Show RAU jum 11 aff x N emilj ti H 0 o 0 r lb 00 f 0 jo M A L 46 4 ap to joe IM k J t A cei PRA AW 4 4 W w i by JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN mine male M marle arle curie and her discovery of radium her recent visit to the united states and the presentation to tier her by american women of a grain of radium in recognition of her services to science and humanity the rending public Is sufficiently informed everybody ki knows unit alint site she was made much of by our dignitaries that ten tell degrees were conferred upon her by our universities that president ll arding himself IIII made C the 11 presentation en to tier her la in the white house avith appropriate words in tile the presence of a brilliant gathering of notables and that a tired and happy woman finally sailed an awny ny NN eiith ith her precious gram eram of radium stored in a mahogany case lined with steel and lead she said laid she was going to take a real rest and that she hoped in september to go back to her work in the curie institute in paris now that she again has radium to work with the institute divides its work along two main lines one has to do with the study of radium and radioactive substances purely from the viewpoint of the physicist the other deals with their application to the treatment of human ailments she will also carry on an ex investigation of another radioactive substance enough j of this was presented to her to bring the value of the combined gift to but where this american radium came from bud and how it was produce Is another story which may profitably be told in this connection it Is especially bially interesting inasmuch as the total tal worlds supply of radium Is estimated at only grams a gram Is one twenty eighth of ow an enounce ounce the th illustration by comparison com parson shows liow how small email Is this amount the lower section represents that made by the principal american radium refinery the dark section that made by other amee lean refineries and the upper layer that produced abroad so though radium was not produced in the united states till 1913 1013 this country now has made about five times as much as the rest of the world while sime mine curie by discovering radium introduced a new conception into the fundamental problems of existence she actually produced very little littie radium since the bile was denied the cres with which to work moreover the she gave it all away to the medical profession of europe A very small portion found its way to new york in 1911 the late joseph M flannery of pittsburgh who aho had made a success with vanadium as au all alloy for steel devoted iab lii i attention to the production of radium the ores of other countries being out of the question he be turned to the deposits of southwestern colorado prior to the world war this ore had been shipped to french and german producers of radium the mining and handling of camo ti alte te ore in southwestern colorado Is 18 attended with difficulties the region Is desolate and practically uninhabited water Is scarce flannery had ha troubles ile he had to train new men lie he finally established headquarters at the only spring of clear citar water unter within miles here the standard chemical company maintains all the offices for its mining work transportation and supplies eighteen miles avay an ay the company built the largest radium concentration mill in the world orld through which has passed tin tile ore from which aich has been refi refined neI more titan halt the worlds supply of radium burros carry tile the ores from th hi mines to the mill and water and supplies to the InS miners ners mme ame curie worked on european ores which contained about one gram of radium to every five or six tons in the colorado ores there la Is about 0 ft qi I 1 one gram to every tons moreover the miner Is s a pocket hunt hunter e r sometimes the ore appears on the surface and along rim rocks then extraction Is easy store more frequently the ore la is found under a heavy overload of other material then regular raining mining tunnels are run and dynamite Is used to break the rock for transportation to the surface tim tile pockets vary widely some contain only a few pounds while exceptional pockets have contained 1800 tons first of course the pocket must be found prospecting Is done by drilling in likely spots with jack hammers and with diamond drills where the overlay Is not more than 23 25 feet deep the jack ha hammer trimer operated by portable gasoline compressors and compressed air is the cheapest method of working under other conditions the diamond drill Is used Il hamilton amilton foley writes for the pan american america union an interesting account of the operations of the th company and of the production of the radium presented to sime curie the I 1 pictures used herewith are anion among the illustrations lie he says in one place let us follow the various operations from the extraction of the ore to the final recovery of the radium at the concentration mill in the wilds 0 of f colorado tons of ore are reduced to about tons tolls in a powdered form this quantity Is shipped in pound sacks