The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-08-09
WILL TRY TO MAKE RADIUM.
RyFFaEO NAN THINKS HE HAS
VINE or T IN UTAH.
umIse a Uranium Ore Faster TO work
Than ,he Pitchblende From which II
HAS Been Extract eh-ExDcctst to Lower
tho Price or SS,OOO.OOO Pound.

tho Price OF SIS, 100000 n Pound.
prvrAlo. Aug s.-A company has been
,..r,sd here to extract radium from ura-
n,n,r ores obtained from Utah mines.
podium to-day is chemical curiosity.
Scarcely pound of it, Of all grades and
o,,,i,ics, has been extracted by all the
,n,os ieaiors This Buffalo company pro-
r,ses TO make it a marketable commodity
The metal was discovered in 1898 by
p,or and Nine Curie of Paris. II was
.,,raced from pitchblende and 10 enor-
MONS were the difficulties of extraction
,hat q pound Of it was estimated to be
,orb 81 600 900 Indeed, the gold in the
asl, water of the sea is more abundant, for
In . 900 tons of the uranium, which formed
aboI, 80 per cent of the pitchblende, there
Is lfrlc more than pound of radium.
4 few wears ago Stephen T. Lockwood
NJ Tins CITY. while in the West, met two
rrospectors who in searching for gold
and silver had met peculiar ore deposits
in Grand county. Utah. They sent the ore
to an assayer. who reported not a trace of
precious metals,
There was much uranium, however. The
prospectors had thought Of nothing save
eod and silver, but Mr.. Lockwood urged
upon them the commercial value of
Uranium, which was then much more vah-
able then ii is now.
claims were staked out on the whole
deposit Later, after he returned to the
East. Mr. Lockwood became interested in
the discovery of the Curies.
The Utah bed was of carnotite, a COM
hination of uranium. vanadium, iron.
copper and harium, and as later researches
showed, radium and polonium. Prof
Becouerels announcement Of the radio
activity of uranium. followed as it was
hv tho discovery Of radium, started Mr.
Lockwood to thinking whether the uranium
from Utah would not give up radium as
well as the uranium extracted from the
fntv pitchblende. The carnotite from
Ilah was much easier to work than the
pitchbende.
II was a search in the dark. No chem
srry could tell him what TO do and the
scientists who knew were too busy with
their own experiments to lend aid to an
amateur. All their reports were at his
service, however, and in his Investigations
Mr.. Lockwood received many letters from
Prof. Curie and other scientis lists Of Europe
working Among the same lines, as well as
from investigators in the laboratories Of the
United States.
Mr. Lockwood with the aid of George
Banta, a young mining engineer of this
city, began the search for the elusive met al
They tackled the carnotite in 10O-pound
lots
The ore was crushed into fine sand and
washed repeatedly with acids. The iron,
copper and other known minerals were
precpitated and the gangue sands elm
mated, and finally out of the first lot OF ore
a small bottle Of white powder, a COM
pound OF barium. was left.
BIZ, there was no radium in it. The pre-
cious mineral had escaped somehow and
the electroscope showed it to have re-
NAMED in the first residue.
Other methods and processes had to be
tried in turn until the radium was; taken
from that first residue. Each method re-
alired the laborious washing and filter
ing Of the sand and the patience OF the in
westigators was put 10 severe strain.
Ssat the eleotroscope showed the radio
activity was in the material to a degree
that radium alone could cause, so they
sChemed and worked.
UnCaunted by failure they would bark
back to point in the process where they
were sure of their ground and begin anew
ON a fresh trail. Bit by bit they dug out
the right track. They could take nothing
for granted, for they were working on an
unbeaten trail.
Al last the goal was in sight. The barium
compound, the end of their reducings,
grew more and more powerful.
Then they enlisted the attention Of the
scientists in he Eastern universities. Great
aid was given them from the laboratories
of Columbia and Princeton. And at last
sample Of radum-barium compound
WAS produced which showed potentiality
Of 385 on the delicate electroscope in Column
ha University.
That was all Mr.. Lockwood and Mr.,
Banta wanted. The process of reduction
and extraction az worked out by them
had been proved a success.
Tho writer had known of these expert
mrnts, but his interest had tagged during
the months of investigation. He had
watched the offerings and the washngs,
hil' the imagination is not stirred by tubs
or muddy water. When he got word Of
The successful reduction he hurried TO Mr..
Lockwood and demanded to be shown
the glowing Of the radium.
"Radum itself is not luminous, replied
Nj Lockwood,
That was a new fact that seemed to take
III" romance and poetry out OF the subject.
Thou Mr. Lockwood explained:
"Radmm," he said, has the power of
exciting certain substances brought in
contact with it into luminosity, II throws
off invisible rays Of energy, which are
converted by impact with those foreign
substances into the light rays visible to
the human eve. A radum compound
may glow. bnt it is because Of the impurity,
and the glow is not a test Of its strength"
A testing plant will soon he built at or
near this city, with capacity for the re-
duction of two tons of ore a day. Such
plant would turn out daily 100 pounds
Of uranium oxide worth s. n pound; 10000
grammes of crude radium-b a rum COM
pound of ten units activity due to the
radum, worth about two cents a gramme,
and 100 pounds Of other metallic residues
known to contain another radiant metal.
poIonium
TIL" crude radium- barium product will
b. removed to a laboratory and converted
Into chloride salt and the process Of elm
mating the barium chloride begun. When