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Show Where Helium to Lift U. S. S. Akrcn Is Produced Rr.Ifj Sf flight I X1 - ' i , h 4 sixteen years ago, when helium was merely a chemical curiosity, it would have cost $16 000 000 000 to produce enough to lift the Navy's mighty new airship the U. S. S. Akron. But today the U. S Bureau of Mines makes the gas for six-tenths of a cent per cubic foot at its plant near Amarillo, Tex shown above. Helium is extracted by cooling natural gas to 300 degrees below zero, at which all constituents except helium are liquified. Left is the laboratory, where samples of natural gas are tested to determine if they contain helium. Specially designed cars like the one at the right are used to transport the 6,500,000 cubic feet of gas necessary to fill the huge airship. |