not be sure. That is why we should do this second search to eliminate that possibility.
Over the next few weeks I hope to contact some historical societies and park and recreation departments in some of thesee cities to try to connect some of these verses to images. The first thing I will try to do is eliminate St. Louis for this verse and thus baring any supprises from the canadian book search confirm this goes to New Orleans.
Then sometime after Mardi Gras we can work with the New Orleans parks and recreation department to find this exact location. Giant Squid knows more but it looks to me right now like City Park has the casque someplace. The P&RD likely have maps and other material from the early ’80s we can use to find this location.
I think we may find this casque.

I find it truly amazing that the quote in this verse is from President Sarmiento of Argentina, South American and yet nobody seems interested in the fact that three statues stand along Basin St., a President of Mexico, Venezuela, and the third is Pres of Honduras, representing the Gardens of the Americas.

ya know those flowers are all over in the iron works in St Louis. & in the outside buildings. the old courthouse, places like that close by the Arch.
Fox, did i read ya right? did you say that there really is one of thses in St. Louis & that came from BP?
Now that its nice out & the rain is gone I’ld love to take a trip to Grants Farm. Has anyone checked that place out yet?
Budwisers horses are there.

It is possible that a wood playset was there at one time.
Regardless this is one therory that should be investigated. Now two other things: how close is this to storyland? and what is the namesakes meeting?
Nomes admier fays delight could definately be talking about Storyland.
If this therory does not find the casque then the Mardi Gras mask is the namesakes meeting and is key to finding the dig site.

sonoran, i love your pictures, and that sundial right there at that building, wow! did your friend not poke at 12:00 at the sundial????

This verse is for New orleans and goes with image 7 (image 7 contains the turquoise stone, and is for the french, this is mentioned in the verse, also a harlequin as part of the clock decoration)
The place where jewels abound is near tourmaline park/ harlequin park in New Orleans
find it on google maps – there is a ridiculous number of streets names after precious stones as well as a jewel street.
Check it out !
Corvus

corvus – that neighborhood has been brought up before, more than once, but seems to be a dead end. Do you have new evidence?

Hello everyone. I’m a new user to the forum and a new searcher in The Secret. I have a my pdf copy of the book and, due to my location, have been eyeballing the New Orleans connection to this verse. (Also thought to be a connection to Image 7) Now am I 100% certain it is New Orleans? No. But no one knows anything 100%. I do not discredit any ideas from anyone and am looking to make my own conclusions from finds. This all being said, I’m heading to New Orleans tomorrow, May 16, with the intention of doing some on the ground searching and picture taking. I am posting to ask if anyone would like pictures of anything in particular to be posted here. No guarantees, but I would gladly try to post anything I could. I have a list of things/places I will be getting pictures of, mostly of things that have even been rumored to possibly be a connection. Cheers all, and happy hunting.

no, i didnt fall off the face of the earth and NO, i did not locate a casque….just trying to catch up on a few months of missed posts.
I really like this fountain area for something that would definitely catch BP’s eye.  Find me that shape somewhere in the P (out of town at the inlaws house right no so i have none of my material).  I am willing to bet that an image from one of those markers is in our P.

The fact that “jewels abound” is so strong for NOLA is what makes me think that BP using the Sarmiento quote is referring to an actual palace. Not necessarily the old St. Charles, but something else that would inspire Sarmiento’s awe. Maybe it’s the St. Louis Cathedral. Do they look similar, I wonder?

Assuming Jackson Square is a match, here are some ways it could fit with the verse:
“At the place where jewels abound
Fifteen rows down to the ground”
15 steps down from Artillery Park
“In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Only three stand watch”
There are 21 door arches on the St. Louis Cathedral block–9 on Cabildo building, 3 on the cathedral, and 9 on the museum building. (
http://i.imgur.com/Ea2VsvH.jpg
)
The three standing watch could be the three spires of the cathedral.
“As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours”
Friends of the Cabildo, perhaps? Located in the Cabildo building since 1956.
http://www.friendsofthecabildo.org/who-we-are/
“Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!”
No clue. There are no large hotels close by, and I can’t imagine BP expected anyone to find an obscure quote to connect the line to the St. Charles specifically.
“Gnomes admire
Fays delight
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.”
Could be Jax and Jackson. Could be something further up St. Peters. I think the most likely explanation is the plaque that 421 mentioned has the words “near this site” on it and where the French and Spanish soldiers met during the Civil War. (
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/ … illery.jpg
) It was dedicated in 1976. Might explain the 19 and why 76 is covered by the mask?
With regard to the image, traveling up St. Peters would bring you past Jax, Jackson Square, the cathedral and the Friends of the Cabildo, the Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre (historic theater–the mask?), Preservation Hall, and to the junction of Louis Armstrong Park and St. Louis Cemetery. We could be meant to start at the park/cemetery and travel down St. Peters to Artillery Park, where the cannon may match up with the hour hand imagery.
Can’t think of anything at the moment that matches the clock boy or the demonic head or its placement. The gray circles and alarm/second hand could be hints to the final burial spot?

