Conference unifix::sailing

    There was an fairly extensive article on the topic in Down East
    Magazine about a year ago.  The search is still on, with the current
    searcher preparing to dig a hole 250' deep and about 150' broad.
    
    This truly is an amazing story......

    Also, about 10 years back National Geographic had an article on Oak
    Island and the treasure hunting. My roots are in this area and I've
    spent a number of summers nearby. The last time I toured the island,
    which was at least 10 years ago, there had been multiple (dozens?) of
    search efforts. Some high-tech, some not, but each have contributed to
    the destruction of the money pit. Even back then there wasn't much hope
    of still finding anything intact. Lives have been lost, millions spent,
    and parts of the island look like they've been strip mined. 

    John_R

    I may have read the same book refered to in the original note- Its
    a fantastic story. The re-curring theme, since about 1810, has been
    that each newly formed treasure company would succed where the others
    had failed because they would use 'modern science and technology'.
    The technology changed every 20 years or so, but every group had
    a new one.
    
    Now my solution was clearly correct. Id go drill a deep well in
    the center of the island, install some kind of sonic generating
    device, then map the surface with a pickup. Then Id use our modern
    technology- probably a VAXstation 8000- to do a tomographic image
    of the island and Id have it!
    
    Of course john is right, the island currently looks like a strip
    mine, and any resemblance to the orignial is long lost.
    
    Its a great story, everyone should read it.

    OK I give up and admit to knowing nothing about Oak Island. Would
    someone fill me in on the story?
    Thanks

    re -.1
    
    The Oak Island Story is truth that is stranger than fiction.  There
    are a number of books on the mystery, best read for the full details.
    
    In a nutshell, a couple of kids found a depression in the ground
    in Nova Scotia about 190 years ago.  Started digging.  Found a layer
    of logs laid out (?) like a barrier at 10 ', another layer at 20'
    and they got tired of diggin.  
    
    The rest of the story is about the successive excavators and successive
    layers of timbers, links of gold chain found at the 110' depth, water 
    tunnels designed
    to flood the money pit, artificial beaches designed to hide the
    tunnel entrances, booby traps, and fortunes spent in trying to figure
    the whole thing out.
    
    The biggest lingering questions are:
    
    		who went to all this effort (capt Kidd, Martians, Louis
    		XVI' court, escaping Haitians, ?), and
    
    		what were they trying to hide.

    

    
    Smithsonian magazine, about a year ago, had an article on the latest
    high tech efforts on Oak Island.  This article was abstracted in
    Readers' Digest a few months later.  
    
    I first read about this in a "Ripley's Believe It or Not" paperback
    way back in junior high school (far too long ago).  It seems that
    in treasure hunting as in sailing, lots of $$$$$ and effort get
    expended with only the experience to show for it.  
    
    But, ya never know.  The treasure hunters have been batting pretty
    good lately with the discovery of the Whydah, Titanic, Mary Rose,
    etc.  Maybe with some bigger pumps, a few more shovels, and a few
    wealthy but gullible investors ...
    
    - gene