[mechanical_fish]

It does seem noteworthy that nobody in this story ever finds any actual money in the so-called "money pit", or even a hint that there is money. It's like a 200-year-old game of telephone: "someone said that someone said that there's money at the bottom of the pit!"

Incidentally, and yet again, Wikipedia is a much better source than the original submission:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island

On Wikipedia they tell a really funny story about a stone that was allegedly found in the pit, with "symbols" that turned out to be a "cipher message" that alluded to Tons of Money lying somewhere below. The stone later disappeared, of course. Shucks. Why does that always seem to happen to these mysterious cipher stones that only one person can read? Maybe some angels took the stone up to heaven so that we wouldn't find the Holy Grail. Or something.

Wikipedia also alludes to an important hypothesis, itself dating back to 1911: The "money pit" was a natural sinkhole, the early excavators' discoveries of "man-made platforms" were the product of starry-eyed optimism, and (conveniently!) the site eventually became so torn up by treasure hunters that nobody will ever be able to reconstruct what was originally there. And so the game of telephone will continue into the indefinite future.

[DarrenMills]

The cipher message told to dig another 30 feet to find the treasure. Then 10 feet lower a man made tunnel was found leading to the water, it instantly flooded the tunnel.

Every 10 feet was a layer of logs that was left over from the construction.