Robert E. Park (1864–1944)

The 'author' has a conversational style and a passion about treasure hunting that he successfully shares with the reader. And he's clearly knowledgeable about the subject.And I have to say that up front, because I have a lot of negatives to say too.He's slightly sexist. First by referring to 'he' without even a nod to the idea that the treasure hunter might be a woman. Though after that, most of the book is about 'I' and 'you', so that's less of a problem. I wasn't even going to mention it, until he made a snide comment about wearing the right shoes because 'looks are not important here ladies'. Grr.He also uses jargon without explaining it or introducing you to it slowly. Here's one example:'You'll have to be selective about your locations because here you need bedrock and hard pack to be exposed, or you'll have to move overburden. You can fan with your paddle but can't expect to move tons of cover that way.'Um.. what?! That _sounds_ like English....But the main problem I had with this book was the sheer lack of editing. Experts in a field need to bring in a writer to co-write the book with them, okay? It would reduce the wall of jargon, would increase the organization of the book as a whole, and would look like competent written English.Or, at the very least, bring in a freaking editor! A beta reader! Something!!'The Civil War was the United States last conflict on its' own soil, and accounts for Billions in value of gold and silver coinage and house wares lost.'For those of you keeping track, that's 2 apostrophe problems, 1 capitalization problem, and one whatever-the-word-is-for-compound-word-thingees problem.I could quote practically any sentence in the book to demonstrate that again. But I'll settle for the one I found most humorous.'The beach is where the ocean cleanses herself of all of her dead and man's wonton invasion.'Once I got over the bad writing and the waded through the jargon, I still didn't come away with too much concrete information about treasure hunting on a budget. It sounds like I need a workshop and a lot of scrap wood and carpet and things lying around. And the ability to weld things.I guess this is one 'lady' who just isn't cut out for hunting wontons on a budget.… (meer)