Show WM fg t ll 11 y J s K i f f ii t JM T SEARCH FOR BURIED TREASURE OF CAPTAIN KIDDS for more than two centuries adaven lurous and ever hopeful persons have been seeking the treasure which that bloody pirate capt kadd Is supposed to have burled in cheater basin nova now it la announced that another organized search for the vast amount of gold and jewels iff to be made capt kadd was said to have secret ed this treasure estimated at more than 10 when on one of his cruises about 00 years ago he land ed on oak island probably many thousands of dollars have been spent in unavailing search tor the loot about the close of the eighteenth century that part of the country was sparsely settled and the island in question was without an inhabitant in 1795 three men smith and the island and while rambling the western part of it came to a spot of which the un usual and strange conditions at once attracted their attention it had every appearance of having been cleared many years before red clover and other plants altogether foreign to the soil were growing near the center stood aarde oak tree with marks on the trunk one of the lower and larger branches of this the outer end of which had been sawed off project ed directly over the center of a deep circular depression in the land about 13 feet in diameter these and other signs led the three men mentioned to commence work soon after old shaft discovered they started digging in the spot where they bad found the depression and as they got down they discovered a well defined shaft the walls of which were bard and solid and it Is said that in some places old pick marks were to be seen while within the walls the earth was so soft that picks were not required on reaching a depth of ten feet an oak plank was struck they kept on digging until a depth of 30 feet was reached find ing oak platforms at each ten feet A this point the carpi proved to be too heavy for them superstitious beliefs were in full force in that part of the country at that time and on this account they were unable to get any help to continue the work and were obliged to abandon it after an interval of six or seven years accounts of the wonderful als co verles made at oak island had spread all over the province and a gold seeking expedition was formed in truro N S work was at once resumed and the shaft was excavated to a depth of 80 feet marks were found every ten feet as before and an iron bar was frequently used in taking soundings at the 90 foot mark a flat two feet long and 14 inches alde aa discovered on it cut characters which an expert read aa follows ten teet below are two million dounda buried this gave the searchers renewed hope water fills the tunnel abla waa saturday night monday morning when the men returned to work the chaft was discovered lull of water if was then decided to sink a new bhatt and to tunnel under the money pit and to take the treasure out from below the pit was sunk feel and just as to a depth ot the workers thought that tho treas ure nas theirs the hater burst in on them and the men barely escaped with their llew this ended ana effort and it was that operations were re lot till burned but again the water forced the to stop working in 1863 another effort wag made to overcome the water and obtain the treasure the undertaking proved to be most difficult as the flow of water wag very heavy about this time the men who were engaged in the under ground work got the idea that the shaft was in danger of caving in and refused to enter halifax syndicate tries an examination was made of the shaft and experts found it to be in a very unsafe condition and it was forthwith condemned the pump was withdrawn and the shaft was aban boned and work suspended the management were at their wits end and did no know what to do or what course to take to surmount the over flowing difficulty however it ap pears that in the meantime some hal cifax men had been interested and entered into an agreement to clear out the money pit and recover the treasure for a share of the amount so received this syndicate spent a lot of money sinking a new shaft and made heroic efforts to overcome the flow of water but were forced to aban don 11 it was at this time that a copper coin weighing an ounce and a half dated 1317 and a stone boats bains whistle were found in the hot torn of the pit among the other signs which led the discoverers to dig were the remains of a hoisting block such as Is used on sailing craft hanging to the limb of a tree which overhung the money pit one of the ten foot marks found in the money pit WAS a layer of putty this was used in the glazing of the windows of a house built there afterward other layers were charcoal these articles are usually found among the stores of seagoing craft among other things that go to prove that these things were put there by seagoing men Is an iron Im bedded in the rock athla can be seen only at very low tide and can be accounted tor in no other way than thai it was put there to moor vessels to long ago attempt to pump out pit in S a new nova corn pany was organized to look tor the treasure in the autumn of that year work was again started with two en alnes and steam pumps with the in of pumping out the pit and forming a way down the pit which was then opened to a depth 68 feet at feet a tunnel crabbed cribbed timber was struck the went into tats tunnel to explore had gone but a short distance they discovered a large pit eight feet square and open as tar captain kidd s house in new york city they could see the pit was opened up and at 38 feet a platform caa struck the pit from this depth was open and well crabbed cribbed down to a depth of feet the workers at once pumped tho pit out and commenced digging but had a great deal 0 trouble in keeping the water out and it was aft er a great deal of work and time the feet was at last struck at this depth the water became very heavy and the pumps had all they could do to keep it out the pit was eight feet square at this time one of tho pumps went wrong and before she could be repaired the pit filled up with water strike chett by boring they swung in a three lach pipe through the water to the bottom ot the pit and commenced boring with the idea of striking the treasure at a depth of not greater than feet no one dreamed ot there being anything below that depth they bored through puddle clay down to a depth ot feet and struck nothing but several pieces of wood from to feet they started another hole and struck iron at feet they struck this iron on the edge and it prevented them from getting the three inch pape deeper they however got a small chisel and succeeded in pass ing the iron and worked down with ont piping the hole at feet they struck wood they put a common auger at the end of the rods and bored through the wood when the auger went through the wood it dipped two or three inches and then struck something hard that they could not bore through the auger was worked tor some time in an attempt to get it deeper but it would not go down and map of workings on oak stand when brought up the bore was cleaned in a basin and the dirt washed out the same as if looking tor gold A piece of parchment with several pieces was the result of this washing new pit sunk and filled another hole was then started and wood was struck at feet and the soft stone at feet this time however they struck the box on its edge and the chisel worked don past it to feet when soft stone was again struck they bored through this and found it three feet thick under this they found ten feet of puddle clay and at feet they struck iron pieces of which they brought up but they did not attempt to get through it after they gave up the boring they decided that the best plan was to sink another pit A pit was according ly started but at hect the water drove them out starting a pew pit was cheaper than pumping BO again a new pit was started but much further away from the money pit this was sunk to a depth of feet and it it had not been for the luck that always followed them at oak island the mystery would have been solved at feet without a moments warning with a great rush the nater once more broke in caving of the tunnel the money pit at once began to fill and circumstances at once showed that there was a perfect connection between the two pits this was just what was wanted although not quite deep enough they at once tore the cribbing and everything else to pieces upon close examination it showed that no van had been made for the water on the down stroke of the pis ton and it took them more than a week to fisc mistake and get the pumps running again in the meantime the pit had been standing full of nater with the crib bang in a damaged condition the water worked into the tunnel at a 95 foot level and it caved in ahat was the end of the venture since that time three pits have been sunk but they have all proved fall ures the present theory la that a tunnel runs through from smiths cove into the money pit to the opposite shore this pit Is very close to tho tunnel and the water broke into the pit from it it Is now generally believed that the tunnel running to the cove was either choked by work done on the bhore by the halifax syndicate or by the dynamite used by the company working in 1896 |