See the chart below -
I have always noticed that Tom uses the 1974 usgs photo when making many of his comparisons. I have always wondered if this choice was creating a bias. Below is a comparison of the 74 and 79 usgs photos in the area of the Ingram find. These two photos are on the same scale and line up well. The sizes of features are basically the same owing to nearly the same aspect ratio in each photo. You will see that the buildings are lined up. So, what does this comparison reveal?
The Ingram find is not in the FBI circle in '74 but it is in the circle in '79. Moreover it appears different pencils were used to draw the two circles, 74 vs 79, perhaps by different people with different information in each case ? Very clearly the 74 circle does not capture the Ingram find, whereas the 79 circle does.
The Faxio building with the red line is 220ft long. We have that from a County record. Using that scale if the Ingram find was 40 feet above the water line, as people contend it was, 40 feet does not place the Ingram find right at the trees but well below the trees in an open space. That would also explain why the Brian photo is incorrect, if he wasn't at the place he actually found the money when he was staged for a photo shoot. According to the Faxio building scale 40 feet from the water line is in open space.
Thirdly, a slight bulge is still in place in 1979 from the '74 dredging. The bulges in '74 and '79 line up well. This does not guarantee that the material we are seeing in '79 is dredging material, it could be lower strata sand that was displaced by the weight of dredging material applied above in 1974, but it might also be dredging material itself still in place in '79 ... only four months before Palmer will claim he found the dredging layer.
Measurements taken at identical positions on the sides of the dredging bulge in the '74 vs '79 show that the shoreline frontage is virtually the same in both years. What has eroded and is missing is 'dredge budge' frontage. These photos do not offer us information about elevation loss due to erosion at these same locations. But quite obviously water-line frontage is basically the same in 1974 vs. 1979! This result surprised me. Do we assume then that erosion and movement of material was not as large a factor in this area between 74 and 79 as previously thought? We would need elevation data in addition to shoreline frontage data in making a decision?
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