Fifth President

Sirs:

Can TIME'S editors be so misinformed that they consider John as the given name of our famed fifth President as stated beneath cut, p. 25, TIME, July 12.

ROBERT S. PLANTZ

Oswego, New York

To Robert S. Plantz and a score more letter-writers, all credit for nailing TIME in a stupid tongue-slip.--ED.

Unburied Post

Guy Bates Post is not buried in Forest Lawn, he is very much alive, saw him at lunch yesterday.

Suppose you try again.

BEN HOLMES

Hollywood, Calif.

Listed in TIME'S story on Hollywood's Forest Lawn Cemetery were celebrities buried in its mausoleum, and celebrities who have arranged to be buried there when they die. By error, the name of Actor Guy Bates Post, which should have been the first in the last list, appeared as the last in the first. To Actor Post who, hale and spry, is currently on view in MGM's Maytime, TIME'S sincere apologies.--ED.

TWA's Tomlinson

Your article entitled "On Top," which appeared in the July 12 issue of TIME, contains one statement derogatory to me, and others which are without the slightest basis in fact. I am sure that your article was written and published with the best intent. I, therefore, hope that in justice to me and to your readers you will give this letter a prominence equal to the article which contained the misstatements.

The points in your article which were in error are corrected as follows:

1) I am especially proud of the fact that my two wing men in the acrobatic team known as the "Three Sea Hawks" are very much alive, have made a splendid record and are regarded as outstanding officers in Naval Aviation. These officers are: Lieut. W. V. Davis and Lieut. A. P. Storrs.

2) Any aerobatics performed by me at night without lights were at a time prior to Department of Commerce regulations and the airplane used was a wartime JN4D, my personal property, which had no provisions for lights of any kind.

3) The statement that I was "cashiered" from the Naval Service is unfounded and derogatory to my character and reputation. The term "cashiered" definitely implies that severance from the Service was the result of dishonorable misconduct. I resigned from the U. S. Navy in February in 1929 to enter the employ of Maddux Airlines a Manager of Operations. Attached hereto is a copy of the Secretary of the Navy's letter dated 28 December 1928 accepting my resignation.

4) The statement attributed to me regarding physiological effect of high altitude flights is absolutely without basis. I have never had a nose bleed or a boil in my life. The only physical manifestations noted at high altitudes above 30.000 feet have been minor symptoms of the "bends" which disappeared upon return to normal altitudes.

D. W. TOMLINSON Lieut. Comdr., AF, USNR Commanding Officer Squadron VN-17RD9

Fairfax Airport

Kansas City, Kans.

TIME regrets mistaking the manner of TWA Pilot Tomlinson's leaving the Navy, from whose Secretary Curtis Dwight Wilbur he received the following sentiments when his honorable resignation was accepted in 1929: "The Department regrets that you find it necessary . . . and will feel the loss of your services. It is hoped that you will enjoy prosperity, health and happiness in civil life."

In the same article, TIME misstated the order in which "overweather" ships will be supplied by Boeing Aircraft Co. to TWA and Pan American. Boeing's first two four-motored overland transports will be "stratosphere" ships (air-conditioned for passengers up to 20,000 ft.) for Pan American, designed to embody high flight principles worked out by Pan American research with Boeing engineers since 1929. The next six, for TWA, may be similarly adapted for high altitudes if the 500-hr. test flying required by Pan American on its ships is satisfactory.--ED.

Old Scouts

Sirs:

JUST TO LET YOU KNOW THAT TWO FORMER BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

ATE UP ALL YOUR HOT NEWS ON

THE JAMBOREE.

LUTHER ADLER CLIFFORD ODETS

Ashfork, Ariz.

Acid Doctors

Sirs:

That the new industry of acidizing oil and gas wells for increased production proved TIME-worthy, is indeed gratifying [TIME, July 12]. Although the article differed from the major facts about as a daguerrotype does from television, your lay readers probably were interested in an industry that was merely a gleam in a chemist's eye five years ago and now grosses $5,000,000 a year. But, it must have been amusing to the oil fraternity, which is thoroughly familiar with acidizing as it is practiced today, and as portrayed in a bibliography of 114 published articles on the subject, 90% based on data supplied by Dowell Inc.

Started as an experimental program in the Michigan field more than five years ago by The Dow Chemical Co., acidizing has spread to the great Mid-Continent field of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and on to Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, California--even to Alberta, Canada, and to Old Mexico. Dowell Inc. was formed in 1932 as a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Co., to handle this new business and to put it into practice. . . .

More than a million gallons of Dowell inhibitive acids go into 400 wells every month under the direction of 74 Dowell "acid doctors," trained petroleum and chemical engineers and geologists. Dowell's 201 pieces of automotive equipment travel 200,000 miles each month. . . .

Probably more wells are treated per day in the Mid-Continent field than are treated each year in the old Eastern area, described in your article, due to the difference in producing formation and the amount of oil to be still recovered. At this moment, some Dowell treating station, from Canada to Mexico and California to Michigan, is making Dowell's ID,688th treatment.

As compared to the increases of 12 to 628 barrels per month, as quoted in your article, your readers might be interested in an 15,000-gallon Dowell treatment, resulting in an increase from 50 to 16,850 barrels of oil per day -- in a 10,000-gallon treatment resulting in an increase from 27,000,000 to

62,000,000 cubic feet of gas per day; 20,000-gallon treatments, as compared to 3,000 in your article, are not unusual.

