Adventure Magazine Cover — page 195: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ask Adventure anything, if you want to hard enough; and so far being a girl hasn’t been allowed to make my life dull May I state my qualifications for admission to the circle around the Camp-Fire? First: Seafaring blood. Grandfather was a whaling captain in the good old days when New Bedford and Sag Harbor ships roamed the South Seas. Father has spent most of his life on the sea, has also killed whales off our own beach. My brother is in the Navy. I like outdoor life—swim- ming, fishing, riding, camping. Read all the time; mostly travel, history and adventure. I was “finished,” not educated, in a Washington private school. Then, by request, turned loose in New York for six years, first to learn to earn my own living, then earn it. Lived and made friends in nearly every one of the different villages that go to make up the Big City—from Greenwich Village to the exclusive East Sixties; from the Columbia University section to the model tenements on the East River. Took every chance of travel in this country, and fmally came the chance to travel abroad. Spent a year in Constantinople (1921-22), during the Al- lied occupation. Constantinople was said at that time by some one who ought to know to be the “wickedest city in the world, not excepting Shang- hai”’—and a most interesting place to inspect under the wing of a six-foot brother with a good right arm! ; My brother had been there three years as supply officer for our Navy, and of course knew every- body. I met all kinds of people—Turks, Armeni- ans, Greeks, hundreds of Russian refugees from Bolshevism. Lived for a time in each of the two principal hotels; then kept house for brother in an apartment with servants of three races, none En- glish-speaking. I had orders never to go alone into any building in Stamboul, but of course did. “If you want to be murdered, you can be mur- dered,” so the commandant of the allied police told me. “Just wander around in dark alleys!” In mid-Winter three other young women and I spent six weeks going slowly down the coast of Asia Minor, stopping at Smyrna, Beirut, the Greek Islands; then to Egypt, the Holy Land, and back to Constantinople. Going out and on the way home I visited Naples, Athens, Budapest, Vienna, Venice, and, for a month, Paris. Since coming home I’ve spent a year in Virginia; have written a series of letters about Turkey for Outlook; at present am a “col ist”? on a small newspaper; and your fellow ‘‘Adventurer,” ready and willing to talk about Turkey at any length — JEANNETTE F. Epwarps. The Hogback Oil Structure S° RICH that the crude petroleum can serve as fuel without being refined at all: Question: —‘‘Have inquiries about a New Mexico oil product from Eastern parties. They want me to go and look over same, and if country looks good to me to try to secure a large block of acreage to put down a test well. ou will excuse me if I overstep the limits of what ‘Ask Adventure’ is intended, for I should like to know where would be the best place to go for a 185 proposition of the kind mentioned. Have been"to Artesia but find the grade of oil very heavy. Had in mind that the northwest counties should show good indication. Has any oil ever been found there?”’—Gus Heman, Griffin, Ark. Answer, by Mr. Robinson:—The Midwest Com- pany have brought in two or three wells in San Juan County, on the Hogback structure, which is on the Navajo Indian Reservation. At about 800 feet they get oil under pressure that flows about 1,200 barrels from the two wells. This is the the highest grade oil ever discovered, I am told; it tests above 62 degrees Baume as it comes out of the well and carries 72 per cent to 74 per cent. gasoline. I know that automobiles put the crude oil in their tanks and run without any trouble, and people with tractors are buying the oil as it comes from the well to run them with. So I guess it is sufficiently high grade for any one. There are five great structures on this reservation, and they were sold by auction on the 15th of _ October at an average bonus of ten dollars an acre for the period of the proposed lease. They are bound on the larger leases to put down not less than three wells to a depth of 3,000 feet unless the oil is encountered at less depth, etc. There will be other sales of reservation leases after these have been tried out. They must begin drill- ing on each lease withing 90 days of the sale, so it should not be very long before it is tried out over a considerable area. Off the reservation drilling is going on, and oil in small quantities has been found near Farmington. and big gassers brought in at Aztec. South of these fields and north of Grants other strikes are re- ported. Names and addresses of department editors and the exact field covered by each section are given in the next issue of the magazine. Do not write to the magazine itself. Railways of the Sudan Y WAY of explaining a couple of terms you'll come to in a few minutes if you read the subjoined Q. and A.: A feddan is as much land as can be plowed over with a pair of oxen in one day—about an acre and a quarter. Sudd is a floating mass of vegetable matter that forms in the White Nile and obstructs navigation. As for the place names mentioned below—go to the map, thou sluggard: Question: —“T am engaged in writing a paper on the ‘Railways of Africa,’ for a course in the geogra- phy of Africa at the University of Chicago, and I am having considerable difficulty in finding recent material which is accurate and up-to-date. Most of the available material dates from before the war, and I understand that considerable progress in rail- way construction has been made since that time, both during and after the war. I am very anxious OOOLK C@