Did the 3 boys dig 30 feet deep?

[K9-1]

I like the show. I dont know about the...money pit,but I do like seeing what they find. There is definitely a history and visitors that happened there. Im curious what the other islands near there may have?
As far as treasure. Im not an expert so I pass no judgment. I would think if they intended to ever retrieve the treasure they'd made it a bit easier...maybe another entrance? If anything paper was down there. Then why flood the treasure and destroy priceless historical documents?
Im not saying there isnt a treasure, but i cant say there is one either.
I like to think there are still hidden treasures out there! Its like bigfoot and aliens...I wanna believe! Things like this keep life fun! Sure I can sit in my chair and say nope! No way! Or I can do the research, put boots in the ground and have an adventure! I may not find anything, but the hunt and getting out there is rewarding enough for me.

 

[Carl-NC]

If anything paper was down there.

Are you absolutely certain?

 

[K9-1]

Are you absolutely certain?

Certain? Yeah! Im Certain if paper gets wet and sits in water for years its destroyed.
Im saying if you had documents down there and you had Bobby traps to flood everything why? The documents would possibly be ruined and lost forever. So why flood the treasure room and destroy historical documents. Of course there could be 0 paper down there!
The water booby traps just dont make sense. Construction could fail by the time they go to retrieve the treasure and everything is flooded! Then what? Call it a loss? How at that time would they deal with a flooded chamber?
So yeah! Im Certain paper sitting in water for many years would be worthless.

 

[Carl-NC]

"If anything paper was down there" sounded like you believed that, at a minimum, there was paper buried in the MP. Maybe that's not what you meant.

The "flood tunnels" are just one of many story elements that make no sense, but are easily explained by the geology of the island.

 

[K9-1]

"If anything paper was down there" sounded like you believed that, at a minimum, there was paper buried in the MP. Maybe that's not what you meant.

The "flood tunnels" are just one of many story elements that make no sense, but are easily explained by the geology of the island.

I just watch the show and have seen other things on tv. Some have mentioned ancient books or scrolls.
I just find treasure hunting in general interesting. Especially if there's a good story to go along with it.
I do enjoy the finds they have made! While some may not be as impressed. I always wanna know how it got there.
Im 100% new to all of this! Metal detecting, treasure hunting, rockhounding...all of it!
So im gonna get things wrong and definitely ask dumb questions.

 

[autofull]

Certain? Yeah! Im Certain if paper gets wet and sits in water for years its destroyed.
Im saying if you had documents down there and you had Bobby traps to flood everything why? The documents would possibly be ruined and lost forever. So why flood the treasure room and destroy historical documents. Of course there could be 0 paper down there!
The water booby traps just dont make sense. Construction could fail by the time they go to retrieve the treasure and everything is flooded! Then what? Call it a loss? How at that time would they deal with a flooded chamber?
So yeah! Im Certain paper sitting in water for many years would be worthless.

why/ if it exists/ would you make it impossible to retrieve unless no one was supposed to ever be able to find it. / there are many items from the old world that are supposed to have the power of a god contained in them that perhaps are not to ever be found and used for evil. / im not a big church guy but perhaps the people that may have hidden such items believed in their power and were afraid of what could happen if they were found.

 

[Jeff H]

why/ if it exists/ would you make it impossible to retrieve unless no one was supposed to ever be able to find it. / there are many items from the old world that are supposed to have the power of a god contained in them that perhaps are not to ever be found and used for evil. / im not a big church guy but perhaps the people that may have hidden such items believed in their power and were afraid of what could happen if they were found.

If their aim was was to never have it found, why not just go 100 miles off shore and dump it overboard in 2,000 feet of water?

 

[chalkoutline]

If their aim was was to never have it found, why not just go 100 miles off shore and dump it overboard in 2,000 feet of water?

That reminds of another thread where i suggested that the log platforms and dirt were used to fill a sinkhole.

Armchair came back and said...why not just put a fence around!
Sometimes i get caught in details and can't see the obvious

 

[GravelTeeth]

The previous diagnosis with two blue triangle was to show how i calculated the angles and depth: i divided the cone shaped hole by two.

I attached the same diagram but adapted it to look like a dug hole.

