failure was much greater, but scientific methods have made the oil business as safe as any other.

The table which includes twenty years from 1888 gives a total of 5,611 wells drilled, of which 81.9 per cent. were successful.

Enormous fortunes have been made in this industry. It is stated on good authority that within the last ten years oil stocks listed on the California Oil Exchange have paid dividends amounting to about twenty-five million dollars, and as many of the dividend paying companies have not listed their stocks the total returns would be far in excess of that sum.

As an instance of the money-making opportunities of the industry is the rise of the Union Oil Company of California. It started out with a few pieces of oil property in Ventura County, and ten years ago a controlling interest of the Company changed hands for $300,000. That Company is today worth one hundred million dollars, and other California oil companies show similar stupendous growth. It is pleasant to know that much of the profits of the gusher era have gone to enrich those who did the pioneer

work.

The oil business, which was destined

to become the greatest industry of California, amounted to very little until the "boom" in the early 90's when valuable deposits were discovered in the city of Los Angeles by Mr. E. L. Doheney, who is now one of the most prominent and active oil magnates of California.

Between the fall of 1892 and the end of 1895, Mr. Doheney drilled eighty-two wells, and by that time scores and hundreds of others had followed his lead unfil almost two thousand wells had been sunk in the city of Los Angeles alone. Most of these are still operating extensively throughout the city and impartially invading both industrial and residential neighborhoods, overshadowing the humble homes near the Southern Pacific yards, fringing the old cemetery on Buena Vista Street, and casting their shadow upon luxurious mansions in the West Lake district, a fashionable and exclusive section of the city.

The great fortunes in California oil are not all in the past, by any means; the increased production is leading to an even greater demand and new wells and even new areas are being discovered. Moreover the present selling price of oil can not be taken as a fixed standard for computing the profits.

With the constantly increasing market

for California oil as a fuel in the navies of the world, in the railroads and industrial plants, the price, which is now about 60 cents a barrel, is bound to advance and in consequence greater production may be be expected. In addition to the use of oil for fuel and refining, the oiled roads of California are demonstrating the advantages of crude petroleum over macadam,

as the dustless, waterproof surface makes a perfect highway which, when placed upon a well built roadbed is practically indestructible. It has the great advantage of resisting the upward suction of automobile tires, which is so destructive to macadamized roads.

The United States navy has been experimenting with fuel oil on the Monitor Cheyenne, and the results have been so satisfactory that six oil storage tanks have been ordered at points along the coast from Narragansett Bay to Colon, and it is believed that when the oil producers can show a sufficient steady output, the Government will adopt the liquid fuel to propel our war vessels.

In addition to the comparative cheap

A TRAIN OF OIL CARS.

ness of oil over coal, it is claimed that the oil-fired vessel can be made from five to eight per cent. more efficient than the coal burner. The ease of operation would reduce the force required to feed the furnaces besides making it unnecessary to have any of the furnaces out of commission for the purpose of cleaning out the clinkers, ashes, etc.

There is a vast saving of storage space, and, most important of all, there is a great saving of time in taking on fuel. In the British navy a battleship has been known to take an oiler in tow, filling the tanks while making eleven knots. This feat took place far from shore and in rough water, and only required four hours for completion. To coal a ship of

that size would require about sixty hours besides the time taken to go to and from a coaling station.

These are a few of the reasons why oil producers are hopeful of seeing their products used in the United States navy as it is, at present, in the British.

The use of oil burners on the railroads will lead to a greater demand for California's leading product year after year. The work done by some of the "jumbos," or monster engines weighing more than

one hundred tons each, would be impossible for coal-fired locomotives. The Western Pacific is said to be using three thousand barrels a day, the Great Northern requires five thousand barrels a day, and the Salt Lake is another non-producing road in the market for oil.

The Santa Fé and the Southern Pacific are producers, but it remains to be seen whether they can develop their own oil holdings sufficiently to supply their needs.