Frisco

“Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!”
No clue. There are no large hotels close by, and I can’t imagine BP expected anyone to find an obscure quote to connect the line to the St. Charles specifically.

Do you think it’s just a coincidence that he used that line word for word from the book?

It’s a great line. But how could one have possibly connected it with Sarmiento or the book in 1982, years before Google and OCR?
I mean, I am certainly beginning to suspect that Preiss was trying to get us to LEARN something (eww) with these hunts, but short of reading everything in the library, I think it’s a long shot that someone would connect this quote with that book or Sarmiento’s essays. I think it’s a cool Easter egg he put in, but even if he expected us to find the quote, I think it has to be more than a NOLA marker–it either has to do with the St. Charles, which is nowhere near Artillery Park or St. Peters, or another palatial hotel.

Frisco

It’s a great line. But how could one have possibly connected it with Sarmiento or the book in 1982, years before Google and OCR?
I mean, I am certainly beginning to suspect that Preiss was trying to get us to LEARN something (eww) with these hunts, but short of reading everything in the library, I think it’s a long shot that someone would connect this quote with that book or Sarmiento’s essays. I think it’s a cool Easter egg he put in, but I think it has to be more than a NOLA marker–it either has to do with the St. Charles, which is nowhere near Artillery Park or St. Peters, or another palatial hotel.

Frisco how old are you? If you are over 40, think back to before the internet…people used their brains more…read books and such… It’s a way different and more dumbed down society we live in today.
Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation, 1776-1914 was both in my US History and Political Science room in high school, I don’t think it was THAT obscure. Also that clue is not required for you to find the casque, but if you know it, you can say for certain he is referring to NOLA.

37. And I have no idea which books were in my high school classes, it was so long ago. I don’t recall ever using books other than our textbooks in class. Did they have 30 copies of the book in your class, or just one on a bookshelf?
So say that he expected us to find this book and find the quote. Do you think he only meant it to be a generic marker of the city of New Orleans?

Frisco

37. And I have no idea which books were in my high school classes, it was so long ago. I don’t recall ever using books other than our textbooks in class. Did they have 30 copies of the book in your class, or just one on a bookshelf?
So say that he expected us to find this book and find the quote. Do you think he only meant it to be a generic marker of the city of New Orleans?

Just 1 copy, in each classroom…
I don’t think he expected many people to figure it out. Is it a generic marker for NOLA…? Maybe not, I think “At the place where jewels abound” is the tie to NOLA, so he might just be trying to say “James” or “St. James” or something else. It just depends on where you are in the verse when you read it, and what the clue means… It’s all about where you are when you get to that clue. That hotel is only a few blocks from the french quarter, but he might not be referencing the hotel itself…it’s a puzzle 🙂

Unknown

Unknown:
Do you think he only meant it to be a generic marker of the city of New Orleans?

I do. Look at it this way. Now that we have figured out this clue, very few of us give any serious consideration to the possibility that Verse 2 might apply to another city. That’s pretty black and white in a puzzle full of gray, and getting grayer with each passing year .

decibalnyc

I don’t think he expected many people to figure it out. Is it a generic marker for NOLA…? Maybe not, I think “At the place where jewels abound” is the tie to NOLA, so he might just be trying to say “James” or “St. James” or something else. It just depends on where you are in the verse when you read it, and what the clue means… It’s all about where you are when you get to that clue. That hotel is only a few blocks from the french quarter, but he might not be referencing the hotel itself…it’s a puzzle 🙂

If he didn’t expect people to figure it out, why put in such a strong visual clue to a house/hotel that looks like a palace? There are any number of other quotes that could refer to NOLA that wouldn’t also double as visual clues. This verse is pretty short for 3 of 14 lines to be a red herring.
I’m not totally sold on Jackson Square, but I do like the visual markers running down St. Peters. The palace could be the cathedral itself, I suppose, or a hotel a couple blocks away that is visible from the square/Artillery park.

Frisco

There are any number of other quotes that could refer to NOLA that wouldn’t also double as visual clues. This verse is pretty short for 3 of 14 lines to be a red herring.

What do you mean by double as a visual clue?

I mean that the quote evokes an image of a palace. Something that you could realistically see walking down the street of a city.
Whether or not he thought we’d find the origin of quote, having it refer to a palace that didn’t actually appear would be a major red herring. It seems far more likely that the quote was placed there for a reason other than to merely identify New Orleans, especially if “jewels abound” is also meant to ID the city.

Frisco

I mean that the quote evokes an image of a palace. Something that you could realistically see walking down the street of a city.
Whether or not he thought we’d find the origin of quote, having it refer to a palace that didn’t actually appear would be a major red herring. It seems far more likely that the quote was placed there for a reason other than to merely identify New Orleans, especially if “jewels abound” is also meant to ID the city.

