The Oak Island Mystery by Lionel & Patricia Fanthorpe

shafts rose and fell a foot or two as the tides came and went around the island. The question that McCully and his team asked themselves repeatedly was: “Why was there no water in any of the additional shafts until those shafts were connected to the Money Pit?” The clay was very hard, practically impermeable. Few men knew better than those rugged old Truro diggers just how hard the going really was. They argued that if a natural waterway or underground stream ran from deep in the Money Pit to the Atlantic Ocean, it would have prevented the original workers from completing their design. In addition, the impermeable clay through which the shaft had been sunk made such a natural watercourse very improbable.
    Observations at Smith’s Cove at low tide had revealed water trickling down the beach towards the sea. Putting their observations and deductions together, the Truro men began to wonder whether the unknown miners who had sunk the Money Pit with its many elaborate layers of oak, putty, fibre, and charcoal, had somehow connected it to the ocean.
    The Truro team began to dig up the beach at Smith’s Cove. The first thing they found was a massive sheet of coconut fibre which covered the shoreline for about 150 feet. The fibre layer was between two and three inches deep and below it lay several more inches of tough, old, salt-resistant eel grass, which was, however, now showing signs of decay. It had evidently been there a long time. This double blanket of eel grass and coconut fibre covered the shore between high and low tide levels. It would seem to have served two purposes: to retain and transmit water like an enormous sponge; and to prevent sand and clay from passing through to clog whatever lay beneath.
    Simplicity is the hallmark of genius. Standing on the shoulders of the intellectual giants who pioneered the path, the average man and woman can see their way forward to new discoveries. Armed with high-powered computers linked to I.T. databases, third year high school students can solve in minutes problems that would have delayed Archimedes, Newton, or Einstein for several weeks. To construct an underground defence system using twentieth century technology, high-powered excavators, and bulldozers is no more than an average task: to construct it with very simple and limited resources is an outstanding achievement.
    Under the eel grass and coconut fibre filter-blanket, the unknown engineer laid a mass of stones and boulders completely free from sand and clay. It seemed to bear a remarkable similarity to a Roman road, as if its builder had been familiar with their road-building technique.

    Jotham McCully’s keen eyes noted the remains of an old coffer dam surrounding these amazing beach workings. If that was how the original builders had done it, his men could do it too. Accordingly, the Truro team built their own coffer dam around the zone they were investigating.
    With the seawater out of the way, they dug down below the stones and discovered a set of five fan-shaped box drains relentlessly conducting the Atlantic into the lower levels of the Money Pit.
    With their quickly erected and non-too-sturdy coffer dam in place, the Truro men began to trace the drainage system back up the beach as it converged on the main flood tunnel leading to the Money Pit. About fifteen or twenty yards along, they were having to dig down four or five feet to locate the drains.
    Disaster struck in the form of an abnormally high tide which overflowed their temporary coffer dam. It was constructed to take pressure from the Atlantic side, but not from a weight of inshore water trying to flow back down the beach: it broke and was washed away. The Truro team was beginning to suffer from two of the major frustrations experienced by almost all Oak Island teams sooner or later: insufficient time and insufficient funds.
    On balance, McCully and the shareholders decided that trying to rebuild the dam would not be cost-effective. What