A SALTED OIL BORE.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 12, 15 January 1924, Page 5

A SALTED OIL BORE.

HOW IT -WAS DONE -NE OF THE FAIR CONFESSES. PERTH, January 14. The hearing of a charge against H. rhompson, charged with conspiring with Robert Rothkehl to defraud the public iv means of an alleged "salted oil bore it Lake Eva, has begun. He pleaded not guilty. The Crown case rested on the second if three statements made by accused since his arrest. He stated that last April Rothkehl told him he had dis:overed oil, and asked accused to go into partnership with him. He agreed and save Rothkehl ten pounds for a fifth interest in whatever was found- Five weeks later Rothkehl received another £10, stating that oil was there but he could not get it in any quantity. Later the two of them went to Adelaide, where Rothkehl tried to get a prospecting area from the Mines Department. While in Adelaide Rothkehl said that he had three barrels of oil and explained that he was going to put it down the bore and salt the well. They went from Adelaide to Lake Eva, where the bore hole was put down about thirty feet. A dugout was made, and a tank with a tap attached put in it. A hole was then made a couple of feet from the bore and a down pipe put on at an angle entering the bore about ten feet from the surface. Oil and benzine were then put into the tank in the dugout, which was timbered. There was a pipe running back from the tank. This was fixed to a leg of a table in the tent and fed down throughout the dugout and connected to the tap on the tank, so that by turning the leg of the table the tap could be turned on and the oil allowed to flow through to the bore. The case was adjourned till Friday next.— (A. and N.Z. Cable.)