I can’t think of any other city out of the 12 that would be the place where jewels abound, and the Abroad in America reference, as Renovator said, is a pretty good indication that V2 is for NOLA.
I think we are all open to hear more discussion on this tho. I once thought that “shelter their heads for the night” was a reference to Camp and Camp St. and Fayes Delight = Laughing Faye = Lafayette…Lafayette and Camp is Lafayette Square where we find a resemblance to the boy on the clock which is only 2 blocks from the St. James Hotel. However I have no solid evidence that I can convince myself of for this location based on the verse and how these work.
In the image he may identify the city using more than 1 thing…a map and a long / lat perhaps, but I don’t see evidence where he does this with the Verse…usually it’s just 1 line that lets you match the verse with the image. This leads me to believe that the line from Abroad could perhaps represent something else.

Egbert

“Here is a sovereign people Who build palaces to shelter Their heads for a night!”
Anyone have any thoughts on why Sarmiento would be calling the New Orleans people “sovereign”?

Perhaps just poetic license; this hotel’s like a palace, these people are like Kings. Or maybe “sovereign people” means people who had a King…I’m thinking maybe the French did and the Argentinians didn’t.

Oh, why
Sarmiento
referred to them as “sovereign people”. Well, he fell in love with America. Maybe it was just poetic license, or maybe he saw Americans as kings and queens in comparison to the dictatorship in Argentina he fled from.
He had this to say about Americans:
“The American is a man with a home or the certainty of having one, a man beyond the clutch of hunger or desperation, a man with hopes for the future as bright as the imagination can invent, a man with political sentiments and needs. He is, in short, master of himself, with a spirit elevated by education and a sense of his own dignity.”

Oh, why
Sarmiento
referred to them as “
sovereign
people”. Well, he fell in love with America. Maybe it was just poetic license, or maybe he saw Americans as kings and queens in comparison to the dictatorship in Argentina he fled from.
He had this to say about Americans:
“The American is a man with a home or the certainty of having one, a man beyond the clutch of hunger or desperation, a man with hopes for the future as bright as the imagination can invent, a man with political sentiments and needs. He is, in short, master of himself, with a spirit elevated by education and a sense of his own dignity.”

Something interesting. St. Peters started being built during the reign of King Louis XII. The Americas became the namesakes of Amerigo Vespucci also at that time.

I’m trying too hard again, eh?  I was hoping someone would say something about Twain being a chess player, but I don’t know of any famous games.
One thing that is certain, more beginners play the Stonewall irregardless.  It’s a fairly weak opening.

erexere

One thing that is certain, more beginners play the Stonewall irregardless.  It’s a fairly weak opening.

Quite possibly true….beginners…who take chess classes.  I have never taken a chess class but I occasionally dally, especially now that my son has been in chess club for the past 2 years.  Perhaps I may be even using the Stonewall but have no idea what it is called.  I have to agree once again with SheCrab.  I think you are once again getting yourself carried away and looking faaaaaaaaaar tooooooooo deeeeeeeeep for answers.

Consider this though….
There are 15 ROWS….brick, mortar, brick, mortar, brick, mortar…etc.  DOWN TO THE GROUND.
Not 15 rows of BRICKS, but 15 ROWS. Count from the top row of mortar, under the horizontal bricks.
Could be about 21 from side to side counting this way…. (the bottom bricks where you would dig…. not the top ones)

cw0909

here is another therory to pick apart, thanks in advance

cw0909

some walkways have set blocks like your sidewalk,
i measured mine i have 7, 5 foot segments,from my driveway to the next driveway
which covers my front yard, the ones at my city park were 4 feet,from fountian
to the sidewalk entrance,im thinking the segment spaces depends on how much ground

cw0909

not sure about gnomes,…. maybe some on a building at site, as they are in many places in N.O.
Fays delight…the park
The namesakes meeting…..their is a Plaque on the clay
statue, stating where he use to be.

You asked for it, sorry in advance.
I don’t understand your segmentation hypothesis.
How
would it depend on the distance between the statues? There are about 100yds between the statues. How many segments would you break this distance into? Based on what? Where would you dig?
There is nothing on the ground that I saw to substantiate anything along these lines.
There are no gnomes in the surrounding building architecture.
If you’re not using “Gnomes Admire, Fays delight” to gives a clue to what namesakes you are talking about, then this is pretty weak.
You have no match for Gnome, and you’re throwing out the word “delight.” You have one name for the namesake’s meeting – why even use Clay?
I don’t think throwing out the 2 previous lines before namesake’s meaning makes any sense. Without context, it could refer to literally any thing or things that have been named. If you think there are just a couple of things named after famous people in New Orleans….well, then you’ve never been to New Orleans. Especially in and around parks, there are more possibilities than I consider practical to enumerate.

I have found something I have not seen anyone post as a possible match for the first line of the verse.
In an appendix of the book “The Mystick Krewe Of Comus”, the author lists many decades of Mardi Gras Krewe themes and their respective float titles.
In 1906, The Krewe of Rex’s theme was Utopia. Their 17th float was titled “Where Jewels Abound.”
Here is a picture of the page:
I think this is kind of a long shot, but it’s possible that there is a landmark in New Orleans that has a picture of this float displayed, or a painting/mural, that shows the title of the float. I have been unable to locate anything like this in the obvious parks. If anyone has an idea about this, please let me know.

