Terry Matheson, Steve Guptill, and Charles Barkhouse are at the Money Pit as the team prepares to drill Borehole D-2, positioned eight feet west of C-1 within a fifteen-foot rectangle that Steve describes as having good but unknown data. Dr. Ian Spooner has been unable to find a natural source for the gold and silver appearing in the water, and the team will continue by drilling up to twenty new boreholes across a strategic grid, taking core samples every ten feet to a depth of two hundred feet. Once the drill program is complete, they plan to place several ten-foot caissons based on the results. A core from 88.5 feet reveals wood with planking, the same type of material found fifteen feet away in Borehole CD-6 the previous week. Craig Tester arrives and asks if the core has been metal detected. The team recovers a thin piece of metal with what appears to be cement on it, a combination similar to descriptions from 1897 when the Chappell Vault was encountered, making it the only piece of metal of unknown origin found in the Money Pit. Craig wants Kelly Bourassa to examine the piece.
In the southeast corner of the swamp, Rick, Miriam, Billy Gerhardt, Craig, and Laird Niven continue excavating the stone road that antiquities expert Terry Deveau estimated could be up to five hundred years old. This is the same area where ancient cargo barrels and a possible ship component were found the previous week. As Billy removes another layer, Craig notices what appears to be a structure with three boards stacked on top of each other, possibly cribbing. The discovery recalls caretaker Jack Adams, who probed the southeast corner of the swamp during the 1930s and found a large wooden box buried beneath water and mud. Years later Adams told the Restall family about his find, and Bobby Restall documented his own search for the box in journals that Lee Lamb later shared with Rick. The next day, Laird tells Rick the team has found more rocks that the group believes are part of an old ship's wharf. Billy then uncovers pieces of wood that Rick calls Miriam over to examine. Miriam admits she has never seen anything like the piece, and neither she nor Laird can identify it, though both agree there is a chance it could be from a ship.
On Lot 15, Rick and Gary Drayton metal detect under the new CCH protocols that require grids to be created and permits obtained before any detecting can take place. Gary had previously flagged potential targets on Lot 15, and once Laird gives permission the pair return to retrieve artifacts. The first item is a pull-tab, but next Rick digs out an ox shoe that Gary calls probably British because of its wider bottom. Rick suggests using old aerial photographs to plot the finds and see how they correspond to known features. The two then move to Lot 16 in search of clues to a possible path between the swamp and the Money Pit. At the first flag they find what Gary believes is a square nail, old because of its weight. Gary tells Rick that when he and Peter Fornetti metal detected the area earlier, most signals fell either at the top or bottom of the lot. As they head toward the lower end, Gary notices a round shot sitting on the ground and suggests it could have come from the water, likely fired from a small cannon or rail gun mounted on the side of a ship as antipersonnel ammunition or scatter shot.
At the archaeology trailer, Rick, Gary, Billy, Laird, and Dr. Spooner examine the piece of metal from Borehole D-2. After Laird cleans it with an ultrasonic machine, Spooner scans it with the XRF. The results show 0.068 percent gold, which Spooner tells Gary equates to roughly a thimbleful. He also explains the gold could be on the surface of the metal or on the sediment still adhering to the uncleaned artifact. Rick then picks up Marty and Alex Lagina after their arrival from Traverse City, pulling the metal piece from his shirt pocket to share the news. In the War Room, Craig presents carbon dating results. Wood from Borehole CD-2.5 at 91.5 feet, found the previous year just a few feet from D-2, dates to 1488 to 1650. The wood from D-2 also dates to 1488 to 1650, with a 95.4 percent confidence rating.
