Rick, Alex, Jack, and Craig meet Ian Spooner in the swamp to examine the large axe-cut stumps uncovered during excavation of the middle area. Ian will collect samples for carbon-14 dating, hoping the results match the 1200s dates returned by wood from the paved area found several years earlier. At the Garden Shaft, Roger reports that Dumas has located the rounded timbers the team has been searching for. The final set will be installed at the bottom of the shaft so the crew can breach the tunnel running below. Alex checks in the following day and Roger confirms they have reached approximately 97 feet and are about to install the final shoe. The timbers look old and were not cut in a mill.
Geoscientist Dr. Aaron Satkoski presents isotope analysis to the War Room by video conference. During prior drilling in the Money Pit area, the team identified two possibly manmade chambers outside the Baby Blob: one at 180 feet between H8 and RF1 where a possible ancient pickax was recovered, and Aladdin's Cave at 150 feet. Satkoski used strontium and oxygen ratios as geochemical fingerprints on two RF1 samples, numbers 0328 and 013, and found they plotted in a very similar position, the furthest of any samples from Canadian sources. The origin points to Europe, specifically southeast France, northern Italy, or the coast of Norway. Doug notes these regions correspond to the previously established origin of the lead cross found at Smith's Cove and adds that many of the holy relics that left Jerusalem passed through Italy before reaching other parts of Europe. Rick suggests drilling RF1 again.
Borehole F.75-8.25 targets the area within the RF1 diameter where massive timbers, a pickax, and water with high traces of gold and silver were found in 2019. The team wants to see what lies between 205 feet and bedrock. Wood appears in the cores at 155.5 to 157 feet and again at 178 feet, but a core from 199 feet contains PVC pipe from another borehole, forcing them to abandon the hole. On Lot 5, Jack and Gary search the area where Jamie and Fiona are clearing dirt that was packed from the Money Pit into the wall of the foundation beneath the circular stone feature. Gary recovers a button he believes is silver or pewter with a fancy design suggesting it came from an officer's uniform, followed by a flat military cuff button he identifies as an artillery style from the 1700s or older, popular with the French, British, and Spanish.
At the Research Center, Rick, Marty, and Judi meet with Emiliano Sacchetti by video conference to review carbon-14 results from the swamp tree stumps. The dates show a 54.1 percent probability of 1346 to 1396 and 41 percent probability of 1296 to 1328. Rick asks Professor Gaspani to run astronomical calculations on two additional stone features: the Stone Triangle on the south shore, believed to point toward the original Money Pit, and the five stone cairns on Lot 15 documented by Fred Nolan in the 1960s, which Nolan believed pointed toward the swamp. Gaspani will receive the GPS data for both sites. An emergency War Room meeting is then called as Hurricane Lee intensifies to a Category 5 storm with winds reaching 150 miles per hour, and the team discusses precautions needed to protect work areas across the island.
