Show THE production OF RADIUM washington july 27 secretary of the interior franklin K lane announced today that the production of radium from colorado caronite ores by the bureau of mines in connection with the national radium institute has passed the experimental stage in its new process and is now on a successful manufacturing basis he also declared that the statements made to congress concerning the ability of the bureau of mines to produce radium at a greatly decreased cost over other processes had actually been accomplished and that the costs were even less than predicted the cost of one gram of radium metal produced in the form of bromide during march april and may of the present year was 1 I am informed by dr charles L parsons in charge of the radium investigations igat ions of the bureau this includes the cost of ore insurance repairs amortization allowance for plant and equipment cost of bureau of mines operation cooperation co and all expenses incident to the production of high grade radium bromide when you consider that radium has been selling for and a gram you will see just what the bureau of mines has accomplished along these lines the cost of producing radium in the small experimental plant during the first few months of the bureaus activities was somewhat higher but not enough to seriously effect the final average the public however should not infer that this low cost of production necessarily means an immediate drop in the selling price of radium the national radium institute was fortunate in securing through the crucible steel company the right to mine ten claims of earno tite ores belonging to it and this was practically the only ore available at the time since then new deposits have been opened but these are closely held and according to the best judgment of miners the colorado and utah fields which are much richer in radium bearing ores than any others known will supply ore for a few years only at the rate of production that obtained when the european war closed down the mines the demand for radium will also increase rapidly for the two or three surgeons sur geans who have a sufficient amount of this element to entitle them to speak from experience are obtaining results in the cure of cancer that are increasingly encouraging as their knowledge of its application improves improve s A few more reports like trtat anat presented to the american medical association at ats its recent san francisco meeting and the medical profession as a whole will be convinced of its efficacy under all the circumstances that have come to my knowledge it does seem to me that it behooves the government to make some arrangement ran gement whereby these deposits so unique in their extent and their richness may be conceived concer ved in the truest sense for our people I 1 by extracting the radium from the ores where it now lies useless and putting it to work for the eradication of cancer in the hospitals of the army and navy and the public health service the ten claims being operated operated at long park colorado by the national radium institute have already produced over tons of ore averaging above two per cent uranium oxide the cost of ore delivered at the radium plant in denver has averaged per ton this including 15 per cent royalty salary of bureau of mines employed emp loyes amortization of camp and equipment and all expenses incident to the mining transportation grinding and sampling of the ore A concentrating plant for low grade ores has been erected at the mines and is successfully recovering material formerly wasted grinding and machinery has been installed at denver and a radium extraction plant erected in the same city the radium plant has now a capacity of three tons of ore per day having been more than doubled in size since last february before that time the plant had been run more or less on an experimental scale although regularly producing radium since june 1914 to july 1 slightly over three grams of radium metal had been obtained in the form of radium barium sulfate containing over one milligram of radium to the kilogram of sulfates sulfated sul fates the conversion of the sulfates sulfated sul fates into chlorides and the purification of the radium is easily accomplish and with very small loss of material unfortunately however special acid proof enamel ware obtainable only in france has not been delivered of sufficient capacity to handle the of the full plant production so that a little less than half the output or to exact 1304 milligrams of radium element have been d delivered eli vered to the two hospitals connected with the national radium institute the radium remaining can be crystallized at any time from netral solution in apparatus already installed but the greater rapidity and efficiency of production of this very valuable material by the methods used has decided the bureau of mines to wait the completion of apparatus now being built before pushing the chloride crystallization to full capacity the average radium extraction of all ore mined by the national radium institute has been over 85 per cent of the amount present in the ore as determined by actual measurement the amount present in the ore has been found in fact to be the same as the theoretical amount required by the uranium radium ratio the extraction figures for the last five carloads of treated has shown a recovery of over 90 per cent in each ease case A bulletin giving details of mining concentration cent ration and methods of extraction is being prepared by the bureau of mines and will be issued early in the fall |