FORTUNES IN A NIGHT

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 154, 1 July 1924, Page 3

FORTUNES IN A NIGHT

THE ROMANCE OF OIU i INCIDENTS OF THE PRESENT j DECADE. 1 The lure of gold has been for centuries a magnet to mankind, yet all the realised dreams of finding the precious metal pale before the many fortunes made from the gambler's quest for oil. This Jiquid gold of the twentieth century has a dramatic romance about it that no gold rush has even attained. Wealth greater than that froui any El { Dorado has come through chance, not | only to those who have staked their all | for it. but to others who have taken no j part whatever, in tapping the bowels of the earth for spouting fortune. Last I century was the age of coal. A nation j prospered on its development of great | seams; royalties came gradually to for- ! tunate land owners; dividends to cautious investors; wages to the sweating thousands who delved beneath the sur- : fare for those millions of tons which industry demanded. To-day industry turns to another fuel — more portable, and won by far less of human <ndca\our. Oil is replacing coal so rapidly, the demand for it is so unappeasable, that no industry is comparable to it for rapid growth and vast accumulation of wealth. There are no more powerful concerns in the world to-day than the great oil corporations, whose activities have raised thousandfold the value of many portions of the earth's crust. The unknowing public thinks of these corporations as possessing absolute control of the known oilfields, and as providers of wondrous dividends to their fortunate shareholders. They have been known as dominating influences behind treaties by which nations have taken or given rights over foreign territories where oil is known or presumed. Great as are their influence and wealth, however, they do not completely dominate oil development, much of which has been done by the patient prospector and the small syndicate, who persist through I many wild gambler's risks, in drilling down for uncertain fortune. Just how ' some of these latter people have fared, how dazzling wealth has come suddenly upo"n them, provides the greatest romance of to-day. A Shoemaker's Luck. About five years ago a bootmaker in a small way of business followed the great westward drift of population in the United States, and, abandoning his small business at St. Louis, set himself up in a small store and repairing business at Longbeach, then merely a winter resort for Los Angeles. Having a home in view, he bought for two hundred dollars a lease of two small sections on Signal Hill, but the contemplated house was never built. Ere he could mature his plans a drilling syndicate had tapped on the hill one of the richest oilfields of Western America, and the bootmaker's property assumed a prospective value far beyond Ids wildest dreams. He was overwhelmed with offers for the purchase of his lease, and after resisting many temptations, succumbed to a proposal to part with his rights for eighteen thousand dollars and 25 per cent of any oil that might be tapped. Down went the drill, oil was struck, and from that time onward for eleven months a thousand dollars a day was his share of the wealth which gushed from his little sections. A capital outlay of 200 brought him back well over a quarter of a million dollars. Poor old fellow! Ke was so embarrassed with wealth that for a time he became an easy prey for every canvasser who could get near enough to mention motor, piano or gramaphone. Soon, however, he adjusted himself to his new environment, and now dwells in comfortable affluence near the spot that made him independent. f A Snapshot from Texas. Silas Green was a contented old negro cultivating a poor hundred odd acres that had the fortune to lie on what is now the Burke-Bennett field, par* of the Bend Arch oil structure that sweeps through Texas. Green knew nothing of oil development till a couple of prospectors asked leave to examine a creek bed that coursed his property. A few days later they interviewed Silas, with the result that the coloured land owner made a journey to Dallas, where with due legal form he sold ten acres of his property for 20,000 dollars and one eighth "of the oil rights. The rig was soon carted to the ground and the section of the great anticline successfully tapped. Silas became in a night a person of importance. Before long he hat', parted with another ten acres on the same terms. Oil again flowed and his bank account swelled proportionately. Eventually a syndicate of bankers waited on a peroon who had now reached the dignity of "Mister Green," and offered 125,000 dollars spot cash for the balance of his property. Silas, however, was getting rapidly world wise. He heard the. offer, then turning calmly to the bankers, exclaimed, "Say, gemmeu. it ain't enough." Nor was double that amount enough, but the property eventually passed to the big men, and old Silas is to-day Mr. S. Green, dollar millionaire. How Values Soar. Oil indications give properties most fantastic values, while a "strike" sends surrounding territory soaring to tindreamed figures. The famous Duscnberg lease in Texas provides a good example. Oil was located on property next to that owned by Dusenberg Bros. Before a well went down these enterprising gentlemen disposed of rights over 80 acres for 22,500 dollars per acre and 12A per cent of tho oil. The sale alone brought them nearly half a million sterling and their oil royalties still come in. . During a railway journey in the west a Los Angeles business man was persuaded into putting 1000 dollars as a fourth share, in a lease of a prospective oil area which he and his throe fellow travellers stopped to view. The conditions provided that they should bore within nine months. Six months went past and they had not put down a well. Others in the vicinity had, however, and an offer came of 80,000 dollars for their 4000 option. TJiey snapped it. The purchaser drilled and sold witlyn ten days of starting operations for 450,000 dollars. When it is remembered that old interests regard a good well producing 150 barrels a day worth a million dollars, the attractiveness of boring in any likely places can be realised. In oil countries, however, they know how to prospect an area. There is not that tedious company promoting business that has not yet brought payable wells to New Zealand. Slen look upon drilling as a gamble with the dice heavily loaded against them, but with prospects so alluring that they are prepared to risk their all in tempting fortune. Small syndicates will drill and miss. Again and again they will try till they have either fruitlessly dissi 7 pated their savings or,, with strike, have achieved fortune- ) / i