Natural Sinkhole Theory
Critics argue that there is no treasure and that the apparent pit is a natural phenomenon, likely a sinkhole and natural caverns. Suggestions that the pit is a natural phenomenon, specifically a sinkhole or debris in a fault, date to at least 1911. There are numerous sinkholes on the mainland near the island, together with underground caves (to which the apparent booby traps are attributed).
The appearance of a man-made pit has been attributed partly to the texture of sinkholes: "this filling would be softer than the surrounding ground, and give the impression that it had been dug up before", and the appearance of "platforms" of rotten logs has been attributed to trees or "blowdowns" falling or washing into the depression. An undetermined pit similar to the description of the early Money Pit had been discovered in the area. In 1949, workmen digging a well on the shore of Mahone Bay, at a point where the earth was soft, found a pit of the following description: "At about two feet down a layer of fieldstone was struck. Then logs of spruce and oak were unearthed at irregular intervals, and some of the wood was charred. The immediate suspicion was that another Money Pit had been found."
Read more about this topic: Oak Island
Famous quotes containing the words natural, sinkhole and/or theory:
““You, that have not lived in thought but deed,
Can have the purity of a natural force,
But I, whose virtues are the definitions
Of the analytic mind, can neither close
The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Many a time I have seen my mother leap up from the dinner table to engage the swarming flies with an improvised punkah, and heard her rejoice and give humble thanks simultaneously that Baltimore was not the sinkhole that Washington was.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“In the theory of gender I began from zero. There is no masculine power or privilege I did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot escape her hormonal identity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)