suitable men for the higher positions. I have not till now described the vice-president and real head of our company, Mr. E. L. Denny, and yet he is worth mentioning as well as some of the incidents of his life. A handsome man, well read, with a low, soft voice, and as well dressed a man as I have ever met; all of which sounds incongruous with his early life. He was, till a few years ago, a “prospector,” who did not have much luck in his prospecting. His partners at different times were Harry Carter, who at the time was our yard foreman, Tom Grand, who is here on a prospecting trip for Denny, and Charles Canrod, who is his partner now in all his big undertakings. Twenty years ago Mr. Denny joined forces with Charlie Canrod, who had also been a prospector, and who had once made a strike and invested his money in a livery stable and hotel, which cost him $35,000, and which he later lost; for these men are rich one day and poor the next. Eighteen years ago they were both broke and came to Los Angeles to find work in order to earn enough money to go back prospecting. This a miner calls earning “a grub-stake.” Denny had been working for the city, but took contracts to paint some houses, and while working on the outskirts of the town, near what is now “Westlake Park,” found some oil exudes. He asked some one what it was (for he had taken a sample as a prospector does), and was told it was “Brea.” He remembered that when he was in Mexico that was the Spanish name for asphalt, and also having heard that where there was an asphalt deposit there was or had been oil. He got his partner Canrod, and they clubbed together what money they had and what they could beg or borrow, and took options on all the land in the Westlake district that they could get their hands on. The two began to sink a shaft, 6 feet by 4 feet, down to find the oil. This shows how much either of them knew at that time about oil; for if they had found a gusher they would certainly have been killed. As it was, they were both overcome once or twice by gas fumes, but did not know what it was. Luckily, they only found a very little “seep” of oil, but sufficient to peddle round for painting and other purposes, and to convince the capitalists (whom they later interested) that they really had something. Thus, getting a start with the aid of borrowed capital, they interested a well-driller, who knew his business, to go in with them and sink proper wells, and they soon had a paying proposition. From Los Angeles they went to Bakersfield, where they got hold of oil properties, and when they cleaned up there they had about one million dollars each. Then they came to Mexico, bought up a tract of land, which they had personally investigated, some 500,000 acres, which showed oil indications, and invested over $1,000,000 in works, tanks, drilling rigs, &c. This field and others later purchased, of which only a small portion has so far been developed, is producing 57,000 barrels of oil