Based on this analysis, i do not believe the original story from 1795 is credible.
The drawing furthest to the right shows the profile of 30ft deep hole.
1. At an angle on 84 degrees, the dig would be very dangerous.
2. At 30ft, the bottom or floor would be only 6'x6' so they could not remove the log platform at 30'.
3. Although i didn't show the 20 ft platform, the bottom of the hole' at 20' is 9'x9. Removing the log platform would have certainly disturbed the clayish till above and the walls would have collapsed.
4. Assuming they excaped the collapse and made it to 30', the opening of the hole would have been 25' above there heads so how did they they get in and out of the hole?
5. Time: i estimate it took 75 to 90 days to dig to a depth of 30' since 90% of the till was removed by filling buckets.

Where were the parents?
At some point they had to have asked what the boys were doing?
I wouldn't think the boys would have kept the hole/treasure a secret, so shouldnt they have been concerned with the depth they were digging?
If the boys story was convincing, wouldn't they have taken over?

So for me...im with TruthbeTold, its a fictious story.

Some thoughts:

The 1795 origin story, kicking off the searcher era, is the most conflicted part of this whole saga, with many incompatible versions and details that one must take with a big grain of salt. You have settled on one version of the story and extrapolated from there, which is fine. But what if those conflicting details alter your calculations?

Using the census records and such, some of the more thorough works on OI peg the "boys'" ages from 15 to early twenties. In those days, that would have made them farm hands on their parents properties at the very least, and possibly already out on their own. So they weren't children in the sense that parents would be still watching their every move. Some versions of the story include Samuel Ball as one of the discoverers, and he would have been nearing middle age by then. Could there have been four diggers? More? De Mille's fictionalized version had only two diggers, a dad and his son. And BTW that version said it did take months, if I recall correctly.

I can say from experience that a gang of literally children can dig five feet deep (roughly 10'x10') in sandy soil in an afternoon. A big hole can be manually dug with more rapidity during the first few feet while the diggers can still shovel out the fill over the rim. Once it is more than their own height is when the buckets come in. And don't forget, with the log platforms that were supposedly found, we don't know if the fill was even all the way up to the bottom of each previous ten foot section. In fact I think I recall the probing at the 90' depth encountering an air gap.

Of course there is the possibility that there was never the remains of a hoist, never a tree, never a depression, never any 30' dig. It's possible it was completely fabricated for some sensationalism or profit motive (does Oak Island even exist? Maybe it's all special effects and filmed on a backlot in Toronto). However, there's these nagging details that, in my mind, work against the "all a hoax" theory. For one thing, one or two of the purported discoverers continued to be involved in the searching efforts by later syndicates, and I don't recall seeing any documentation of how they would have profited from that involvement, other than with a share of treasure. McGinnis supposedly bought his MP lots very close in time to when the "discovery" happened, and having searcher syndicates on his property creating a mess seems like it would have been more of a pain in the butt than a boon. When later generations sold the property at a profit to searcher-types, then yes, of course, but before then ... I'm not convinced.

I think your strongest premise is in the collapse risk when no cribbing was found. Then again, what you've researched shows the methods that were "supposed to be" used, and we don't know if the purported depositors were tradesmen in fields where they would even know that stuff, so their methods may have been very different. Maybe they had methods of temporary cribbing that was not attached to the earth and could be retrieved when they left.

Lots of maybes, and as Carl-NC would point out, maybes aren't proof. They just keep me from shutting the door completely on what is, admittedly, an impractical and highly improbable sequence of narratives.

--GT

 

[GravelTeeth]

Certain? Yeah! Im Certain if paper gets wet and sits in water for years its destroyed.
Im saying if you had documents down there and you had Bobby traps to flood everything why? The documents would possibly be ruined and lost forever. So why flood the treasure room and destroy historical documents. Of course there could be 0 paper down there!
The water booby traps just dont make sense. Construction could fail by the time they go to retrieve the treasure and everything is flooded! Then what? Call it a loss? How at that time would they deal with a flooded chamber?
So yeah! Im Certain paper sitting in water for many years would be worthless.

I speculated in another thread that the so-called Chappell Vault, with its concrete outer layer, may have been intended to be waterproof. Of course there's been so much catastrophic damage to the Money Pit area over the years, any such arrangement would surely have been compromised.

The Bacon depositor theory held that precious documents were to be preserved in mercury underground. How that is supposed to work exactly I still don't know ... some sort of sealed vessels, one sheaf of documents per? In any case, the theory gained a little traction when a midden of broken pottery with trace evidence of mercury was found on Oak Island.

