Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/601

 Popular Science Monthly

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���Petroleum Lands in Southern Cali- fornia are worth millions. To ac- quire them for nothing from the Gov- ernment, the speculator works them on the plea that they contain gypsum deposits. So they do, but the oil is what he wants. His work, done to meet Government requirements, con- sists in carving out the stairs and terraces seen in the illustration

Fake Gypsum Claims

OXE of the most fantastic frauds of the times is that which is being perpetrated in ac- quiring for nothing petroleum lands in Southern California which may be worth from $1,000 to $2,000 an acre. It consists in entering lands underlaid with petroleum under the pretext that they contain valuable gypsum deposits. The gypsum is there, it is true, but it is commercially worth- less; however, with the $100 a year "as- sessment" for work on a claim, it is l)ossible to hold large acreages, v/hile in reality even this hundred dollars' worth of work on most of these claims in- cludes a very liberal estimate for the cost of the labor performed.

The people in the oil country smile very broadly at this assessment work, and, the work accomplished is of no value and is simply to enable the oil man conscientiouslv to make oath to the fact

��that he has done or paid for having done SlOO worth of work on his claim. Thus there are to he found picturesque amphi- theaters and other configurations done artistically in a poor quality of gypsum, and winding stairs leading to nowhere along the hillsides and slopes of the rich California oil fields. In this manner the oil lands are held against all comers until the particular oil speculator or syndicate gets ready to sell the land or finance a company, perhaps, actually to develop it for oil. A single well in any of these great Southern California oil fields may make the fortune of the man who strikes it. some of the gushers hav- ing produced upwards of a million dol- lars' worth of petroleum.

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