Page:The Mexican Problem (1917).djvu/166

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110
THE MEXICAN PROBLEM

San Diego, and construction was begun there in the sixties, but no rails were ever laid by that railroad enterprise. When the Boston people came to build the Southern California road they avoided litigation by keeping outside the old Scott right of way.

Senator Bard of California was interested in this Ojai property, and it is from the Bard Oil Company that the Pan-American now gets title to about two thousand acres of surface and all the mineral rights of the valley, about seven miles long and two and a half miles wide. On the Sulphur Mountain side of this valley are oil seepages that are declared to be the greatest in the State. On the other side of the valley the cleavage of the hills reveals the entire geological formation so that it can be followed for many miles. The oil in this territory varies from fourteen to thirty-four gravity and the wells are from four hundred to four thousand feet deep.

PRODUCTION COSTS IN CALIFORNIA

The average California oil well will yield from one hundred to two hundred barrels per day, and six hundred barrels is a big well. Oil wells running from five to fifteen barrels have been automatically pumping in southern California for