There is a lively competition for claims of oil lands and as it is necessary

to show that valuable mineral deposits have been reached in order to perfect a claim, drilling on the public lands is something in the nature of a gamble, as two rival drillers can work on the same land and the first to strike oil takes it.

Another interesting feature of the drilling for oil is the boring of wells as near as possible to the edge of a claim. This is done by certain companies in order to drain off the oil from the neighboring claims and protect their own, as the oil sands are loose and porous and the deposit can percolate for some dis

tance.

This fact is the nub of the opposition to the "Pickett Bill" now before Congress. It differs from the conservation measures which withdraw coal and other mineral deposits, inasmuch as the withdrawal of public oil lands would not conserve the oil.

A Washington dispatch presents the argument of Thomas O'Donnell, representing the producers, before the Senate Committee which is considering the bill. The point was made that on the rich oil fields of the San Joaquin Valley each alternate section is owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad. The claim of the California oil

F something is not done, and that speedily, to bring the cost of living to a more equitable relation to the earning capacity of the average man, it will not be for lack of suggestions looking to that end. Efforts, backed by experts of the Department of Agriculture, are being made to secure an appropriation from Congress for the introduction of the unwieldy hippopotamus to the marshes and sluggish streams of the South. Secretary James Wilson, of the Department of Agriculture, earnestly advocates that the millions of muskrats, annually slaughtered for their pelts, be utilized for food; and publications of the division of biological survey for several years have been urging upon the attention of farmers and live stock producers the general subject of game farming, with particular attention to deer and elk farming.

If it be really necessary to search for a supplementary meat supply, it is not at all likely that relief will be found in the introduction of foreign species such as the hippopotamus. The world never knew a more useful or more prolific game animal than the American bison. It fed the Indians of the major part of North America for unknown ages; supplied the fur traders and trappers of the West with fresh meat throughout the half century during which they pioneered the way for civilization; was the principal food reliance of the soldiers at Western military posts through the whole period of the Indian wars; made possible the maintenance of the vast army of laborers that constructed the first transcontinental railroads; and made the problem of living comparatively simple for plainsmen, freighters and emigrants throughout the period from 1849 to

1869 when Western transportation was confined to wagon caravans, when Western agriculture was unknown, and when the Western live stock industry was undreamed of. So long as the buffalo were found in countless numbers on the plains, to keep the Indians upon reservations was impracticable; they were independent of "beef issues," and not at all averse to a fight. The extermination of the buffalo, therefore, is sometimes justified on the grounds that it was a military necessity..

Breeders of Angora goats argue in favor of the indefinite extension of their industry that there are at least 250,000,000 acres of mountainous or desert land, entirely valueless for agriculture or for grazing sheep and cattle, that might be made in some degree productive if devoted to the rearing of goats. Advocates of game farming claim that this land is as well adapted to the rearing of buffalo, deer and elk as of goats; and that the larger animals are perfectly able to defend themselves and their young against the attacks of wolves and coyotes. Goat meat will never be popular as an article of diet, but venison and elk meat will never be sufficiently abundant to overstock the market.

In the interminable discussion that has

been going on as to the reason for the high prices of meat products, but little has been said concerning the passing of the "open range." Yet this is doubtless the most important factor of all, in the inauguration of the era of high prices. for fresh meats. It is generally conceded that, notwithstanding a great increase in the population, the number of sheep and of beef cattle in the country is materially smaller now than a decade ago; but there is a tendency to regard this fact as anomalous and unaccountable, instead of directly due to the virtual disappearance of the "open range." Inevitably, with the "open range," the rearing of vast numbers of "range cattle" and sheep, almost as wild as deer, elk and mountain sheep, has passed into history. Of course there are still range cattle sent to market, but they have long since ceased to be the dominating factor in the live stock markets of the West, and every year their relative importance becomes smaller. They are, in fact, almost a negligible quantity. The homesteaders have invaded the "cow country" in a conquering army of hundreds of thousands, and "the open range" of a few years ago has been cut up into "dry farms," and crisscrossed with wire fences; and where the round-ups used to