The Ogden Standard-Examiner from Ogden, Utah • 29

SUNDAY MORNING- FEBRUARY 22 1931 THE OOHEK STAViURD RXAMINER r-vq 1ST -MB a a 0 a fi (A Yi 1 1 i Chests of Glittering Coins in Oak Island's Deep Subterranean Chamber and Priceless But Five Jewels Alf V) Pt- i- j-V 'Xii Generations Have Been Baffled by the Tides Which the Rovers Let in to Flood ft 0 5 the Pit! Sift 'll VI t) d1 1 fi 15 t'r4! -'U' 4 41 wkea tit pit was Jug ui tit caA hwr4 uto it kaa attar kata ud auy attar ka aatarauaad Tk aak witk tka uwadf UmW firt ky itka idtutireu yvaif woodimca McCnies Smitk anti Yai(kaa 1S03 Fit excavated ta 119 feat witk aiaa-aiada ylatfanaa faaad atery taa feet Otar a waak-aad tka akaft aiyitenaaily fU led witk sixty fact af water lSiS-GeM kraagkt ay ea drill ky traaasra co yaay cagiaeen 1813 aaccaaaita kat aaaaccaaafal campaaiet landed Raiaforcad ce aerate floar 1S3 faat below tka aarface faaad coterad witk caika of wkick wt7 Wert drilL 1385 Frederick Blair krilHaat yaaay inarance rt ap kia protpccta for a career ia Parliaweat aad iateaU atary available ceat is Iks treatsre abaft rtcerriag a fifty-year Uaia fro tka Craws Joka McGiasict rreat-yrandioB of tka Oaaiel McCiaaiet wka discovered tka aioacy pit ia a karat it ea Oak Isleed Aad Frederick Blair aayt: "Tka treasare tkere aad I fait aisied it Bat 1 kata two yaaay teas and tkey kotk keliata ia tka treasara af Oak Nf i SS -iS1 Av 55 A 'X i 1r Vi J- -v A A i pet-y iL fz ys- --5' rlir tf? W) i I Vi Three British Coins Recently lifted Fr the Bottom of the Sea From a Sunken Treasure Ship Even Though All the Gold Ever Dls-covered Has Not Been Worth Half the Time Spent in Search for It It is the Lure of Broken Twisted Coins Like These That Has Drawn Generation After Generation to the Oak Island Money Pit V5 -4- 'Jt their eyes became riveted to an oak near the edge upon an elevation upon which there was a limb which had been sawed off From It was dangling an old block The top of the limb was scored as if it had been objected to much friction many many year before listening and feeling the bit and observing its actions it was possible to tell what kind of surfaces it was striking with its point The platform was struck at the hundred-foot level and bored through It was five inches thick and the slivers brought up from it were spruce It was easy to make exact measurements from above by noting carefully the progress of the drill auger dropped twelve inches tier penetrating the platform as though it had reached an empty space Then it slowly bit its way through four inches of solid oak came the peak of excitement Tne bit was revolving in a mass of pieces of loose metal! of the oak had clung to the bit when it was brought up while boring through the wood but several times the drill was hoisted while it was going through the loose bits of nfetal and there was nothing If the drill had finally struck a chest of gold coins such a result was to be expected for of course it would but jostle the coins about and not cut into them the bit is being slowly raised again This is done carefully for it is realized that it would be easy to shake off any precious fragment that might cling to the auger and it would be almost a miracle if the mud and water encountered on the way to the treasure would not wash away any item of evidence But old John Lynds stood by and cleaned the bit carefully and wrapped the dirt up in a cloth Over at the Smith house every particle was being closely examined time no magnifying glass is required to see the evidence Three tiny gold links parts of an ancient chain are caught on the bit embedded in the mud!" HP HAT is one picture in the saga of Oak Island which is just one of three hundred spots of verdure lying about Mahone Bay off the coast of Nova Scotia Immediately the reader wants to know: they find the The answer is yes and no Several people know it is there Generations have staked life and found death in its "5 E5 had buried These three woodsmen at once thought of pirates and treasure I hey paddled home feverish eireite-' ment tht night They would return and get the treasure tomorrow What a long It was with brimming hearts and high hopes that they started for the island the morning They knew not what riches would awaiting them but riches there would be no doubt As they dug their hopes rose They were surely working in a shaft that had once been opened and filled for they noticed that the earth was much less hard within the circle than without Also careful observation re- vealed the scoring of some pick-like' implement on the sides of the shaft that they were emptying Above a Graphic Illustration of the Treasure Shaft on Oak Island Where Men Have Been Fighting the Tides and Superstition for 136 Years 57 7en Fel Diggers Found Platforms and Over a Hundred Feet Down They Drilled Through Chests of Gold in a Cement Chamber But an Artificial Drain (Shown in the Diagram) Has Continually Let in the Atlantic Filling the Shaft With Sixty Feet of Water intrigued their instant curiosity a lurid poster to a city man was a sawed-off limb to these and their eyes had become riveted to a giant oak near the edge upon an elevation upon which there was a limb which had been sawed off From it according to old lore wa3 dangling an old block The top of the limb was scored as if it had been subjected