CRAIG TESTER: We just found something at the money pit
on the wash table.
It looks like a piece of parchment.
OK.
RICK LAGINA: In the interpretive center,
Rick Lagina, along with Craig Tester and Laird Niven,
are meeting with imaging experts Jon Giencke and David Samson
to have the possible parchment just found in the TF1 spoils
analyzed in the SKYSCAN 1273 device.
DAVID SAMPSON: Now we're scanning.
OK.
JON GIENCKE: So the next step, once we
have all of those different slices collected,
is that we're gonna reconstruct the original sample.
On the image itself, what you're seeing
is these very straight lines on the top and the bottom.
So that's the actual pieces of paper
that we've inserted in order to hold the parchment in place.
And the parchment's is going down the center line.
I would expect to see some sort of fiber.
Isn't the fibers you're seeing sticking
out the sides, though, or not?
JON GIENCKE: Yeah, I'm starting to see that same thing, Craig.
Especially up top there.
Yeah, right there.
Yep.
Yeah.
Good news is iron, in particular, when it's hit
with X-rays, it tends to glow.
It's a process called fluorescence.
So, if we see a lot of those rays coming out from it--
RICK LAGINA: Mm-hmm.
JON GIENCKE: --it could be indicative of iron.
So, as we're looking at that center line, where we'd
expect the parchment, you can see
those very, very bright spots.
That could actually be some of the writing.
[music playing]
DAVID SAMPSON: Some of the older inks were made of gall.
And so that is a metal.
It's an iron-based ink.
NARRATOR: Iron gall ink, also known as oak gall ink,
is composed of iron salts and tannic acids
from vegetable sources, and was developed in Europe
during the fifth century AD.
Ever since the discovery of parchment deep in the money
pit back in 1897, many researchers
have speculated that the treasure lying deep
in the booby-trapped money pit is composed
of not just gold, silver, and jewels,
but also priceless documents.
DAVID SAMPSON: Even if the ink itself is no longer readable,
that iron should be left behind and should be visible.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the team
has found more evidence that this theory could be true?
If so, what sort of documents would someone want to hide
by such ingenious means?
If we had actual proof that there were
a book, a parchment, an old tome, that depth in the money
pit, it's all exciting.
So, at this point in time, can you
make a determination whether it's parchment
or something completely else?
What we can say at this point is
that we tend to see some lines which would be indicative
of, say, a type of parchment.
Generally, when we've looked, though, at more modern fibers,
that structure becomes very apparent very quickly.
Here, we're seeing more of a rudimentary style to it.
Yes.
JON GIENCKE: The fibers seem to be--
This.
JON GIENCKE: --a little bit larger.
Yes.
It likely wasn't placed there recently, that it has
some historical context to it.
So we are likely looking at something,
you know, a little bit older.
So you know what?
My suggestion would be that we set up a little bit longer
scan, get a little bit higher resolution on this,
and then we get back together maybe in the war room.
I think that's a proper plan.
All right.
Let's do the high-risk scan and see what happens.
- Sounds good. - Yep.
JON GIENCKE: All right.
We'll go get started.
Thank you.
RICK LAGINA: Thank you both.
CRAIG TESTER: Thank you.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: The following morning--
So, guys, today, we have the gentleman
from Bruker, Jon and David.
Hi, Marty.
NARRATOR: --brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and members
of their team are meeting in the war room
with imaging experts David Sampson and Jon
Giencke regarding the possible parchment
discovered one day ago in the spoils from the TF1 shaft.
So, yesterday, we gave them the parchment that Jack found.
And we got incomplete information yesterday.
So these gentlemen were kind enough to rerun
the sample at a higher res.
And I believe this is the information they're
going to present to us today.
JON GIENCKE: Yeah.
So we looked at this piece of what we're calling parchment.
And what we see is that there's some striations in it.
So, if you look, you know, carefully, you can see
that there's directionality.
Now, when we think about indelible types of material
that people would write on in the past, one thing
you would generally find in that is not
so much of this specific striations.
MARTY LAGINA: Mm-hmm.
Now, that being said, one nice thing
about this technology, though, is that we
can actually look deeper.
So, Dave, maybe if you could bring up a cross-section.
Sure.
JON GIENCKE: As you see those little streaks coming off,
that tends to come from materials like iron.
So iron glows when you hit it with X-rays.
And that's what we're seeing here,
just a little artifact from that glow.
MARTY LAGINA: I saw those shiny bits up at the table.
Are you saying those are iron?
Well, we can refer to it as it's high-density likely iron.
Yeah.
You also mentioned that older ink has a high iron content.
JON GIENCKE: Yeah.
DAVID SAMPSON: Yep.
You wouldn't expect to see that as a big chunk of iron, though.
Rather, I'd more likely see that as some sort of streaking
across the material.
Yeah.
DAVID SAMPSON: This one is a little bit different colored.
JON GIENCKE: From this, what we can
see now is relative densities.
And as we look at that inner part, that tends to indicate
we're looking more at a paper, probably
a cellulose-type product, not necessarily
an animal skin, right?
Right.
What about the green and the blue blob?
DAVID SAMPSON: Very-- - Very good question.
Yeah.
JON GIENCKE: So blue, now, that's
your little chunks of the iron.
Oh.
JON GIENCKE: The green, now, what are we looking at there?
Well, that's when we started thinking.
We brought in a little bit of context
from what could be present at the site.
And one thought was that this could be a coated paper
product, something very traditionally
found maybe somewhere around here-- might
be something coated with wax.
It held up.
So it'll hold up.
It's resistant to moisture.
In fact, it's so resistant to moisture
it's typically used for for, say, wrapping, um, explosives.
Is that what you think it is?
Yeah.
Well, that definitely matches the historical record.
Yeah.
Yes.
NARRATOR: In the fall of 1909, upon reaching a depth of nearly
100 feet in the money pit, workers of Franklin Roosevelt's
old gold salvage company exploded dynamite in the shaft,
hoping to not only clear the debris from the 1861 collapse,
but also as an attempt to seal off the flow of seawater
from the flood tunnel.
The effort failed on both counts,
and the company would close down operations
at the end of the year.
Could the team have now determined why they discovered
only small fragments of gold earlier
this year during their core drilling program?
And if so, since they have also detected high concentrations
of both silver and gold where they are currently digging EC1,
could that mean they are on course
to locate the vast cache of treasure
that people have been trying to find since 1795?
If dynamite was dropped somewhere right
near a treasure, you might tend to find small bits of metal
with gold on them.
And we did.
So that's good.
That's good stuff.
It makes us keep looking.
What's important is that we were
able to discern what it was.
It's about what the technology can tell us,
how we can use that information to perhaps provide us
with greater understanding of what happened out
on this quite mysterious place.
All right, very, very, very great presentation.
And we're impressed.
So let's go look at some more stuff as soon as you're able.
Thank you. - Thank you.
RICK LAGINA: Thank you.
Let's go.