Show carnota Carn orites tes of utah and colorado 44 mining and concentration of ores is the title of bulletin just issued ai by the bureau of mines department of iz the interior the authors being karl L kithil and john A davis av in a review of the work on radium by the bureau of mines van H manning director says in 1912 the bureau of mines tad had its attention called to the value of the ore of colorado and utah as a source of radium and to the need of investigations being made to prevent waste of low grade and to insure the profitable recovery of the highest possible proportion of the radium in the ore the need of comprehensive research was increased by the deposits being situated on public jle lands and constituting the largest known supplies of radium ore in the world fortunately tuna tely the bureau was able to interest dr james douglas of new york city and dr howard A kelly of baltimore maryland who wished to procure a supply of radium for use in the treatment of cancer in hospitals with which they were connected i the suggestion was made that they form a radium institute accordingly the national radium institute was incorporated for the purpose of studying the best methods of producing uranium vanadium and radium and the mining and concentration of ores from which these products may be obtained for use in radium therapy plant at denver subsequently at the suggestion of the institute a operative cooperative co agreement was made under which the bureau of mines undertook to provide the services of skilled chemists and mineral technologists for the supervision of the mining and concentrating of f the and the national radium institute agreed to furnish the necessary funds for mining and concentrating a sufficient ent supply of ore and for recovering from 1 it the radium uranium and vanadium under this agreement a radium recovery plant was built in denver colo the plant began commercial operation in june 1914 and when en it stopped work in january 1917 about eight and one half grams of radium had d been extracted the cost of recovery under the methods devised by the bureau of f mines was only about one third the current price for radium in addition methods of saving ving the uranium and vanadium in the ore s and of obtaining the metals in a pure state were perfected good results the agreement between the national radium institute and the bureau of mines ep ired in 1916 As a result of the work under der this agreement the bureau of mines has as been able not only to demonstrate that fadius can be produced at a cost much less than the selling price but it also has been able to show how losses in mining and concentrating cent rating can be prevented and our resources of this wonderful element conserved finally for an expenditure of less than the bureau has received as its share of the results of the operative cooperative co agreement more than worth of radium the present bulletin the work of the denver plant was discussed in bureau of mines bulletin extraction and recovery of radium uranium and vanadium from in the present bulletin K L kithil mineral technologist and J A davis assistant mining engineer describe the methods used in mining and concentrating the treated at denver As the workable deposits of colorado and utah though lying near the surface are relatively small vary greatly in richness and are extremely irregular in distribution methods such as are ordinarily used for prospecting and mining shallow deposits have to be modified also it is necessary to examine the ore carefully sort it closely and frequently test its radium content with the electroscope finally the deposits are mostly in an arid region where water for any purpose is scarce so that dry rather than wet methods of concentration must be used at most places hence the authors have given detailed information in regard to many operations that might receive little notice in an account of the mining of most metals but the presentation of these facts in regard e to is necessary because of their bearing on profitable mining and concentration the utilization of low grade ore and the prevention of waste |