shipped off to London to be dealt with by the imperial Government, paying fines of £25,000 each. All fines, amounting to some £300,000, were paid by Rhodes. Shortly hereafter, Hammond left for England. Return to United States About 1900, the now-famous Hammond moved to the U.S. and reported on mining properties in the U.S. and Mexico. He reported on the value of the Camp Bird Mine in Colorado, pursuant to its sale in 1902. His report on Winfield Scott Stratton's Independence mine, also in Colorado, and then being floated on the London market, revealed that the ore reserves had been greatly overvalued, and burst the stock bubble. He became a professor of mining engineering at Yale University 1902-1909, and from 1903–1907, he was employed by Daniel Guggenheim as a highly paid general manager and consulting engineer for the Guggenheim Exploration Company (Guggenex). Hammond's five-year contract included a $250,000 base salary and "an interest from each property that he brought in to Guggenex." He earned $1.2 million in the first year alone. He employed Pope Yeatman, his eventual successor at Guggenex, and Alfred Chester Beatty. Politics In 1907, Hammond became the first president of the Rocky Mountain Club and he remained president of the club until it disbanded in 1928. Hammond was also active in the Republican Party and he became a close friend of President William Howard Taft whom he had known since his student days at Yale. In early 1908 it was announced that Hammond was a candidate for Vice-President for the Republican party, but he did not receive many delegates at the national convention. Nevertheless, he became acquainted with many prominent politicians at the convention and became the president of the League of Republican Clubs. He moved to Washington to be closer to the President and he accompanied President Taft on many excursions. In 1911, Taft then sent him to the coronation of George V as a special U.S. Ambassador, and twice sent him to assist Nicholas II of Russia on irrigation and other engineering problems. In addition to Taft, Hammond also befriended Presidents Grant, Hayes, Roosevelt, and Coolidge. Hammond became chairman of the U.S. Coal Commission, 1922-1923. His close friendship and longtime business associations with Frederick Russell Burnham, the highly decorated Scout who he knew from Africa, led Hammond to become a wealthy oil man when Burnham Exploration Company struck oil at Dominguez Oil Field, near Carson,