Your readers should be told that the value of this service has been roughly estimated at more than $60,000,000 to date. . . . N. R. CRAWFORD Manager

Dowell Inc.

Tulsa, Okla.

All thanks to Manager Crawford for expanding TIME'S knowledge of oil well acidizing in the ratio of 50 to 16,850. --ED.

Sirs :

. . . Generally, when I have a news item for local publication and same is written up, there prevails an atmosphere foreign to the oil fields. A lot of phrases are always included that we never use around a rig, it sort of conveys the idea that perhaps the society editor was doing the reporting. After I read pp. 52-53 in TIME, I had the feeling that you knew more about producing oil and gas and acidizing than I. So convinced am I that I'll bet a dollar to a slug that you have seen more than one well come in; you know what a hell of a racket three million feet of gas will make coming out of 2" tubing; and just how damn slick a rig floor can get after the first few barrels of Big Injun crude has squirted up and hit the crown pulley and is now raining down through the rig like an April cloud burst. . . . JIM VANDERGRIFT

Spencer. West Va.

Santa Lucia Lady

Sirs:

In TIME, July 12, Una Jeffers of Carmel-by-the-Sea reported a visit to the old Lime Kiln near Bixley Creek on the new Carmel-San Simeon Highway. She visited it a few months ago and saw the ruins, but I, as a little girl, spent many a happy summer vacation there when the busy trams carried the lime, down to the cliffs 25 years ago. My father, Mr. Frank D. Shields, and four other business men of San Francisco controlled the production at that time and as children my brother and I visited the Kiln for our summer holidays. An album of interesting pictures, showing the little settlement and the lively trams swinging over the mountains, is among our family possessions and if you were to climb to the big house on the top of the hill, you will discover my mother's recordings of the inches we grew each year-- still clearly notched on the side of the fireplace.

The work had "to be abandoned about 1910, as I remember, due to a heavy cloudburst, which swept the complete little settlement into the creek and left the place in ruins.

As to the "lady of the picture," I don't know, but the cabin that is used, is probably inhabited by the Hoag boys for hunting, as they own the property now and live on a ranch on the southern hillside. I know Mrs. Hoag will be glad to give you very full and authentic information on the old days, when six-mule teams used to wind their way down those cliffs from Monterey, bringing a load of houseguests for a gay weekend.

ELIZABETH SHIELDS

Oakland, Calif.

From Margaret Jeannette Shields, great aunt of Elizabeth Shields, Mrs. Jeffers and TIME have received the following letter identifying the Santa Lucia Lady, whose picture TIME printed, as Elizabeth Shields's great-grandmother :

My Dear Mrs. Jeffers:

Your picture of the "Santa Lucia Lady" was recognized at once by my brother and me as our mother. Elizabeth Duncan Shields.

Its present surroundings are familiar to me because when I was sent in 1909 from the San Francisco office of the Monterey Lime Co. to get some data on production costs, I spent a week or more at the kilns. A nephew of mine was manager of the lime company until it went out of existence.

The story of how the large picture reached that place is curious. When our old home in Newark, Ohio, was sold in 1893 the crated picture was sent to a brother in Colorado. His residence changed to California and in a short time he went to Brazil on an engineering project. The crate with the picture was in a warehouse during the earthquake and fire and later was taken down to the canyon on the small steamer which carried supplies to the lime company's colony and on its return carried the barrels of lime loaded from the wire tram you mentioned. I think the picture must have gone down by mistake because, while my brother and my nephew had living quarters and spent some time there, they never made it their residence.

In the abandonment of the business, I hoped the picture had shared the general dissolution as no one of the descendants was in a position to claim and house it. I thought often of the dear face and am deeply touched that its character should have found appreciation in your eyes. When I found in my Louis Untermeyer's anthology that you are the wife of Robinson Jeffers, I was grateful that a poet's intimate companion should have been the one to find the picture.

These are the main facts of my mother's personal history. She was born of Scotch parents recently arrived at Burlington, Vt., in 1821. Her early life was spent at Troy, N. Y., and New York City. Married to William Shields in 1846, she was mother of a large and active family in the Middle West in a time deeply affected by the Civil War. She died after a brief illness of pneumonia in 1883. A devout member of the Presbyterian Church of which her brother, Alexander Duncan, was the minister, her activities outside her home were largely given to his congregation. Her unselfish neighborliness was attested by many friends.

My younger brother, with whom I live, and I are the only surviving children. Neither we nor any of the grandchildren would have a place for the large picture. We have, however, several copies of the original from which the enlargement was made.

Should it remain where it has been so many years in comparative safety, it might become a sort of shrine to be visited by some of her descendants who may be in that locality.

We deeply appreciate your interest and are grateful to TIME for their kindness in making the contact possible. MARGARET JEANTNETTE SHIELDS

Columbus, Ohio

Metcalf Wame

Sirs:

For years I have defended your comparative accuracy, and now you have let me down.

Your issue of July 12 describes Keyes Metcalf as ''lean, reserved, thoroughly professional."

He may be reserved; I am sure he is thoroughly professional, but lean does not fit.

His wame is obvious. His paunch has long since passed the embryonic stage and now protuberates in full bloom--a reproach to his brothers and a byword to his friends.

The worst of it is that such inaccuracies as yours are likely to discourage corrective effort.

ISAAC STEVENS METCALF

Cleveland. Ohio

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