You say further that at the last annual meeting of Tonopah Extension stockholders, held in Pittsburg last May, it developed that I had disposed of all the stock I purchased from Mr. Hall and over two-thirds of my original holdings of 166,000 shares. This is absolutely untrue. I am holding to-day exactly the amount I held after all purchases were made by me, and from the beginning, aggregating some 285,000 shares, and I think if you take the trouble to look up the records you will find my statement in this connection to be true. When I originally bought Extension there was also some stock in my name belonging to others, which I subsequently transferred to them, leaving my own holdings of 285,000 shares where they now remain, intact, in my personal possession. Going on down the article, you say that I purchased control of Shoshone and Polaris for less than $2 per share. This statement of yours is inaccurate. You say I sold a large block of Shoshone stock at $20 per share. This is also without any truth whatever. The fact is that 3,000 shares were sold at this figure, $20, and these 3,000 shares came from the treasury of the company, all of which you will find a matter of record. It is true that I have loaned the company nearly $500,000 to build the new mill, and I shall be glad to have any other stockholder in the company assume his pro rata share of this amount. You wonder why I criticise statements from Nevada. Respectfully yours, (_Signed_) C. M. Schwab The general impression in Nevada, as I have gathered it, is that Mr. Schwab's mining enterprises have been great disappointments to him, but that he did not lose any very large sum of money, and that the public did. His enemies go so far as to allege that he, his brother, and his brother-in-law, Dr. M. R. Ward, made millions out of the public. I have an opinion, and I may be allowed to express it. Mr. Schwab, at the time he became a promoter of Nevada mines, was an expert steelmaker. He knew little or nothing about silver, gold and copper mines. The fact that friends in Philadelphia, who knew as little about the game as he did, had made a fortune in Tonopah (on the advice of a man who did know) should not have influenced him. Because the Mizpah mine at Tonopah, promoted by Oscar A. Turner as the Tonopah Mining Company, had made good in a phenomenal way, Pennsylvania stockholders had rolled up fabulous profits in the venture. Under this hypnotism Mr. Schwab "fell" for Tonopah Extension. Later, when Tonopah Extension showed a market enhancement of more than $16,000,000, Mr. Schwab was in an ideal frame of mind to succumb to Montgomery-Shoshone. And when Montgomery-Shoshone in the Bullfrog boom showed a market enhancement of $8,000,000, it did not take much argument to get him into Greenwater, another "bloomer," which is described further on.