C. D. Angell being first duly sworn deposes and says that:

I went into the oil business in 1864 and have been interested in oil wells and in the oil business in the United States ever since. For about ten years commencing early in 1867 I was very actively and extensively engaged in operating, running and working oil wells and oil properties on the buying and selling of oil lands and in the production of oil, being during such ten years the joint or inclusive owner of several hundred wells and was actively, personally engaged during that time in sinking or drilling and working various wells in which I was interested, having the personal supervision of the care and working of most of the same.

At one time my share of the profits of the wells owned in whole or in part by me amounted to more than fourteen thousand barrels per month. I believe that my experience in the production of oils, and the locating and operation of oil wells was during those years as extensive as that of any man in the United States, and am the author and originator of the theory with aspect to oil production known as the “Angell’s Belt” theory which theory has been almost universally accepted and adapted in the United States.

My experience also extends to the handling and buying and selling and transportation of oils, and I am well acquainted with the oil wells known as the Pico claim and described in the complaint in this action. I first visited them in February last and since then have very often at short intervals been upon the premises and spent, at various times, days and nights continuously there for the sole and only purpose of watching the wells and their characteristics and the mode and manner in which they were operated. My business in the portion of the state being for the purpose of determining the value of the property and the character and peculiarities of oil lands on the Pacific Coast.

A portion of the time I was assisted in my investigations by a gentleman from Pennsylvania who was the representative of large capitalists and who came to the Pacific Coast for the sole purpose of investigating oil properties and oil wells. In this way my attention has been called especially to these wells, and I have devoted since I first saw them a great deal of time in their examination and deem myself entirely competent to testify respecting them and the mode of operating them, and I have no hesitation in saying that they have been operated in a workmanlike and skillful manner; that nothing has been done, so far as I know or believe, to check or suppress their flow or in any way to lessen their value or cause them to deteriorate in value, but on the other hand I believe they have been worked and operated intelligently, carefully and properly and under the circumstances as well as it could be done. I have known C.A. Mentry personally since about 1870, and have known him in connection with the drilling and operating of oil wells and have always believed him to be a first class operator in every department pertaining to the operating and drilling of oil wells.

He had in Pennsylvania a first class reputation as a competent, skillful and conscientious workman and oil man, and in fact his reputation was exceptionally good, and I believe him to be thoroughly fully and entirely competent to drill take charge of, manage, and operate oil wells and I would have the greatest confidence in his judgment and opinion as to the proper management and operation of a well.

The oils of different oil countries have different characteristics and to operate oil wells successfully requires a knowledge of the wells, which can only be obtained by great and long experience, and I know no one on the Pacific Coast with whom the care and operation of the wells in question could be so safely entrusted as said Mentry. Under the circumstances by which that property is at present surrounded the only practical way of preserving the oil as produced from the wells would be by the erection of wooden tanks at a cost of from seventy five cents to a dollar per barrel.

The evaporation of such oil so tanked would be very great during the first six months and, as in oil of this character the volatile portions are the most valuable, the value of the oil would be greatly diminished. In fact, I do not think oil tanked at the Pico wells for six months could be refined profitably for illuminating oil.

The oils in question are undoubtedly much more liable to deterioration in tanks than Pennsylvania oils and the deterioration will also be quicker on account of the low gravity and peculiar properties of the oil, and I the expense of tankage the deterioration and risk from fire would at the end of six months absorb the whole value of the oil.

I know the mode adapted by Mentry with respect to pumping the pumping wells on the Pico claim by heads or at intervals and believe this the proper method of using and operating these wells and am confident no detriment is caused hereby to the wells. In wells of this character in Pennsylvania but few or any of them are now pumped continuously, and it may be said to almost the universal custom adapted, and founded on the experience of years there to pump such wells by heads, as is done by Mentry here.

In the Bradford district in Pennsylvania, where there is a daily production of over 15000 barrels per day, none of the wells are pumped continuously as experience has demonstrated that the life and permanent production of the wells is promoted by this mode of operation. The theories explain the fact being that the accumulation of gas and oil in the wells by this method of pumping at intervals relieves the oil crevices through which the oil flows from paraffin, which would otherwise accumulate in the crevices and impede the flow of the oil.

C. D. Angell

July 10, 1878