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Lew Suverkrop.           12-2-31

An old time promoter who was drilling a well on Pozo creek bragged about how closely he could predict the ^[[/depth of the]] oil sand.  He told the stock salesmen to bring their clients around when the well gets to 1725 feet.  They did.  The well was brought in at this depth for a good production  On being questioned about how he could make so close a prediction, he said that 15 years ago he had drilled a well on that spot and at 1725 feet he had struck oil  But in those days he could make more money by capping the well and taking the balance of the money himself than he could by bringing in the well.  He said there were inumerable problems concerned with the production and marketing of the oil but that he avoided them by capping the well and floating another company instead.  "But corporation law has made it more profitable for me to bring in the well now-a-days."

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Mr. Cornell, California Testing Laboratory.  12-1-31

"I was sent out one time to look at some property in Nevada," said Mr. Cornell.  "It was a Placer property and [[strikethrough]] in [[/strikethrough]] being the middle of th winter, and pretty far North, the ground was frozen solid.  I was without an assistant of any kind.  The owners of the property were miles away.  I was all alone.  After several vain attempts to dig out enough gravel for samples, I looked for wood [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] for a fire to thaw out the ground.  Luckily I found a fairly large pile of wood cut up into four foot lengths stacked up against the shack.  With this wood, I built several fires, thawed out the ground and [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] dug out my samples.  I packed them very carefully, sealed them and shipped them to the assayer.  [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] They assayed about $4,50 to $5.00 per cubic yard which [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] indicated a fairly valuable property.  I recommended the purchase.  Althought the property was priced at $225,000 my clients were only willing to make a first payment of $150,000.  Some