Page:The Mexican Problem (1917).djvu/179

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INDEPENDENT OF MAN OR BEAST
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deposited almost universally on the earth's surface and were then ploughed by glaciers and torn by upheavals and leached and redeposited into cracks or deposits of various forms; yet you get them where you find them. But when you reach the end of the deposit, don't gamble too much money in looking for a continuation of that deposit or for the next one. He says that when you dig a well and get water, you won't find oil, and when water comes in, that is the end of your oil.

Frank A. Vanderlip, of the National City Bank, about a year ago paid a million and a half, or one hundred dollars an acre, for fifteen thousand acres covering the San Pedro mountain, an ocean point on the Pacific not far from Los Angeles. It has beautiful views from the hilltop into valleys both sides and out over the ocean. But Doheny had first looked at it for several days and paid one thousand dollars a day for the privilege. He found there were some oil seepages on the property, but the district did not indicate to his practiced eye that he could get his money back with a profit from either oil or land sales. But Doheny could slip over the mountains to the northeast and buy the beautiful Ferndale Ranch for another summer home for Mrs. Doheny, with its running waters, palms and orange groves,