Back to Basics ...

[Armchair detective]

The idea here is to try and figure out how
WE would bury something of value 100 ft deep with the following criteria (more to come).
1. In a hurry.
2. Tools at hand
3. Materials at hand
4. Logistic support

The first task is to conceive what kind of thing would be the simplest way to GIT 'ER DONE, then maybe it would be a clue as to who and what.

 

[Carl-NC]

I'd start with why we would bury something 100 ft deep.

 

[pepperj]

I'd start with why we would bury something 100 ft deep.

You hit the nail on the head.
WHY?

 

[Armchair detective]

I'd start with why we would bury something 100 ft deep.

If there were people on the island and you didn't want them digging it up the minute you left?

Note also the depth was 100 ft, where the air starts to get bad. We probably stopped digging there because we had no ventilation equipment, which implies inexperience.

 

[DizzyDigger]

What tools do we have "at hand"?

 

[Carl-NC]

If there were people on the island and you didn't want them digging it up the minute you left?

If there were people on the island then digging a 100 ft hole is guaranteed to draw attention. Although they could not dig it up the minute you leave, they could dig it up nonetheless. That is, if you can dig a 100 foot hole, so can they.

Dig a 6 foot hole, and lower a coffin. They'll leave it alone. Mark it with a headstone, "Brad Ruestierue," easy to find.

 

[Armchair detective]

What if the inhabitants knew what we were burying but had no interest in it, like an arms cache?
Or were sympathetic to our side?

 

[Carl-NC]

An even better reason not to dig a 100 ft hole. Label the headstone "Marc Chase."

You can 'what if' this thing to eternity, which is exactly how we are where we are with OI. But go ahead with the original proposition. How many people, what tools, what material?

 

[TruthbeTold]

What if the inhabitants knew what we were burying but had no interest in it, like an arms cache?
Or were sympathetic to our side?

“What if”

That term is used expodentially when it comes to oak island.

The only folks who dug 100 foot holes on the island were the scammers attempting to fleece investors for money.

 

[Armchair detective]

The simplest construction appears to be a straight shaft no cribbing. At the bottom there will be a double floor to hold our whatever, a floor/roof on top of that, then the 10ft dirt, log levels, etc ascending until we are out.

Want to put in flagstones and clay? Sure, if we have a purpose for them.

For simplicity, assume the water inflow was a breach of natural aquifers.

Okay so far?

 

[UnderMiner]

If I wanted to burry treasure in a hurry in a deep hole I would likely find a recently fallen tree and start digging in the root hole since it would already be pretty deep and save me valuable digging time. I could then use the fallen tree itself as a marker. It may seem weird to think it would be easy to find a recently fallen tree but that is because most of our modern forests are not the old growth forests of our ancestors, trees in those forests would naturally fall over all the time due to age, so finding one would've been easy.

 

[Armchair detective]

Didn't like this idea at first. Where would the dirt come from to fill the hole? Use a pile of rocks to cover the hole? Where did the tree come from?

But leave the hole open might work.

You'll notice TNET is full of ideas on how this cache SHOULD have been buried, and they all seem different than what is purported to be there.

 

[Armchair detective]

Back to basics...

Let's further define this hole's shape as similar to a martini glass, with the rim being 13 ft diameter closing to the throat of 7 ft, the throat somewhere between 10 and 20 ft down. The 7 ft shaft continues to the bottom where we begin construction.

Okay so far?

 

[GravelTeeth]

If I wanted to burry treasure in a hurry in a deep hole I would likely find a recently fallen tree and start digging in the root hole since it would already be pretty deep and save me valuable digging time. I could then use the fallen tree itself as a marker. It may seem weird to think it would be easy to find a recently fallen tree but that is because most of our modern forests are not the old growth forests of our ancestors, trees in those forests would naturally fall over all the time due to age, so finding one would've been easy.

Interesting idea. The "live oak" varieties common in the southeastern U.S. have a notoriously shallow root system, and are prone to toppling over in significant rain and wind events, taking a wide patch of ground with them. I'm reading that root depth depends more on soil conditions than species, but interestingly the pine trees in close proximity to the toppled oaks I have witnessed were always fine or snapped off in the middle of the trunk. Topsoil on Oak Island is about two feet's worth before the hard glacial till layer.

--GT

 

[GravelTeeth]

The only folks who dug 100 foot holes on the island were the scammers attempting to fleece investors for money.