--GT

 

[autofull]

If their aim was was to never have it found, why not just go 100 miles off shore and dump it overboard in 2,000 feet of water?

mabe they were afraid it would wash up on the shore somewhere sometime/ justa thought.

 

[Armchair detective]

I speculated in another thread that the so-called Chappell Vault, with its concrete outer layer, may have been intended to be waterproof. Of course there's been so much catastrophic damage to the Money Pit area over the years, any such arrangement would surely have been compromised.

The Bacon depositor theory held that precious documents were to be preserved in mercury underground. How that is supposed to work exactly I still don't know ... some sort of sealed vessels, one sheaf of documents per? In any case, the theory gained a little traction when a midden of broken pottery with trace evidence of mercury was found on Oak Island.

--GT

About the mercury...

Don't know if this all links together, but...
1. Mercury is associated with the mining or processing of gold.
2. There is fool's gold on the island.
3. There was a company called "Old Gold and Salvage" that operated on Oak Island for about 2 years.

My guess is they looked for gold, didn't find it, dumped their mercury.

 

[UnderMiner]

The impression in the ground the boys saw may have simply been from a fallen tree, often called a "tree throw" or root pit. It is a hole created when the tree's roots pull up soil during a fall. This was a common sight in the old growth forests of the time. The boys were likely just playing and acting out a fantasy when they began "digging for treasure" in the ground.

Daniel Defoe's: A General History of the Pyrates, had been in print since 1724, and pirates and treasure were a favorite theme among boys in the 18th century (as they still are today).

My theory is, that the boys were at the age where psychologically they were still combining fantasy with reality. They saw something that looked interesting, equated it with tales of buried treasure, and soon they began believing it.

The fact that several boys were all recounting this imagined belief at the same time to their siblings, parents, friends, and family in an isolated area which seldom recieved any news lead to a mass psychological event called "social contagion". This is when an idea becomes engrained in a community. Then when they all start digging in this place, another psycological event is triggered called Selection Bias.

This is when everyone equates any discovery, real or imagined, to the overall belief they share. So if the shaft flooded after they dug a certain amount, it wasn't because they had hit the water table, it was because the pirates had made a booby trap, and the treasure was just a bit deeper.

A carved stone that was placed there by a prankster wasn't a prank, it was a note left by the pirates who had buried the treasure, and that treasure was just a bit deeper. If some prankster saw all these people digging and tossed a few trinkets in the hole and they found the trinkets, the mass psychology of the diggers would not allow them to consider someone is playing a prank on them - but that millions in gold is just a bit deeper.

 

[GravelTeeth]

The impression in the ground the boys saw may have simply been from a fallen tree, often called a "tree throw" or root pit. It is a hole created when the tree's roots pull up soil during a fall. This was a common sight in the old growth forests of the time. The boys were likely just playing and acting out a fantasy when they began "digging for treasure" in the ground.

Daniel Defoe's: A General History of the Pyrates, had been in print since 1724, and pirates and treasure were a favorite theme among boys in the 18th century (as they still are today).

My theory is, that the boys were at the age where psychologically they were still combining fantasy with reality. They saw something that looked interesting, equated it with tales of buried treasure, and soon they began believing it.

The fact that several boys were all recounting this imagined belief at the same time to their siblings, parents, friends, and family in an isolated area which seldom recieved any news lead to a mass psychological event called "social contagion". This is when an idea becomes engrained in a community. Then when they all start digging in this place, another psycological event is triggered called Selection Bias.

This is when everyone equates any discovery, real or imagined, to the overall belief they share. So if the shaft flooded after they dug a certain amount, it wasn't because they had hit the water table, it was because the pirates had made a booby trap, and the treasure was just a bit deeper.

A carved stone that was placed there by a prankster wasn't a prank, it was a note left by the pirates who had buried the treasure, and that treasure was just a bit deeper. If some prankster saw all these people digging and tossed a few trinkets in the hole and they found the trinkets, the mass psychology of the diggers would not allow them to consider someone is playing a prank on them - but that millions in gold is just a bit deeper.

This is certainly the safest theory. Finding buried caches is rare, and finding actual pirate loot is extremely rare. The combination of a cache at depth would make it exceptional among extremes. But not impossible. One of the things that makes the safe theory safe is that it follows the historical narrative. We are apparently without record of residents on the island before the 1762 Morris partition and only "ownership" claims before that (correct me if I'm wrong). Nevertheless, the CoOI searchers continue to find artifacts that predate the earliest known homesteads, sometimes by a lot. The types of artifacts imply long-term occupation. So we do have a competing, undocumented narrative that is still developing. The existence of such evidence should widen the scope of possibility.

"Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories.
... not only are some scientific results useless in real life, because they underestimate the impact of the highly improbable (or lead us to ignore it), but ... many of them may be actually creating Black Swans."

-- Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan​

--GT

 

[GravelTeeth]

Putting this here to try and stay true to the thread's premise. It occurred to me that one of my extended social group is an actual geologist, not only degreed but working in the field for decades, so I asked him: "is it reasonably possible for people to manually dig straight down through virgin clayish glacial till to 100 feet or deeper without cribbing the walls of the shaft?"

And his answer was: "by its very nature, glacial till is very competent. However, I've drilled down about 300 feet through it in the NW and observed micro fractures. Given how hard it is to dig a hole in my yard deeper than 3 feet, I would say that digging by hand through till down to 100 feet would be extremely difficult (even for heavy equipment) but not impossible and depending on the type and compaction of the till, it's possible the hole would stay open (though unlikely especially if it was dug during the rainy season). ... Also, the water table would have to be deeper than 100 ft for the hole not to collapse."

An interesting perspective that seems to mirror, for the most part, the group consensus. I don't know if the natural water table is even determinable on Oak Island anymore due to searcher activity and the encroachment of sea water.

This leads me to the following thought: if there is a rainy season on Oak Island (spring? early summer? Any of youse live in NS to confirm?), and if, by chance, there were people long ago determined to dig a shaft without cribbing that they wanted to stay open, would they have had to complete their entire project, including the back-filling, in one dry season?

--GT

 

[chalkoutline]

This leads me to the following thought: if there is a rainy season on Oak Island (spring? early summer?

Im excited to get input from an expert.

With regards to the dry season, i thought Google AI might be able to shed some light on the timeframe.

Question 1: How long did it take to sail from England to Oak Island NS in the 1600s?
Answer: In the 1600s, sailing from England, to the coast of Nova Scotia (near Oak Island) generally took between six and ten weeks. Voyages were highly dependent on wind, weather, and the ship's condition, with some trips lasting over two months or up to four months due to unfavorable conditions.

Question 2: When would the best time for a ship to sail from Cornwall to oak island ns in the 1600s?
Answer: The best time for a ship to sail from Cornwall to Oak Island, NS, in the 1600s was early spring (late March to April). This timing allowed ships to avoid winter storms in the Atlantic and North American ice, while utilizing favorable westerly winds to arrive before the peak hurricane season.

Question 3: Could a ship sail from Cornwall to oak island ns in the 1600s during the winter?
Answer: While theoretically possible, a ship sailing from Cornwall to Oak Island, NS, in the 1600s during winter would have faced extreme, near-suicidal risks due to harsh Atlantic storms, freezing temperatures, and, in the 17th century, generally colder conditions. The journey typically took 6–10 weeks, with winter voyages navigating ice and intense weather that made such trips highly unlikely and perilous

Question 4: When would a ship typically sail from Oak Island ns to Cornwall in the 1600s?
Answer: In the 1600s, a ship sailing from North America (such as Nova Scotia) to England/Cornwall would typically depart in late summer to early autumn, specifically between August and September. This timing allowed vessels to avoid the peak Atlantic hurricane season while ensuring they reached European waters before the winter storms of November and December, following the prevailing westerly.

My take aways...
Best case scenario would have a ship leave England around March 15th, arrive on OI 1.5 months later on May 1st and depart around Sept 15th.
This means they would be on OI for 3.5 months.

Worse case scenario would have a ship leave England around Apr 15th, arrive on OI 2.5 months later on July 1st and depart OI around August 15th.
They would be on OI for 1.5 months.

If i remember the claims correctly, the men slept on the upper platforms during the winter using potbelly stoves to stay warm. This would indicate they stayed longer than one season.

 

[chalkoutline]

Im excited to get input from an expert.

With regards to the dry season, i thought Google AI might be able to shed some light on the timeframe.

Question 1: How long did it take to sail from England to Oak Island NS in the 1600s?
Answer: In the 1600s, sailing from England, to the coast of Nova Scotia (near Oak Island) generally took between six and ten weeks. Voyages were highly dependent on wind, weather, and the ship's condition, with some trips lasting over two months or up to four months due to unfavorable conditions.

