In this video, we're going to take a look at the developments that took place in
Season 7, Episode 2 of 'The Curse of Oak Island', but first I'd like to tell you
about one of my favorite sections of my new book, 'The Oak Island Encyclopedia'. If
you flip to the back of the book, you'll find an alphabetically -listed Index
containing just about every word or phrase to ever be associated with the
Oak Island mystery. If you're wondering whether a certain historical character
has ever been mentioned in connection with an Oak Island theory, or if you'd
like a refresher on the various artifacts that have been discovered on
Lot 21, or if you'd like to read up on a topic that the show fails to flesh out,
just flip to the back of the book, look up the subject in question, and follow
the page numbers directing you to the various sections of the book in which
the subject is mentioned. This book is available on Amazon that would make a
great Christmas gift for any fan of 'The Curse of Oak Island'. To get yourself a
copy please, click on one of the links in the description. Season 7, Episode 2 of
'The Curse of Oak Island' begins in the swamp, where Choice Drilling is busy
retrieving core samples of the mysterious 'ship anomaly' indicated by the
results of the seismic survey carried out at the end of the previous season.
The first core sample, taken from a depth of 13 to 16 feet below the swamp floor,
contains little aside from mud and organic matter. A second core sample,
taken from 18.5-21.5 feet, is composed of dry,
crumbly clay. A third sample, taken at a depth of 30 feet, contains more of the
same dry clay. Marty Lagina observes that this sample also contains a fragment of
what he calls "caprock"- a term used in the petroleum industry denoting a hard
rock layer which overlays weaker material, forming an impermeable barrier
which prevents the flow of fluids from one side of the rock to the other. Marty
theorizes that the presence of such rocks might explain the dryness of the
sediment beneath the swamp. The drill seizes up when the contractors attempt
to advance beyond 30 feet, prompting Choice Drilling to abandon the hole and
begin a new one at another location within the 'ship anomaly'. Later in the
episode, the second hole yields a number of core samples taken from depths
of up to 50 feet. All these samples are absent of wood and any other evidence
which might indicate the presence of a ship, which some members of the team
hoped the 'ship anomaly' might constitute. In the middle of the episode, Rick and
Marty Lagina meet with geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner of Acadia University
and show him some of the core samples taken from beneath the swamp.
Dr. Spooner observes that the sediment from the samples contains a high
concentration of clay, which, he states, is a characteristic of marine environments.
He also remarks that the samples contain less organic matter than he would expect
to find in an ancient wetland, and concludes of the swamp floor likely
constituted sea bottom at some point in the relatively recent past. The scientist
agrees to conduct a more thorough examination of the core sample material
in his lab, the results of which are forthcoming. Dr. Spooner's hypothesis that
the swamp was once covered by seawater is consistent with the theory that Oak
Island is an artificial conjunction of two distinct islands separated at the
spot at which the swamp now lies. It also conflicts with a handful of oak stumps
which have been discovered in the swamp over the years. In addition to those
recovered by dan Blankenship decades ago, these include the stump discovered at
the Mercy Point area in Season 2, Episode 1, which was carbon dated from 1450 to
1640; as well as the stump which Tony Sampson discovered in Season 4, Episode 3,
which appeared to be rooted to the swamp floor. The presence of oak stumps in the
Oak Island swamp hints at the possibility that the swamp area once
comprised dry ground in which oak trees were able to take root- a notion which
appears to conflict with the idea that the swamp area was covered by seawater
in the not-so-distant past. Later in the episode, Rick Lagina, Dan Henskee, and Gary
Drayton head to Oak Island's Lot 21 to do some metal detecting. Once the site of
the old McGinnis family cabin, Lot 21 is the area at which the Oak Island crew
discovered the glass brooch in Season 6, Episode 1; a French grenadier's hat badge
in Season 6, Episode 5; and a lead cloisonne in Season 6, Episode 18, the isotopic
signature of which proved to be identical to that to the lead cross
found at Smith's Cove. On this latest excursion, the trio discovers two hefty
triangular pieces of iron with large holes through their middles. Although
Gary Drayton initially suspects these artifacts to be the heads of quarry
hammers, blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge later identifies them as crude swage
blocks used for sharpening rock drills. Legge claims that such artifacts are very
rare, and dates them from 1450 to 1750. He also opined that their presence
on the Island is suggestive of "some major mining or tunneling operation",
evoking the theory that the original Money Pit builders tunneled
beneath Oak Island's bedrock. One facet of this theory which was not mentioned in
this episode is the argument put forth by the late Oak Island theorist David
Hanson, which holds that 16th Century English explorer and privateer Sir
Martin Frobisher discovered iron pyrite, or "fool's gold",
on Oak Island by chance in 1575. In a misguided effort to encourage the Queen
to finance future voyages, the Englishman sailed back to Britain with the
erroneous news they had discovered gold in the North Atlantic. With the approval
of Queen Elizabeth I, English mining engineer Thomas Bushell and a crew
of Cornish miners sailed to Oak Island, where they spent two years sinking
shafts and digging tunnels beneath the Island, extracting iron pyrite ore from
the earth. When the Britons returned to England with their worthless haul, the
Queen considered the fraud so humiliating that she erased all records
of the incident. Hanson believed that a crew of
Englishmen later returned to Oak Island and interred treasures of great value
within Bushell's mine shafts. Specifically, Hanson believe that these treasures
consisted of the original handwritten plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare-
which, he argued, were actually penned by English nobleman Edward de Vere- the
corpse of de Vere himself, and the lost treasure of the Plantagenet dynasty, lost
by King Richard III of England during the 1485 Battle of Bosworth Field.
Later in the episode, Craig Tester, Doug Crowell, and Laird Niven take GPR experts
Don Johnston and Steve Watson to a feature called the Cave-In Pit, around
which they asked them to conduct a GPR scan. The story of the Cave-In Pit
begins in 1875, when an Oak Island resident named Sophia Sellers went out
to plough her father's field with a team of oxen. When she reached a particular
part of the field, the ground on which the oxen and plough stood suddenly gave
way, as if the earth beneath had sunk into some sort of subterranean void. As
it turned out, the ox team had disappeared into a 10-foot deep pit
measuring about seven feet in diameter. Interestingly, this sinkhole was located
about 350 feet east of the Money Pit, precisely along the line
connecting the Money Pit with the box drains at Smith's Cove- the hypothetical
line of the notorious Smith's Cove flood tunnel. Even more intriguingly, when
treasure hunters attempted to excavate the cavity in the summer of 1895, they
encountered seawater at a depth of 55 feet which rose and fell with the tide.
Ever since, treasure hunters have theorized that this feature- dubbed the
"Cave-In Pit"- was the site at which the creators of the flood tunnel dug a shaft
for air. When the Oak Island workings were completed, the diggers secured the
roof of the flood tunnel at that vulnerable section before filling in the
air shaft with dirt. When Sophia Seller's heavy plow and oxen stepped on the
backfill ventilation shaft, the supports that held up the roof of the flood
tunnel at that location gave way, partially caving in the flood tunnel
below. In this episode, Don Johnston and Steve Watson discovered several anomalies
in the vicinity of the Cave-In Pit, one of them 25 meters (or 82 feet) below the
surface, and the other 28 meters (or 91 feet) deep. Craig Tester remarks at these
depths roughly correspond with the depth at which the flood tunnel is believed to
lie in the area of the Cave-In Pit. Perhaps Johnston and Watson have indeed
located the Smith's Cove flood tunnel. Thanks for watching! iI you enjoyed this
video and would like to help support this channel, please check out my book,
'The Oak Island Encyclopedia', which you can find by clicking the link in the
description.