I looked, but Google books has nothing better to offer (yet) than this very book.
Have we really ruled out Story Land? Some points in its favor:
1. It has giant narcissus flowers that look just like the ones on the clock.
2. Three little pigs are there, and they surround an ideal-looking burial site (three stand watch / namesakes meeting).
3. It’s in City Park, a great setting for this sort of thing.
I don’t know how many fairy tales are depicted at Story Land, or the layout of the park, but if it’s arranged along a trail, and there happen to be 21 of them, well… need I say more?
NOLA locals??

WhiteRabbit

I’d like to see the original source for that quote…(not doubting it, just curious).
In general, there’s been a tendency for people to make simple things cryptic as this hunt continues to go unsolved, but if he said the jewels’ values determined the difficulty, I expect that’s what he meant; it would be logical, after all. I haven’t seen a quote or the actual wording though, which makes it more ambiguous.
I can’t remember if it’s been discussed already on this forum, but here’s the original post from the Wiki.
Someone suggests:
Diamond – Africa / Charleston (?)
Sapphire – FOY
Ruby – Houston
Emerald – Chicago
Garnet – Roanoke
Topaz – New York
Aquamarine – Cleveland
Peridot – Boston
Pearl – San Fransisco
Amethyst – Milwaukee
Opal – Montreal (?)
Turquoise – New Orleans

Yeah, the quote is from the wiki that you just posted – I think it was a mistake by the article’s author/Preiss/wiki reader at some point. The January puzzle being easiest up to the December puzzle being the hardest just makes the most sense.
Jan – Dec
Roanoke
Milwaukee
Cleveland – SOLVED
Charleston
Chicago – SOLVED
San Francisco
Houston
Boston
St. Augustine
Montreal – No really good leads
New York City – No really good leads
New Orleans – No really good leads
I think that just makes the most sense, but maybe I’m wrong. I don’t think it’s relevant to finding anything though.

I’ve visited Lafayette Square twice in the past two days, and here I’ll offer up my breakdown on the verse.
“At the place where jewels abound” – Could refer to the fact that this is in the heart of the Central Business and Banking Districts. (All of New Orleans’ major bank HQs are within 3 blocks). Alternatively, this could refer to Julia Street (two blocks SW of the Square) and (Julian) Poydras Street (one block NE of the Square).
“Fifteen rows down to the ground/In the middle of twenty-one” – Could refer to the 15 rows of masonry on the John Minor Wisdom Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. But, I don’t really like that. Also, there are twenty window on the front of the F. Edward Hebert Federal Building, each window is divided by a column. There is a lightning rod (perhaps) running down the middle of these columns. Reading it this way, implies “fifteen rows, down to the lightning rod (ground) in the middle of the windows of the building across the street and to the left.
It -can- work, but it feels too tricky/clever for my tastes.
‘Only three stand watch’ – Well, it’s true, there’s the statues of John McDonogh, Henry Clay, and Ben Franklin all in a row, from end to end of the park.
‘As the sound of friends fills the afternoon hours’ – Sorry, this verse feels worthless. Judging from Chicago and Cleveland, he’s provides LOTS of valuable info in his verses, and no fluff. This is fluff, basically, there are billions of spots across North America where friends meet in the afternoon. It’s possible that it refers to Patrick Gilmore’s famous concerts (with Union sodiers and former-Confederate schoolchildren and cannons and such) in the 1860s, but, that’s an awful lot of history. Chicago and Cleveland don’t dig that deep for esoteric cultural references.
‘Here is a sovereign people/who build palaces to shelter/their heads for a night’ – Ahhh, the Sarmiento quote I uncovered. Refers to a hotel that’s 5 blocks away and has been torn down before the book was written. A skyscraper sits on the site. There are a couple of other hotels in the area, that are rather opulent. But, this is a terribly rare quote. I was thinking exactly what Egbert was, that he had  Abroad in America on hand when the book was written.
‘Gnomes admire’ – No clue here. There are some gardens nearby, and there’s a John McDonogh (“gno” – sound) either admiring Lafayette Street (or being admired by schoolchildren).
‘Fays delight’ – Possibly LaFayette himself.
‘The namesakes meeting/Near this site’ – Okay, possibly St. Charles Avenue meeting with Lafayette Square.
So, to tie it to the image.
1) The harlequin on the clock face looks sort of like the boy admiring John McDonogh
2) The clock face evokes the famous clocks of Whitney National Bank, headquartered across the street from the site of the former St. Charles Hotel.
3) If you rotate the clock face, the markings on the clock sort of reflect the paths through the park.
Sounds good so far?
Except, I don’t buy it. Here’s why:
1) Lafayette Square is tiny, the size of one city block. It is surrounded by (in a circle, going clockwise) – a 12-story federal building, a hotel and restaurant (Lafayette Hotel), a couple liner buildings in front of a condo tower (one is called Soule College, if that rings a bell), Gallier Hall, another federal building, the Poydras Tower (a skyscraper under construction at the time of the book’s writing), the Hale Boggs Federal Building (also half a city block in size), and the fifth district Court of Appeals. Where/how do you dig without being noticed? You’ve got two busy streets on either side of you, and you’re in the middle of a federal complex with scads of security personnel around. I imagine it might have been easier pre-9/11, but it seems like both Cleveland and Chicago’s casques were hidden behind walls.
2) The ‘down to the ground’ line, if it refers to a lightning rod, is almost too clever. It actually bothers me, because it tells me I’m inventing patterns where there are none.
3) ‘As the sound of friends fills the afternoon hours’? Sorry, that’s a throwaway line. This is the shortest verse out of all of them, and I don’t believe that the author would waste ink on something that didn’t more specifically put you in the right area.
4) ‘Gnomes admire/Fays delight’ – Unless this is an anagram for something, then it’s not telling me anything. And, I’m not satisfied with the John McDonogh/Lafayette connections.
and finally
5) How did/could the author possibly have expected anybody to have found that quote? It’s a quote, from a quote, from a translation of a text in Spanish. It strikes me that the author might be referring to some other opulent hotel, and just cribbed this line because it sounds good. I’m actually not opposed to thinking this refers to the Mount Stephens Club hotel in Montreal (with the Leg Eaters). H
6) Chicago had very good visual cues to the site (Lakes statue, Bowman statue, Fence), Cleveland had very good visual cues to the site (lion, statue, fountain, pool, wall, columns). I am only seeing the harlequin/boy link, and that ain’t all that good. I am not super-impressed with the Whitney Bank/clock face link either, despite being desperate to do so.
I visited City Park (for Storyland), and am not impressed there. I visited Armstrong Park (before getting run off by the fuzz), and feel a LOT more positive about that location.
I’ll post followups later, and maybe I’ll head out tomorrow and take pictures.

