The Oak Island Mystery by Lionel & Patricia Fanthorpe Page A

remaining intact and preserving its vital contents? If the original treasure (or sarcophagi) from the ninety-eight-foot level had been smashed and dispersed by the collapse, or diverted, or moved a long distance sideways by the flood water and the counter-productive pumping, then was this a second treasure vault they had located at the 170-foot level?
    Suppose that a mere two boxes containing a few thousand gold and silver pieces and some trinkets of jewellery had been left as a decoy at the ninety-eight-foot level to deceive an intruder into believing that that was all the treasure there was? What if the ninety-eight-foot pseudo-treasure was just one more in the long line of subterranean defences created by the unknown genius?
    The story of Aladdin and the tale of the Magic Tinderbox both provide interesting precedents for concealing something of immeasurable worth alongside an ordinary treasure of gold and silver.
    On one of the drillings a small ball of what at first looked like wood fibre came up. Perley Putnam kept it very carefully in his personal possession until it was publicly examined by Dr. A.E. Porter, who came from Amherst. The doctor subjected the tiny ball to minute examination including the use of a microscope. The ball was slowly unrolled and gently smoothed out flat. It turned out to be a scrap of parchment bearing the letters “V I” or something very similar. Dr. Porter swore an affidavit to that effect on September 6, 1897. On the assumption that Putnam was as honest and honourable man — although it must be noted in passing that his Money Pit investments lost him $20,000 and practically ruined him; and that Dr. Porter and the witnesses were equally honest and honourable — the evidence of the lettered parchment fragment is one of the most significant clues so far discovered.
    If it can be taken at face value — and the weight of evidence is for its genuineness rather than otherwise — then a number of conclusions may be drawn:
    (a) that several strange and interesting things (other than treasure) are hidden deep below Oak Island;
    (b) that they include a mysterious old parchment document, or a number of such documents;
    (c) that whatever ancient written material is down there should provide clues to the identity of the mysterious unknown engineer who constructed the system;
    (d) that the parchments may also explain the real reason for the Money Pit’s existence, and reveal what it was constructed to guard in the first place;
    (e) that the real treasure may comprise some arcane secret written on the parchments themselves;
    (f) that the parchments may be priceless, long-lost originals, worth infinitely more than conventional treasures of gold or silver.
    There are scholarly and reputable historians who firmly believe that Bacon was the real author of the works attributed to Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Suppose that they are right, and suppose that to prove his literary claims to posterity Bacon had arranged for his original manuscripts to be preserved in the New World. It remains an undeniable possibility.
    Excited by what the parchment might mean, and more convinced than ever that an unimaginable fortune lay below them, Blair’s team attacked the island again. Having failed to conquer the sea and the flood tunnels which conveyed it to the Money Pit, they fell back on the old, discredited idea of digging more shafts and getting under the treasure. They tried this again and again, frequently running into one of the tunnels made by the Halifax Eldorado Company, or other earlier explorers. Every attempt failed: shaft after shaft flooded.
    Workmen’s wages were in arrears. The machine hire company wanted its back rent. The Oak Island Treasure Company was tottering. Blair bought the other shareholders out, and there at the close of the nineteenth century the greatest treasure hunt on earth came to another temporary halt.

- 9 -
    Into the Twentieth Century
    B y