by wagon and where possible by motor trucks the 05 nilles miles to placerville ervIlle colo liere here n narrow guage railroad takes it to the transcontinental railroad at hallda colo from calida salida it travels the 2300 2300 miles to canonsburg Canons burg pa just outside of pittsburgh where here the company maintains its concentration plant no 0 it should be noted that at the mill in colorado and in the operations pertal pertaining ning to it some men are necessary to carry through all the detailed work also that when the ore Is taken up by the colorado mill la Is only 1 part radium for every parts of the ore hut but when hen the ore reaches the mill at canons burg the proportion la Is I 1 part of radl radium to parts of the ore the task of the canonsburg Canons burg men is ig to reduce this mass of ore to los than a quarter of a ton and in such a way uny that whatever radium may have been in the greater mass will be found in the small residue this 19 1 done with I 1 regularity and precision notwithstanding that in the elimination of the parts of undesirable material the Canons canonsburg burg plant has haa to use tons of distilled water 1000 tons of coal and tons of chemicals it should be noted lo in this connection that whatever small quantity of vanadium no d I 1 un I 1 all and d ur uranium a n I 1 um t there lie re may be in this material Is saved while tidal this final reduction la Is being made the ii anal recovery of whatever radium there may be in the tons tolls of material handled at these to great con tinn plants 1 li 14 4 made lade el elsewhere elsebert when tile the tons of material that thai reached canonsburg Canons burg from the mill in the west have been reduced to less titan a quarter of a ton this rc residue adue Is sent to the alic radium research laboratories stories of the company in the torin form of if radium barium chloride by line lessive fractional 0 the lie radium chloride and at a late stage of the bromide most of the th radium Is obtained in a salt contain ing over 95 per cent of pure radium bromide by still further chemical treatment the bromide is converted into the sulphate or the chloride and in tile the therapeutic use of 0 radium these thes two salts find the largest use mine curie several years ago h bi general request fixed an international radium standard this Is deposited in paris and the leading cities of the world have replicas of it so novi nov radium preparations are measured b comparing the electrical energy carried by their gamma rays with that thai of the international standard while radium has still many mysteries ll it may be said for the benefit of the general public that its energy appears to be given off in three rays which are known as the alpha beta and gamma rays it Is stated that the th alpha and beta rays ray are electrical and ti that at the gamma ray Is rather a 9 vibration than a ray the alpha ra rai Is believed to comprise 83 85 per cent of activity it travels with about the speed of light and has no penetrative power the beta ray ll Is about 10 per cent of 0 the activity travels with about 1 15 the speed of 0 light and can penetrate about an inch inea and one fifth aik oik lead the gamma ray can pene penetrate trute more than three inches of load lead when it strikes a hard substance it breaks up into two ray corresponding to the alpha and beta rays it Is the gamma ray that Is in bloodless surgery the alpha ray ra does docs nut not burn the beta ray Is kept from the patient by a screen that absorbs it the gamma ray seems to have the peculiar quality of picking out useless or harmful tissues for its ita first firs attack it will harm barm useful tissues only after harmful tissues have been burnt away or dissolved radium I 1 S liin lim idled in glass tubes incased encased in n lead containers those who nho handle it constantly usually get pretty badly burned sooner or later flesh burned oy radium cannot be healed it simple disappears and Is gone one of male curles Cu ries hands has been affected and tier her general health has been under mined by intensive wartime maritime work with radium A gram of radium makes a small thimbleful its current price lg Is 11 0 A gram Is divided into a thousand parts each of t which Is called 8 milligram and sells for clung who rho use it have from 50 to grams the state of 0 new york has recently purchased au 2 grams tot fo use lu in the treatment of cancer with radium worth a thim baleful liow how Is it that the dials of eve evan pit cheap watches can be made luminous by its ita use its this way the turn luro loons inous material on the dial Is a combination of a most minute portion 0 real radium and a special zinc suli bhide these atoms are so BO small tha thai j it would take hundreds of millions million of then them to cover an inch As each atom explodes a projectile too small to be seen keen under a microscope hies flies on oil anil and strikes a crystal of the zinc oxide the heat beat generated by the impact makes a lluch visible to the eye As these explosions occur at th the erate rate of about a second on the watch dial their combined flashes dashes make the dial luminous |