I’ve visited Lafayette Square twice in the past two days, and here I’ll offer up my breakdown on the verse.
“At the place where jewels abound” – Could refer to the fact that this is in the heart of the Central Business and Banking Districts. (All of New Orleans’ major bank HQs are within 3 blocks). Alternatively, this could refer to Julia Street (two blocks SW of the Square) and (Julian) Poydras Street (one block NE of the Square).
“Fifteen rows down to the ground/In the middle of twenty-one” – Could refer to the 15 rows of masonry on the John Minor Wisdom Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. But, I don’t really like that. Also, there are twenty window on the front of the F. Edward Hebert Federal Building, each window is divided by a column. There is a lightning rod (perhaps) running down the middle of these columns. Reading it this way, implies “fifteen rows, down to the lightning rod (ground) in the middle of the windows of the building across the street and to the left.
It -can- work, but it feels too tricky/clever for my tastes.
‘Only three stand watch’ – Well, it’s true, there’s the statues of John McDonogh, Henry Clay, and Ben Franklin all in a row, from end to end of the park.
‘As the sound of friends fills the afternoon hours’ – Sorry, this verse feels worthless. Judging from Chicago and Cleveland, he’s provides LOTS of valuable info in his verses, and no fluff. This is fluff, basically, there are billions of spots across North America where friends meet in the afternoon. It’s possible that it refers to Patrick Gilmore’s famous concerts (with Union sodiers and former-Confederate schoolchildren and cannons and such) in the 1860s, but, that’s an awful lot of history. Chicago and Cleveland don’t dig that deep for esoteric cultural references.
‘Here is a
sovereign
people/who build palaces to shelter/their heads for a night’ – Ahhh, the Sarmiento quote I uncovered. Refers to a hotel that’s 5 blocks away and has been torn down before the book was written. A skyscraper sits on the site. There are a couple of other hotels in the area, that are rather opulent. But, this is a terribly rare quote. I was thinking exactly what Egbert was, that he had  Abroad in America on hand when the book was written.
‘Gnomes admire’ – No clue here. There are some gardens nearby, and there’s a John McDonogh (“gno” – sound) either admiring Lafayette Street (or being admired by schoolchildren).
‘Fays delight’ – Possibly LaFayette himself.
‘The namesakes meeting/Near this site’ – Okay, possibly St. Charles Avenue meeting with Lafayette Square.
So, to tie it to the image.
1) The harlequin on the clock face looks sort of like the boy admiring John McDonogh
2) The clock face evokes the famous clocks of Whitney National Bank, headquartered across the street from the site of the former St. Charles Hotel.
3) If you rotate the clock face, the markings on the clock sort of reflect the paths through the park.
Sounds good so far?
Except, I don’t buy it. Here’s why:
1) Lafayette Square is tiny, the size of one city block. It is surrounded by (in a circle, going clockwise) – a 12-story federal building, a hotel and restaurant (Lafayette Hotel), a couple liner buildings in front of a condo tower (one is called Soule College, if that rings a bell), Gallier Hall, another federal building, the Poydras Tower (a skyscraper under construction at the time of the book’s writing), the Hale Boggs Federal Building (also half a city block in size), and the fifth district Court of Appeals. Where/how do you dig without being noticed? You’ve got two busy streets on either side of you, and you’re in the middle of a federal complex with scads of security personnel around. I imagine it might have been easier pre-9/11, but it seems like both Cleveland and Chicago’s casques were hidden behind walls.
2) The ‘down to the ground’ line, if it refers to a lightning rod, is almost too clever. It actually bothers me, because it tells me I’m inventing patterns where there are none.
3) ‘As the sound of friends fills the afternoon hours’? Sorry, that’s a throwaway line. This is the shortest verse out of all of them, and I don’t believe that the author would waste ink on something that didn’t more specifically put you in the right area.
4) ‘Gnomes admire/Fays delight’ – Unless this is an anagram for something, then it’s not telling me anything. And, I’m not satisfied with the John McDonogh/Lafayette connections.
and finally
5) How did/could the author possibly have expected anybody to have found that quote? It’s a quote, from a quote, from a translation of a text in Spanish. It strikes me that the author might be referring to some other opulent hotel, and just cribbed this line because it sounds good. I’m actually not opposed to thinking this refers to the Mount Stephens Club hotel in Montreal (with the Leg Eaters). H
6) Chicago had very good visual cues to the site (Lakes statue, Bowman statue, Fence), Cleveland had very good visual cues to the site (lion, statue, fountain, pool, wall, columns). I am only seeing the harlequin/boy link, and that ain’t all that good. I am not super-impressed with the Whitney Bank/clock face link either, despite being desperate to do so.
I visited City Park (for Storyland), and am not impressed there. I visited Armstrong Park (before getting run off by the fuzz), and feel a LOT more positive about that location.
I’ll post followups later, and maybe I’ll head out tomorrow and take pictures.

