Mildred Lee riding the drome, or Wall of Death.
Bob and Mildred Lee (second and third from right) in Hamburg, Germany.
Living the high life in Germany.
Advertising for the Globe of Death, Munich, Germany, 1934.
Publicity shot, Canada, 1938 or ’39.
Bob, Mildred, and Lee Restall return from Hawaii.
Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, 1937.
Ricky, Mildred, and Bobby test one of Bob Restall’s adult carnival ride cars while suspended from guy wires.
The Ski Lift in action. Another Bob Restall creation.
How have you been making out, I would like to know. If you appear to get people interested what seems to be the point where they cool? I hope you haven’t lost any confidence in this venture yourself …
I am enclosing a sketch of the pirates’ work on Smith’s Cove as proved out by a year’s hard work and 65 test holes into their work [See Figure 3]. First you must understand the records of 165 years of work here are incomplete. Not mentioning all the work done from 1850 to 1860 or from 1868 to 1893 (this includes a dozen shafts back of Smith’s Cove) and another dozen in the area of the money pit (but 25’ or more away). But all this time Smith was living 50 ft from the money pit and no one got near the treasure. Another great trouble have been the errors in the records. Making two ways that everything at every step has to be checked. Is this true or false. Was this done by the searchers, etc.
Figure 3: Enclosed with letter of March 6, 1961.
I want to give you a report on absolute fact.
The Reservoir at Smith’s Cove with its Paving to prevent erosion, its seals to keep mud and sand out of the reservoir, is absolutely incredible. We are the only people who examined this work from one end to another. When the 1850 outfit found the water running out of the beach in 1850 they uncovered the beach and found coconut at low tide. When they decided a Coffer Dam had to be built to examine this work, they uncovered [a strip of] this Coconut till they came to both ends [of the beach] (Incidentally, they removed the coconut from this whole strip) under it they found a layer of stones like Cobble stone paving.
Obviously this was man’s work. They [the 1850 group] built a Coffer Dam in a crescent to span this work exactly 241 feet. When this Dam was built and the sea shut out they started in the Middle and removed a few hundred tons of rock finding the rock work 5’ deep and 140 feet wide and from their Coffer Dam inland about 50’. On the bottom of this rock work they found 5 drains (box drains) these they followed inland (Hop scotch) reaching a place where they converged joining a round larger drain. When they attempted to follow the round drain they succeeded only for a short distance. The ground and gravel letting in so much water (they had no pumps) they had to give up. At this point a storm along with Spring Tides overflowed the Dam and when the Tide went out the whole thing went to pieces. The sea brought sand in and reformed the beach in the open work.
Now because the Main Drain across the Island to the money pit is 110 ft. deep (30 ft. hill) the drain is approx. 80 ft. below sea level 40 lbs. pressure this is enough to force the water through carrying sand with it. Where the level of the pit is down 10’ the pressure is only 5 lbs. It takes a week to fill the Pit back to sea level at this low pressure. But pump it down 40’ (120 lbs. pressure) it comes in at the rate of 250 gal. a minute. Pump it down 80 ft. and it comes back from 450 to 550 gal. a minute. When the water is pumped down 15 feet (7 1/2 lbs.) or more it brings a great amount of sand with it. This sand pumps up with the water. This proves the drain across the Island is full of sand and that it constantly gets new sand from the beach with the water.
Note on the sketch that the place is marked where we got the dated stone out of the Pirates’ work covered with decayed vegetation. The grease from this is right into the stone, I took this stone out of this work where its location, and condition proved that it had not been disturbed since placed there when this work was done and is therefore undoubtedly authentic.
I may phone you before you get this as there are two people I tried who have the money and who might come in, but you may know them, perhaps I should write them from here. In which case I would have to have their Addresses.
The winter here has been terrible; the ice is breaking up, the pieces floating by are 18” to 20” thick with some over 2’ thick. This on Salt Water yet. They are still using cars on what is left. There is a storm on now. Waves are only 3 to 3 1/2 ft but not too close together, this gets the chunks of ice (tons) enough momentum to give things an awful beating.
I am going ashore on foot this afternoon. The other half of the Island is in solid ice yet. So will mail this then. We have to wind this job up fast (it’s here, we can get it, and we are going to get it) but we can’t stand much more of the way we have been living, its enough to drive anyone out of their mind. Do the best you can and we have got to get enough for eating and stove oil, etc. Best regards to all from all of us.
Yours very truly,
Bob
Dad was providing Fred with a bit of a history lesson here. This information on the Truro Company would have been well known to Oak Island aficionados, but not to Fred. He needed to understand the beach work thoroughly if he was to describe it to potential investors.
Dad had mentioned sand and the problems it raised. The 1850 searchers had uncovered part of the reservoir in Smith’s Cove and found it consisted of a layer of coconut fibre and a layer of a jelly-like eel grass. They believed the reservoir acted as a sponge to hold water for the inlet tunnel so it could flood the Money Pit. As Dad and Bobby found, the reservoir certainly held sufficient water to make digging in the beach difficult, but more importantly, it had actually acted as a giant filter, screening sand out of the water so that sea water travelled with force to the Money Pit. But by this time, whenever the Money Pit was pumped down, the water that came in was mixed with plenty of sand, because the 1850 searchers had disturbed the original work during their explorations and had broken the reservoir seal, compromising the reservoir’s filter function. A cross-section of the pirates’ beach work shows one of the five box drains that lie under the water in Smith’s Cove (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: Bob Restall’s sketch. Cross-section of seawater inlet system at Smith’s Cove.
Late
