CANADIAN OIL BOOM.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17078, 6 July 1926, Page 4

CANADIAN OIL BOOM.

HONEY IN OLD SCRIP.

, CASHING THE WALLPAPER. i GREAT FLUTTER IN CALGARY. ; VANCOUVER, May 8. 1 Not more than a month ago a iiotel- ' keeper in Calgary, Alberta, drew Hie. wallpaper from one of the rooms of his | basement, and sold it for several thou- ■ sand dollars. It was scrip in the Gal- ! gary oil boom of twelve years ago, and it was readily marketable in the new : oil boom that has in its grip the prairie town and its 60,000 inhabitants, as well as the residents of other towns within and beyond the wheat province. Within a couple of weeks, 160 offices have been opened in a town smaller than Dunedin or Hobart for the side of oil stocks. Society ladies have left their homes in charge of maids, leased “ pews ” in the oil exchange, and are reputed to bo making • profits that turn a business executive green with envy. Savings bank deposits have disappeared since the great boom’ set in, six weeks ago. The workman, thu j stenographer, the office boy and the lift- j attendant have all fallen victim to tho! i epidemic of oil. Newspapers drive a roaring business, with huge advertise-| ments, notifying in turn the issue of j prospectus of new companies and the directors’ regrets that the capital was j oversubscribed. j Nobody seems to know the actual in cident that led up to the recrudescence i of the boom or the actual date of it. Rut oil, and nothing else, is the universal topic of conversations, in the drawing room as well as on the street, j New cotrporations are determined ito profit by the mistakes of the 1914 boom, in which between five and’ six million dollars were wasted! in a futile effort to win naphtha and gas. i With a lino show of assurance, those I people say that the 1914 promoters were ! amateurs, and that so were tho drillers, j Tf they did not “ strike ” by tho time * Urey were 3000 ft. down, the project was no good, and was abandoned. Now , they are prepared to go down to 5000 ft., on the advice of the experts. The oil ! is there; of that there can bo no possible . doubt. Experts say that if Alberta nil makes good the promises of the geo- j logical formation of the province it may change the course of the industrial life of Canada. As is only to be expected, set backs are being administered as the first flush of the boom passes. A speaker loldl a ; gathering at a luncheon club that wells are being drilled whero # there is no hope of oil or naphtha being found. In the state of mind the people are in just now they would have laughed’ at him hut for the presence of letters, A.R.S.M. and F.G.S.. after his name. Nevertheless, ho 100 indicated! that oil was there, j and of high gravity, requiring purifiea- ■ lion and blending, hut not refining, as it is accompanied by large volumes of. natural gas.. j The summer will prove the efficiency or | otherwise of the present boom. In ( either fuse, as one advertisement puts j it, “ Calgary is sitting on top of the world, and people are taking notice of us. ” —Herald, Auckland.