I’ve come to a final conclusion that this casque is in a spot exactly centered between four palm trees on Basin Street perpendicular between the line center along which three statues stand and the Rouelle family Tomb which peeks over the wall of the cemetery nearby.

Here’s a couple diagrams to help explain the point of view:

Who build Palaces to shelter
Their Heads For A Night !
This  I  Take as  A reference to an Elaborate Hotel .
A nice twist to describe a hotel I think . It came to me  while Looking into the adams Mark Hotel .  What do you think ?

Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night! (for a night!  Why the exclamation mark? Vehement?)
Sounds like an Indian reservation to me.  Maybe.
sovereign-superior to all others: cheif: greatest: supreme whether by power, authority or rank.  Independent of others (sovereign state).
palace-official residence of a king, emperor: any large magnificent house or building:  large ornate building of entertainment.
Know what?  Sounds like Montreal.  I know that was said by somebody way before the legeater was found.

I agree it would be a very ornate place . It’s the ….. For A  Night !  That gets me . It seems to imply Temporary Housing , Just for a stay over .

“a head”
is a horse or a member of a herd (cattle/cow)
“palaces!”
are barns or stables
“a soverign people”
is those who dabble in the sport of kings
“a night”
means they truck them in for a race,
and leave shortly there after.
Horses are out training or grazing during the day.
The barns are only for sleeping.
Why  would he phrase:
(15 rows down to the ground)
– two fold -the rows are verticle
and the “down” is a veiled confirmer
to Churchill Downs.
I have many confirmers to this, but not fully
one hundred percent.
I have quantities of photos at the time
of (15 rows, three stand to watch, and 21)
They have all been completely wiped away
through two renovations.
Conintue with your thoughts, but I believe that
I9/V2 is/was there.

1. Since we’ve already got the Verse 2/Image 7 link established, shall we go ahead and make a new topic? (New Orleans/Verse 2/Image 7), or something like that?
2. I went to the Mardi Gras Fountain on yesterday, and I couldn’t really find 15 or 21 of anything. There are a few dozen (30-40, maybe more) monuments to past Mardi Gras Krewes, but nothing particularly pointing to the image or the verse. The only thing I really found behind the fountain was a grizzled old man wearing panties and a metal-band t-shirt. I wish I were lying.
3. I went, again, to Lafayette Square. It is a beautiful match for the verse, not so much for the image. And, I don’t know how to dig out there without it being a ‘federal incident’.
4. Went to City Park as well, and the sound of friends (mainly kids) does fill the afternoon there. The Casino Building, Popp’s Bandstand, the Peristyle, etc are all within a block of each other, and all ‘seem’ like the kind of architecture that BP went for.
5. Went to Audubon Park, and this is going to be the toughest sell.

The Giant Squid

2. I went to the Mardi Gras Fountain on yesterday, and I couldn’t really find 15 or 21 of anything. There are a few dozen (30-40, maybe more) monuments to past Mardi Gras Krewes, but nothing particularly pointing to the image or the verse. The only thing I really found behind the fountain was a grizzled old man wearing panties and a metal-band t-shirt. I wish I were lying.

