One of the deeper levels in the Money Pit found by Onslow reportedly had a layer of charcoal. It has been speculated that there was a wood-fired smithy on that level for the purpose of fixing/honing the diggers' tools as they went deeper. This doesn't really make any sense, either in the presence of an oak log platform or its absence. With a diameter of only between seven and thirteen feet (depending on the source), there could not have been room for such a setup and still have space for the diggers to dig. Even if you imagine the smithy on a ledge to one side, the eventual removal of that ledge as the dig progressed would not allow then for a "layer" of charcoal, as it all would drop to the lowest level of progress. The only thing that could explain the various layers of deposit is that they were laid down on the way up. An active smithy while tunnelling up would not work either, because if the roof was still being excavated, there'd be no place for the exhaust/smoke to go.
So, while there may have been such a charcoal layer, I don't see how it could have been from any type of forge works.
I think we need additional open-minded ideas about what the Money Pit shaft, if man-made, could have been for. This wouldn't rule out its use for treasure later. Someone here suggested a saw pit. That's a good start. With the presence of the charcoal layer, another possibility, though kinda far-fetched, is a charcoal "clamp", where wood was stacked and burned for the purpose of creating the charcoal, which had many industrial uses. But forty feet under the surface is very deep for such a thing -- probably unheard of.
Anyway. Just some musings. Make of them what you will.
--GT
I am not an engineer but Okay you say " at one of the deeper levels of the pit".
First, do we know for sure that this supposedly intentionally mounted/ added layer of charcoal was equally thick at every segment of the periphery of the pit? If so, how did the discovery crew establish that it was equally thick and symmetrically " inserted " horzontallywise right on top of the oak wood logs and under the next/ upper layer of logs?
Did they fracture the walls sideways AT THAT DEPTH to identify such a situation?
I doubt it to about 80 % certainty they didn't fracture the structure.....
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- I also doubt that this material was charcoal. No matter what color it was, or what texture....
>> This is what I think: Because it was at the deeper level, they encountered some small streaks of running water from the landmasses Sideways of the soon to be constructed inner Wall of the pit. So they musy have used another type of material- like Alumo- Silicate clay to cement/ glue the walls so they wouldn't leak into the Pit, so the diggers could continue to dig deeper.....
They have variety of colors of such clay in the Kentucky part ( and other parts too ) of the Appalachian mountains . Also all over the world. .I heard it is derived at a depth of about 60 to 100 meters / yards vertical depth.
It has been used for a century or more for production of medical porcelain and has been used for millenia for different pottery with cohesive structures.
> There is white, light beige, darker beige, greenish, even bluish as well as brownish.
So ' I THINK that's what the " charcoal " is at this depth of the pit!
This substance comes quite Wet from the ground under those mountains.
Not always, but it does come pretty moist and HAS GREAT PLASTICITY. Much more wet than what they use for some lower quality roof tiles etc.....
Therefore after being applied at that level down there to the walls, it later dries up may even crave unevenly and MAYBE that's why it looks like charcoal.
By the way,some people say that this Aluminium-rich Silicate clay is THE SAME THING as more shallower-found VOLCANIC LAVA that is actually warm ( I assume ) and has stayed at these shallower layers for thousands,maybe hundreds of thousands of years.
It is not as good as modern cement but from certain physical deposits, might come close to be able to be used for Insutions like that.....
> Last, the wood logs. The diggers may have Inserted them totally in a horizontal manner WITHOUT any hinges in the middle. Just end to end but may have done it 1 or 2 at a time. Like watermelon slices that are parallel to each other.
I was reading how around 1905 or 1908.it was in Elgin, Illinois, the diggers doing very deep I believe it was about 10 feet diameter tunnel for very deep well installations- 1 of three vertical shaft for the 3 wells in total was about 200 yards deep while the deepest one of the 3 was about 2000 feet. That's about 600 meters down. This historical article is From 1913. I believe because in 1913 the city and state authorities had a high level ( maybe IL congressional) review of these back then 10 year old Infrasructures.
They found so much underground water and it was bursting so fast in great amounts that soon 1 or 2 of the wells started dragging a lot of sand into the city pipelines. So the original big scale Elgin town wells were abandoned! Because of the sand.
But Anyway, the engineers and workers at 1 point at 1 of the shafts encountered a lot of water pressing from underneath. So they decided to use very big and thick metal platforms to press back against the flood of water so that they could continue removing dirt and soil and whatever they encountered.
So maybe in this Money Pit, they also used certain size vertical platforms to insert at certain segments of the periphery . First say 16 or 24 inches tall, then remove some soil, then maybe 16 or 20 inches sideways they inserted another one vertical. Then woukd remove all the soil between them. There in those cleared areas, they would Kay flat 1 or 2 Oak boards/ logs... Then they woukd do the same in the counter direction, maybe were meanwhile supporting from the surface of the pit WITH ROPES the slightly inclined log, untill enough soil was removed from underneath. And then they woukd let that side of the log fall down evenly onto its place where it still stands.
Then they woukd repeat all that clockwise 360 degrees untill they arranged all these oak logs....
I am sure I am missing something. But trust me those old craftsmen had a lot of technology and knowledge. They just did everything better than today. And not necessarily slower in fact. Maybe just a little slower.
