Charles Barkhouse and Terry Matheson supervise the drilling of Borehole DE-1.5 in the Money Pit, only eleven feet from C1 and part of the C-1 Cluster where the team has found metal fragments containing gold, water samples testing positive for gold and silver, and wood dating to possibly the 15th century. The drill program will help determine where to place up to four ten-foot-wide shafts in the attempt to recover the possible treasure. A core from 69 feet reveals splinters and what could be a piece of a beam from a shaft or tunnel, and a sample from 79 to 83 feet contains stacked timber at the bottom. Terry says the evidence points to a structure of some type. By the time Rick arrives, the cores show that for twenty feet the drill has been clipping the side of a tunnel or shaft with buckled beams, and Rick tells Terry and Charles they need to shift from exploration to confirmation drilling.
At the research center, Steve Guptill recommends moving west to Borehole G-2, near the possible location of Shaft Six. In 1861, the Oak Island Association dug Shaft Six eighteen feet west of where they had drilled into what they believed were two chests stacked on top of each other. As the association tunneled toward the chests, seawater broke through and flooded the tunnel, causing the cribbing in the Money Pit to collapse. The first core from G-2 at 75 feet shows stacked wood with vertical pit saw marks, and at 89 feet the team pulls five feet of stacked timbers along with a bent nail. Charles texts Rick, who arrives and immediately takes the nail for analysis. At the archaeology trailer, Rick tells Doug Crowell he wants to know whether the nail contains manganese, which will date it to before or after 1840. The XRF reads 96.60 percent iron and 3.36 percent manganese, placing it in the post-1840 time frame. Laird Niven confirms the nail is hand forged, consistent with the early to mid 1800s and Shaft Six's timeline.
In the swamp, Billy Gerhardt continues excavating the southern edge while Charles notices a plank with rounded edges near where a piece of railing was previously found. Jack Begley and Charles then recover three pieces of wood cut to points and buried about three feet deep, resembling the survey stakes found the previous year near the eastern border of the swamp that dated to the 1600s. Charles notes the cuts on the stakes differ, likely the work of different people. At the archaeology trailer, Rick observes that the shorter stake resembles the survey stakes Fred Nolan found years ago in the swamp, and Marty notices the plank looks similar to the pieces of keg found there previously.
On Lot 22, Gary Drayton and Michael John metal detect an area near Lot 4 where Gary has been searching for two weeks for evidence of human activity predating the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. To date, the team has found a gold-plated button, an adze, and a metal fragment that could be from a Portuguese cannon. Michael unearths a large piece of lead; previous lead artifacts from the island have been dated to the 14th century and linked to Knights Templar territories. At their next target, Michael recovers a strap that Carmen Legge identifies as a box or chest strap from the late 1600s to late 1700s, noting the rounded end is typical of straps used on heavy trunks and the thickness indicates it would have held hardware, china, or silverware rather than something like clothing.