The verse actually spells out 15 rows so there is little doubt that you are looking for 15 of something, but it just says in the middle of 21 so you could be looking for something representing 21 instead of 21 of something.
Some things to possibly look:
something in the shape of a horseshoe, or more specifically the letter U
something with XXI
a statue of a sports star with jersey number of 21 (a stretch i know)
something representing a 21 gun salute (bigger stretch)

21—Twenty-one
Also known as Blackjack
Comprised of and ACE and a FACE CARD–or ACE/TEN..  There are a lot of possibilities with this in NO.
Ace-King
Ace-Queen
Ace-Jack
Ace-ten

Okay…..I was just blown away by this:
Did you know that the area around St. Louis, Missouri comprised St. Louis and
St. Charles
counties?
And that St. Louis has a
Lafayette Square?
And there is a community nearby called
Blackjack?
http://www.thewashingtonredheads.com/st … louis_city
how bizarre….

This was found in only a few moments of research. I beg your collective pardon if this is old news, or if someone has said these things before, but I was rather surprised and astounded and can’t ignore it…
St. Louis, Missouri has a region called “The Jewel Box.” (where jewels abound.) I know this has been mentioned, because I’ve read it here. But that’s the OLD news.  We’ve been basing this verse on the sentence from an old book about “sovereign people etc.” The phrase referred to The St. Charles hotel in NO.  Again, old news.  But as you can see from my post above, St. Charles is one of the counties comprising the city of St. Louis MO.
And St. Louis also has a Lafayette Park–which most of us has agreed is a close match for the verse. So if “jewels abound” in a Jewel Box, and St. Charles is a confirmer for both, then what else can be found?
Well, check out the pictures below. There’s our “harlequin” in the image. A vintage baseball player. He’s even in a similiar pose!
There’s the archway in the image. There’s the scrollwork of the clockhands in the image.
“fifteen rows”–the lafayette square in St. Louis is surrounded by ROWhouses.
“In the middle of 21” –21st st is one of the perpendicular streets bordering the park. Might also be a house number.
the park has lots of pictures. Google it.
I hate to do this, but you know what? It just might explain the reason we can’t pinpoint the thing in NO.
There are a lot of similarities between the two cities: St. Louis ALSO has a mardi gras celebration.  Yes, the little ‘horsehead’ does look like the state of Louisiana upside down. But–it ALSO looks like a horsehead. And there are horse-drawn carriages through Lafayette Square in St. Louis.

yeah, what he said

Thanks for reposting that FB.  It must have been posted originally while I was trying to keep up w/ the boards on my cell phone and it probably didnt come through.  I see that you even blocked out the quote in question…my question…is that how it is in the book also?  Set apart from the other paragraphs?  Not that it really matters, I was just curious.
Yeah, I would have to say that that pretty much locks up this V for New Orleans
…but Jackson Square could still be right….
ps…you know what I just realized? and I am soooooo embarrassed
This is Andrew….not Stonewall…

The text is not set apart in any special way in the book. I highlighted the text by placing a box around the quote and increasing the brightness inside it.

fox

ps…you know what I just realized? and I am soooooo embarrassed
This is Andrew….not Stonewall…   :-\

No sweat, Fox — “Stonewall” is not part of this verse!  I think we’ve been talking about the same verses for so long, that we get them tangled up sometimes.  Even Cafe du Monde in Jackson Square is irrelevant, since the air does not need to smell sweet here.   😀  Here is verse 2:
At the place where jewels abound
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Only three stand watch
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
Gnomes admire
Fays delight
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.
Inscription on Andrew Jackson’s statue:  “The union must and shall be PRESERVED.”
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh6.ggpht.com/_odVa75HKojs/RlB2civDJII/AAAAAAAAB6A/PwTlmMlNcNg/IMAGE_00166.jpg&imgrefurl=http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/C9vnWp83FvbLFqtjcXUSLw&h=1600&w=1280&sz=14&hl=en&start=14&um=1&usg=__gJDiUMXMGm1xX78cE8NSfsUMQS0=&tbnid=lyusumNVUP4JKM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dandrew%2Bjackson%2Bsquare%2Bnew%2Borleans%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den
That’s one of the tie-ins to Image 7.  Also, I guess I should post this in the Image 7 thread, but if you look closely at the hands of the clock, you will see a hidden “JS.”
Hmmm.  Only 3 stand watch?:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/StLouisCathedralJacksonStatue.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:StLouisCathedralJacksonStatue.jpg&h=2495&w=1927&sz=1414&hl=en&start=13&um=1&usg=__6Gk0VoUtEW83N-UNmOSa4Vrlpgg=&tbnid=ErzutYIYLcdS1M:&tbnh=150&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dandrew%2Bjackson%2Bsquare%2Bnew%2Borleans%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den
Let’s dissect this verse some more.

I do not have any precise locations in mind, but I have noticed the three fairies.  If anyone is ever in St. Louis, it is definitely worth the trip (whether or not there is a treasure there).

