To Tree or Not to Tree

 

I do not favor either of these interpretations for several reasons. Firstly, I don’t like trees—well, I like trees, just not for treasure hunting. They are each unique in shape and size, and are constantly changing. They can die or be modified at any time. Consequently, they lack accuracy, making them terrible clues for finding a relatively small casque. Furthermore, roots can be exposed when they meet the trunk, making measuring arbitrary. Determining the intersection of rows of trees that are hundreds of feet long has the same issue, no accuracy. Similarly, following a long diagonal line of trees without an exact heading is, again, arbitrary, potentially taking us down any one of several different lines.

Secondly, it’s interesting that Byron asked specifically what the young men thought “ten by thirteen” meant, as if this were some kind of litmus test. He chuckled at their response, which would be inconsistent with them being correct. There’s nothing humorous about them responding with the expected answer. It would, however, be consistent with him finding their interpretation unexpected and amusing. I think Byron didn’t want to just give the solution away, so he told them to count again hoping they would find their mistake. The suggestion to look at missing trees was likely intended to disprove this interpretation rather than confirm it. I think Byron hoped the young men would discount the rows of trees interpretation without him having to be explicit.

Finally, Brian Zinn, on the Secret Podcast Chicago episode, said that when he and Andy Abrams had lunch with Byron Preiss a few months after finding the Cleveland casque, Byron told them that “ten by thirteen” refers to feet, which Zinn took to mean 10 x 13 or 130 feet. Using Google Earth, we can verify that this is not correct. It’s well over 300 feet from the Lincoln statue to the general location of the dig site. Though it’s not clear what Byron meant by this, it is clear that it was not rows of trees. 

Given what we know, and just practically speaking, we have to expunge the idea of trees from our minds, giving up on a solution that simply cannot be correct. Doing so allows us to stop barking up the wrong tree, so to speak.

Welcome to Level 4.