This allegation comes up a lot from certain quarters, but does it really hold water? When you delve into the searcher histories, you notice a lot of familial connections. It would be a sorry example of humanity indeed who would conclude there was no treasure and yet allow/encourage a cousin, nephew, or son to invest their time and money on the endeavour anyway. Yet we see exactly such clan participation over and over again. It seems very unrealistic to think that the elders would be so heartless, across several families. The essay here details some of the connecting genealogies in the 19th century searcher syndicates. The Archibalds, Lynds, Blairs, Chappells, Tuppers, Creelmans, etc. that peopled this era all found some reason to be involved over multiple syndicates and multiple generations.

Combined with the fact that on at least one or two occasions extra funding rounds were voted down so as not to dilute the shares of existing investors, these facts tell me that no, this was not primarily a sophisticated grift. And as I've pointed out before, the scale and scope of the search works on the island defy any such pat notions. An investor scam does not need that level of theater, particularly in ages when there was no ready visual record of what went on. If they were merely out to profit from outsider investments they could have built a simple shack over the top of the Money Pit and claimed anything they wanted about what went on underneath. No, the folks leading the efforts on the ground were, on the whole, fully committed to a belief in the goal. Amongst the manual labor and seasonal help employed, yeah, I'd expect a wider variety of opinions, but the record shows the people making the decisions were, with few exceptions, all in. (Cf. Captain Welling, who began as a skeptic when he was first drafted for a supervisory job at the dig but became a firm believer.)

The claim that these were merely successive waves of perpetrators of a hoax out to bilk the public does not comport with the evidence and does not hold up to scrutiny. Note that this does not necessarily imply that they were correct about what was down there ... it is perfectly possible for many people to have been earnest but mistaken, without concluding they were fraudsters.

--GT

 

[Armchair detective]

The j b Mccully letter (a fellow who was there with the Truro company) has some details of the 100 ft construction.
(See "Did a Sawpit Start...." , post 93, pages 2 and 3).

First, they confirmed that the log level at 98 ft did in fact exist, which the Onslow Co first discovered. In augering through that it was discovered to be 6" spruce, then they dropped a foot, hit 4" oak, 20" loose metal, 8" oak, 6" spruce, 7 ft loose clay, then solid "undisturbed" clay.

I'm guessing there was a container there with a 4" oak top and bottom with 20" interior height.

That leaves a storage area with a 4" oak laid over 6" spruce floor, with an interior height of 38" and a 6" spruce ceiling.

Let's leave it an option that we need to build the container.

Okay so far?

 

[chalkoutline]

Armchair,
I found your post on Truro interesting and used the attached diagram to fact check your info.
The Truro Syndicate dug the MP to 86 feet when it filled with water so they set up a platform at 30ft just above the water level and and took 5 core samples. Sample 2 and 3 confirmed the platform at 98 ft first identified by the Onslow Company in 1804 followed by the details in the attached diagram.

I heard you mention 2 stacked boxes before but it wasn't until i drew this diagram that i fully understood what you were talking about.
-CO

 

[Armchair detective]

Already running into problems.

1. Mccully says a 13 ft wide hole,, Desbrishey says 7 ft.
We like 7 ft since we know that can hold 10 ft of dirt.
We are uncertain that a floor of 6" spruce poles spanning 13 ft can hold that weight. Needs research

2. One box or 2 box high? will define the height of the storage area. Mccully's letter 1862 says 1 box, the news article 1895 unearthed by gravelteeth in Two Stacked Boxes...post 9 says 2 box. Guess we'll have to rationalize a way to resolve this.

 

[Armchair detective]

Bad news folks.

There is no way a 6" spruce floor could hold up 10 ft of glacial till, not a span of 13 ft, not even 7 ft.

IMPOSSIBLE.

What it can do:
7 ft span can hold 6.7 ft high evenly spread till
13 ft span can hold 1.1 ft high evenly spread till

This means the purpose of the floors is NOT to hold 10 ft of till.

 

[Armchair detective]

We know you're dying for the numbers, so here we go.

The first number is 135 psf for nova scotia glacial till. (We've used 100 psf in the past which was a really sloppy average).
10x135=1350 lbs/ft^2, a uniform load across the span.

We call upon Google AI for "shear table for 6" spruce poles alaska".
Values at 7 ft span is 444 lbs/ft^2,
at 13 ft is a shaky 74 lbs/ft

First thing to know is these are recommended values which include a safety factor of 2.04, so
the 7 ft span destruct value is 444X2.04 = 906 psf.

You see the problem.

The second thing is the value at 13 ft span was extrapolated, not tested. BUT using it anyway,
74x2.04 = 151 psf.

What could it support you ask?
906/1350x10 = up to 6.7 ft
151/1350x10 = up to 1.1 ft.

There is still the question of the floor of the "treasure storage area" being laid with 4" oak over 6" spruce poles - could that have held up the whole 100 ft?