Question 2: When would the best time for a ship to sail from Cornwall to oak island ns in the 1600s?
Answer: The best time for a ship to sail from Cornwall to Oak Island, NS, in the 1600s was early spring (late March to April). This timing allowed ships to avoid winter storms in the Atlantic and North American ice, while utilizing favorable westerly winds to arrive before the peak hurricane season.

Question 3: Could a ship sail from Cornwall to oak island ns in the 1600s during the winter?
Answer: While theoretically possible, a ship sailing from Cornwall to Oak Island, NS, in the 1600s during winter would have faced extreme, near-suicidal risks due to harsh Atlantic storms, freezing temperatures, and, in the 17th century, generally colder conditions. The journey typically took 6–10 weeks, with winter voyages navigating ice and intense weather that made such trips highly unlikely and perilous

Question 4: When would a ship typically sail from Oak Island ns to Cornwall in the 1600s?
Answer: In the 1600s, a ship sailing from North America (such as Nova Scotia) to England/Cornwall would typically depart in late summer to early autumn, specifically between August and September. This timing allowed vessels to avoid the peak Atlantic hurricane season while ensuring they reached European waters before the winter storms of November and December, following the prevailing westerly.

My take aways...
Best case scenario would have a ship leave England around March 15th, arrive on OI 1.5 months later on May 1st and depart around Sept 15th.
This means they would be on OI for 3.5 months.

Worse case scenario would have a ship leave England around Apr 15th, arrive on OI 2.5 months later on July 1st and depart OI around August 15th.
They would be on OI for 1.5 months.

If i remember the claims correctly, the men slept on the upper platforms during the winter using potbelly stoves to stay warm. This would indicate they stayed longer than one season.

Using this information, i tried to eliminate the use of cribbing the 100ft shaft due to the limited time on the island. Here's what i calculated...

No Cribbing: 1.5 months working 8hrs/day to dig and FILL the shaft.

With Cribbing: 3 months working 8 hrs/day to dig and HIDE the shaft.

Note the difference between FILL and HIDE.
FILL: According to the MP story the Onslow company found log platforms and no wall support whiich indicates the aleged depositors filled the entire shaft before leaving. I used the same time to dig and fill the shaft

HIDE: Since you cannot remove the cribbing to fill the shaft, you have to HIDE it by removing the top 20ft or so and then cover the opening before filling upper 20ft of the shaft. To hide the shaft only takes a few days.

This method could have also been used with log platforms where only the top 20ft of the shaft was filled which would have cut the time on the island to under a month.

Conclusion: the decision to NOT use cribbing doesn't appear to have been made due to 3 month time limit on Oak Island.

Therefore, the need for cribbing would be determined by the water table and the amount of rain on the island as indicated by Gravelteeth's geologist friend.

 

[chalkoutline]

Therefore, the need for cribbing would be determined by the water table and the amount of rain on the island as indicated by Gravelteeth's geologist friend.

Im done posting on this until someone produces the water table and rain data. In the event, this data indicates there is no need for cribbing, i am more than happy to accept that.

 

[Armchair detective]

Just had a thought.

Wouldn't tree roots act as cribbing?

 

[releventchair]

Had a work party digging stumps for a projects site. Been multiple decades of solo digging them here. A year or two ago I did a front yard down the road. By hand and finishing with a tractor.
i may have had yet another refresher in root fun in hole digging.
Removing roots to dig (a project in itself) doesn't increase the stability of adjacent roots. Let alone the stumps/trees. Pounding or sawing on a root causes movement and vibration. Neither action strengthens a holes sides when a section of the root being worked root continues into such a side. And root portions left after being loosened do what to soil integrity? Then in time as roots decompose does what the strength of sidewalls?

Better yet ,the original low spot of interest on Oak Island was tree related.
Roots extend to at least the crown line of many trees.
Close enough digging as a simply supported rope from a tree suggests on the originally alleged hole site's sunken spot; is going to involve cutting roots.

How many roots did the boys cut? No mention of part of the tree being dead from prior root cutting when a hole was originally dug. (Out of respect for prior digger(s) I'd have mentioned it.)
The youths must have had calloused hands , a boatload of tools , and massive biceps too to compliment weak minds and strong backs. Bonking on roots would add / collapse soil into hole. leaving voids on sides.
I've seen it many times.