On Lot 8, Rick and Marty Lagina and Craig Tester join archaeologists Laird Niven and Fiona to continue investigating the massive boulder feature, beneath which a snake camera has revealed voids, a possible iron spike, and what appeared to be a pearl. Searches near the boulder have already yielded links of a chain that could be 500 years old and a potentially 700-year-old English bag seal. Rick presses to lift the boulder immediately, but Laird insists on completing the hand excavation first, explaining that archaeological context cannot be restored once disturbed. Marty uses an excavator to carefully remove several large surrounding stones, clearing space for the archaeologists to access more of the area beneath the feature. During the sifting, Craig recovers a small piece of fabric embedded under one of the boulders, roughly 18 inches below the surface. In the lab, Emma Culligan performs a CT scan, XRF analysis, and a burn test on the textile. The CT scan reveals a weft knitting pattern of interlocking loops, and the burn test confirms the material is wool. The fabric also carries a red dye with no detectable modern chemicals. Laird connects the find to the 700-year-old bag seal recovered nearby, which bears a distinctive sheepskin symbol associated with the city of Leeds, a major English wool manufacturer dating back to the 1300s.
In the Money Pit area, Terry Matheson, Charles Barkhouse, and Steve Guptill oversee core drilling in borehole H.5-9, located just two feet from H.5-8.5, where the team recently recovered a piece of iron drill rod dated by Emma to the mid-1800s and possibly connected to the 1849 Pitblado operation. Driller Leighton pushes through solid gypsum from 168 to 178 feet, then into softer material down to 210 feet, and finally into bedrock at 218 feet. Charles runs a pinpointer over the cores and gets a clear metal hit that then disappears when the sample is moved to the table. Metal detection specialist Katya is called in and locates tiny flecks of metal in the core, too small to be fully registered by the detector but confirmed present. The team sends the sample to the lab, noting they may be drilling in the same zone where James Pitblado reportedly recovered a 14th-century Portuguese silver coin linked to the Order of Christ, a sect of the Knights Templar.
In the northernmost region of the swamp, Gary Drayton, Peter Fornetti, Tom Nolan, and Alan Andrews follow the cobblestone pathway lined with eight-sided survey stakes that the previous year had led to the discovery of an empty brick-and-slate vault to the south. The team uncovers another tightly packed cobble platform roughly six feet across, bringing the total to four distinct cobble areas that align in a straight line toward the vault. Tom pulls a thin, old-looking brick from within the cobblestone, a find Gary considers decisive proof of human construction since brick does not occur naturally in cobble. The team notes they have also found wood chips and cut wood in the cobble during previous excavations. Gary sweeps the area with a metal detector but finds no metals in the cobble itself, a pattern consistent with earlier searches along the pathway.
Back at the Money Pit, the team drills a new borehole designated J.5-7.5, located less than 20 feet southwest of their previous hole where traces of metal were detected at nearly 220 feet. They hit the bedrock plateau at 160 feet and punch through into the solution channel. Charles detects metal at 158 to 160 feet, and further hits register in cores pulled from 183 to 207 feet. Rick arrives and runs the pinpointer over the deepest material, finding metal signals throughout the core. He calls it potentially more than just important and orders the entire core taken to the lab for analysis, noting that Dr. Spooner has already been processing deep sediment samples from the solution channel and will soon present his findings.
In the War Room, Dr. Ian Spooner, Emma Culligan, and Jillian present XRF results from soil samples collected across the Money Pit drilling program. Of the boreholes tested, including I-9.5, J.5-8.5, K-2.5-8.75, K-9.5, and three samples from old caisson V3, two yield extraordinary results: boreholes I-9.5 and K-9.5 contain significant concentrations of elemental silver, not dissolved but attached to clay particles, strongly suggesting a non-natural source. K-9.5 reaches 217 feet, the deepest part of the solution channel explored to date. The team connects the silver to the Pitblado coin and to the drill rod from H.5-8.5 at 174 feet, both of which point to mid-19th-century searcher activity in the same area. Marty declares there is enough evidence to bring in Soletanche Bachy Canada and ROC Equipment for a full caisson operation, going deeper than anyone has ever worked in the Money Pit. Rick urges the team to begin planning where the caissons will go, acknowledging they will be pushing the envelope but insisting the hunt cannot be abandoned with so much evidence pointing toward treasure at depth.