to much friction many many years before Directly under the amputated stump at the foot of the oak the three adventurers observed that the sod was noticeably sunken The depression was roughly circular and measured thirteen feet in diameter There was only one conclusion Someone had buried something at the foot of this tree lowering it into the hole by means of tackle attached to the sawed-off horizontal limb In his book Mr Driscoll comments: 1795 real deep-water pirates had not disappeared from the seas and f7 younS TnSLn in ihe Western World pursuit For one hundred and thirty- had heard tales of treasure the pirates six years men and women have pirates been on its elusive trail doggedly tenaciously hoping but the precious casks still lie in their subaqueous and sub terranean chamber protected even now by the combined forces of nature and early human ingenuity All but Frederick Blair of Boston who gave up a career in the Canadian Parliament for the treasure hunt and a few scattered residents of the district surrounding Mahone Bay had forgotten about thdse casks of gold at the foot of the mysterious shaft until Charles Driscoll an author for whom pieces of eight and Spanish galleons have not lost their fascination wrote It was in the Fall of 1795 that three young woodsmen looking for adventure and game beached their canoe on the sand in a lonely little inlet in the shade of towering oaks which stood a littlfe back from the beach They were Daniel McGinnies Anthony Vaughan and ack Smith who lived on the mainland To stand there on the shore of that little island with its dense foliage swaying pines and virgin air thrilled these sons of the woods Perhaps they were the first men ever to set foot on the Oak Island shore! It was a magnificent feeling and they stopped to survey the scene At practically the same moment the three spotted something which This Map Drawn by Harry Cimino for Oak Island Where the in Progress for by the work of excavation Every ten feet was a platform alternating oak and spruce together with one platform of putty and another of charcoal and tropical fibre Along with others who had joined in a treasure company McGinnies Vaughan and Smith dug down mi to a depth of ninety-five feet At Their hopes skyrocketed when they ninety feet they found a flat stone struck a solid platform made of rjragh bearing certain inscriptions which were This Drawing Connotative of Pirates and Buried Treasure I the Work of Harry Cimlno Celebrated Modern Illustrator Vvuw vv II1VII WCiC lations of the drill fa subsequent weeks revealed a subterranean chamber of cement reinforced by iron approxi-mately forty feet from roof to floor And in all these operations at varying depths the drill constantly struct Mnffi met pieces in great masses losely packed And one day the drill brought up a piece of parchment bearing the faint unintelligible scrawl of a human hand written 'perhaps centuries and centuries before 1 But not even Blair with the aid of contracting companies and all their equipment has been able to cope with lc Ocean which keeps the pit flooded and inaccessible The buccaneers or rovers who hid away those casks of treaure did their work well Perhaps they had a combination for keeping the water out but 1x33 died with them Certainly they saw to it that the ocean would block the efforts of intruders for an ingenious drain through which the tide seeps from the beach has been found But the spirit of that boyhood made 136 years ago by young McG nies Vaughan and Smith stick to this job until lives on Mr: Frederick Blair has a lease wnicn still has some to run treasure is he says and I just missed it failed I suppose but happy you see I have two young sons and they both believe in the treasure of Oak Island oak planks three inches thick put together without nails or bolts at a depth of ten feet but fell when they it out and found beneath it only yielding earth The first -of a long and fateful series 1 CT wvssvw never deciphered Then on a Saturday night thev sounded from the ninety-five foot level with an iron rod and five feet below the Inevitable planking was struck again The searchers went home forthwith with buoyant hopes for 4VA WIUIVU vr i A few days later they struck a sec- Monday morning I TklotfAWVts n- Ak aT fTtl il platfonn ond at the depth of twenty feet To lift out the oak planks which constituted this invigorator of hope they had to rig up block and tackle on that old limb which someone else had many years before? Vaughan was then only sixteen Hie others a few years older They all pledged keep right on at this job nuv nntu it They kept their had become discouraged Soon he had pledge and even now a great-grandson acquired control of Darnel McGinnies Is a resident of With Blair pushing operations a Gak Island its only resident drill was sent down to a depth of 153 The next few years were consumed feet where it struck cement Manipu- Wien they returned to start the new week however they found sixty feet of water in the pit! In 1893 a young insurance salesman1 named Frederick Blair became intensely interested in the adventure4 and started investing hi3 savings in shares of stock He bought in all he could from older men and women who 3 Illsulraies the Layout Treasure Hunt Has Been 136 Years Kcwapaper Featora Service 1131 a.