I think this is the New Orleans Verse but the clues in the Image indicate City Park. I do not think Storyland is the casques location. A key line is namesakes meeting. Storyland was likely locked up at night Their are three areas in City Park that are named after somebody Marconie Meadow is one I do not remeber the others off the top of my head. One of these areas is likely the casque’s location. I think the Grandfather Clock could also be a clue we are missing.

that’s exactly what i think scottrocks,  “near storyland” (outside the fence)
maybe a locked gate or something because of the picture
something like this maybe, for afternoon hours:
http://flickr.com/photos/rogie_la/2070907577/

Don’t forget that the daffodils (narcissus) in the clock face of P7 have some larger-than-life counterparts in Storyland.

scottrocks7

I think this is the New Orleans Verse but the clues in the Image indicate City Park. I do not think Storyland is the casques location. A key line is namesakes meeting. Storyland was likely locked up at night Their are three areas in City Park that are named after somebody Marconie Meadow is one I do not remeber the others off the top of my head. One of these areas is likely the casque’s location. I think the Grandfather Clock could also be a clue we are missing.

Except the verse says  AT the place where jewels abound and the namesakes meet NEAR this site.
City Park is not AT the place where jewels abound it is NEAR it.
No matter how you try to stretch it Jewels dont abound in a sundial (unless its jewel encrusted)
Perhaps somewhere between the two?

Glossiphoniidae

WR – I’ve actually been working on a “more creative” solution myself, trying not to get too creative…

OK, I had too much fun researching and linking the theory to give it away. It’s legit, but it’s creative. Too many connections to write down. I think you all will have more fun figuring it out yourselves… if you enjoy some research anyways; otherwise, don’t bother. That’s just my two cents, well, maybe just a tad more. Let me know if you want to discuss, cause I did find an obvious (maybe too obvious) place in the middle of twenty-one where jewels abound. I think the image is one of those jewels. You’ll probably find it if you look around. Interestingly (imho), just like Chicago and Cleveland, the prominent image of location is large, and directly center.
I am almost certain the spot is correct.

(Test post)

test

I’m exhausted on this New Orleans site. By all means share. Or give a hint.

Deuce

I’m exhausted on this New Orleans site. By all means share. Or give a hint.

I’ve already given you my three cents.
Turn the image counterclockwise and gather the jewels!
Gnomes would certainly admire you if you dared to dig.
Check out the middle of the 21 jewel, and fence there:
U n i  t  e d  S t a  t  e  s    o  f    A  m e  r  i  c  a
1 2 3 4 5 6  7 8 9 10 11 12  1314  15161718192021
I can hear the drums, and see them.
And the St. Charles is no longer there.
I would even say it’s possible that the Charleston image might have been inspired by BP’s visit
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3500/4001884379_93649464be_z.jpg?zz=1
… Unless I am crazy.

Glossiphoniidae

I think you all will have more fun figuring it out yourselves… if you enjoy some research anyways; otherwise, don’t bother….I am almost certain the spot is correct.

Aw c’mon 421, the people here have researched this thing exhaustively and shared fully for years. I think we passed the cryptic hint stage some time back.

2ast4u2c– I am sorry.  Ihave just noticed your message.  I would like to hear your ideas (we all would) and see the pictures.

I know there’s been discussion on the verse having a reference to the dome at the St. Louis Hotel in New Orleans. Richard Campanella (New Orleans Historian) tweeted this today and I thought people here might find it interesting.
https://imgur.com/VGBvypo

maltedfalcon

is it possible there was/is a jewelry store around the perimeter of the park somewhere?

Or the jewels reference could just be a city marker.  If you’ve ever been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, you can’t walk down any street without seeing an abundance of jewels (beads).

is it possible there was/is a jewelry store around the perimeter of the park somewhere?

A couple of shots of the location.
With any luck, this will be extracted next week.
(assuming I can have it done by the supervisor there)
If I need to travel, it may be three weeks from now.
Enjoy the photo and see the verse.
Much has changed here in twenty years, but much has stayed the same.
Know that the maximum number of horse allowed in the Derby
is twenty.
The right hand side of the photo is closest to the park entrance.
This is easy public access.
And the image of the checker boards…. Head, Neck, Two Lengths.
(References the tote board (A Checked Board) above the stalls – which has been upgraded
since 1982 – I know Pepsi didn’t sponor it back then)
*Much documented construction in the target area in 1985 and
currently between 2003 – 2006 – including bricking over dirt*

Please find attached another image CLEARLY
showing the THREE STAND WATCH.
‘http://www.tias.com/11550/PictPage/1921081732.html’
Any questions?
edit:  The link no longer shows the photo/postcard from 1950
because I bought it.
When it arrives I will scan and post.
It is a clear shot of three jockey gnomes admiring the
finish line of Churchill Downs from the infield.  It is a photo
from the box seats, as opposed to the behind shot I posted earlier.

MrBackstop

Fifteen rows down to the ground –
15 Row houses on the Jazz Walking tour in the area around Lafayette Square

I don’t really know enough about NO to weigh in on this, but I was wonder how old the Jazz Walking tour is?