Thomas Wait being duly sworn deposes and says:

I live in Los Angeles County near the Pico oil wells and have lived in that vicinity about two years past. About December last, I lived from three quarters to a mile below the said wells on the creek. On night while living there, while the candles were lit in my tent, I noticed such a strong odor of gas from crude oil that I exclaimed to my wife, “My God, what is the matter now, “ and fearing combustion, put out the candles and went outside.

I took a stick, put it in the creek, and found that there was a great deal of oil there. Took the stick out, touched a match to it, and it burned freely. I have frequently seen the oil running to waste from the wells, and on several occasions, when we were short of fuel, we talked of catching it. All of this was while the wells were held by the California Star Oil Works Company.

About this same time, I had a conversation with one Bently, who was at the time in the employ of the Cal. Star Oil Works Co., in which he told me that the tanks were all full and that they had to run the heavy oil out of the bottom of the tanks to make room for the fresh. I know that said company did not have sufficient tankage to hold the oil that the wells produced, and Bently has also told me so.

I have had a great deal of experience in drilling and operating oil wells in Canada and Pennsylvania and have been engaged in that business since 1861. I know from my own observation and experience that form proper working, a well must be kept free from water and if water is allowed to remain in a well, it will necessarily result in a permanent injury to the well. I know from my own experience, that oil can be kept in crude state, if properly tanked, for two years anyway, without material injury. I have known oil that went forty seven degrees, that after begin kept six months went to forty five and was worth on that account, fifteen or twenty cents per barrel more than first tanked. The reason of this was that the oil was so light when originally pumped, that you could get a larger per cent of illuminating oil out of a barrel of a lower gravity.

I have seen wells in Canada which from being capped and having the flow of oil suppressed, became absolutely worthless and destroyed. I think that No. 4 well on the Pico claim, if it had been properly worked by the company, would have produced a great deal more oil than it has. About one year ago, I saw this same well flow about fifteen barrels of oil in half an hour.

Thomas Wait

June 17, 1878