Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-03-05
A HUNT: FOR RADIUM
One is Now on in All Parts
Of France.
!! PROSPECTING rs EASY
BUT THE RESULTS ARE NOT
ALWAYS SATISFACTORY.
Photography Plays an Important Part
Every Man His Own
Assayer.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

VITTEL, in the Vosges, France,
February 20, 1891.
We have been prospecting for radium
Ihere were three in our party, and before
lunch time we had met nine other pros
pecting parties The mass of them were
plain French farmers. though they had
among them professional men and city
sports in more or less broken-down health
staying in the neighborhood of the innu-
merable medicinal springs of these Vosges
hills to drink and really benefit by waters
In themselves SO chemically weak and ba-
nal that they are called "indifferentes by
German hydrologues and 'indeterminees"
by the French
Now, all at once, we know why waters
chemically null like these have. neverthe-
less, such precious nervine qualities. They
contain radiant matter.
And all around the springs, In sands and
detritus washed down by them, and in the
rocks and dirt around them. there is mat
ter for prospecting the most fabulously
valuable of metals, radium.
The hunt for radium is on through all the
east OF France. And all the north and
south and west as we'll Wherever there
are Jumps of rock to smash with q small
handy hammer and put in the pocket there
are eager prospectors-avid farmers and
peasants, gainful and inquifing provincial
income the mass of underpaid and over
intelligent government employees, one to
ten among male adults, and the doctor and
the notary, the lawyer and the country
cure.
All gone mad hunting for radium.
By Means of Photography.
Tt is so easy to prospect. so easy to as
say; and, note, here is one of the secrets of
the craze-amateur photography. The am
al elrr nj nfrcy ,hnv 10 -hnro in
France, on the farm as in the town. in the
parlor as in the machine shop And all
you have to do to make roughly quanti-
tive assay of radioactive ores is to prop
erly handle your sensitive paper and then
develop your negative
There were three in our prospecting par
ty-Dr. F. of. Paris, the autOmobiliSt, D.,
and myself. We brought D. with us be-
cause of his auto. We brought DR.. F. with
us because we needed him to teach us
prospecting.
I'VE have real chance of stumbling on
a fortune" said DR.. F., and what for
tune! Do you Know the value of pure ra-
dunn? Ninety thousand times valuable
slight financiai slip we did not mind: in
deed, it cheerad us) "Of course, the thing
is to find oresrichl enough to pay for work
ing 90 .
cans?" asked d. 81 Gould we not have
brought them full of beer9"
NO" explained the man of science. The
cans, holding three quarts each. were pure
inside in reality glass jars covered with
metal: and this brings us at once to one Of
the most interesting of up-to-date radium
facts: - istiiLLs 56S. -#o
a5a Land of Joan of Arc. - -
'Have you any idea why we are lucky
to be prospecting for radium in this dis
trict of innumerablen medicinal springs?
inquired the doctor. I'VE are not going to
the Vittel Casino today No. we shall pros
pect around obscure little sources bubbling
from the hills in hidden spots. The district
is full of them. Messieurs, we are in the
land of Joan of Are. 1t is matter of record
that in her trial by the heather English
the fact that one of the hot OF cold springs
near her fathers cottage was frequented
by the sick who came to drink and battle
in it's waters was used as trap to catch
her in some avcwal of sorcery.
"'Were the people cured by your fathers
spring?' asked the blonde, tombstone
tootheA, webbed-toed English inquisitor.
They were so well cured that they got
the habit of returning to be cured again
every year replied the truthful maid; and
until the radioactive properties of the
waters was hit on. you might say only last
week, the jest has been continuous through
the centuries. Especially in these days of
chemical analysis the chemists laughed
down the possible medical effects of waters
so feeble and banal in their naturalization
that the doctors in attendance themselves
had to call them indifferentes!' And open
minded PSYCHOLOGISTS forced to admit their
remarkable neryine properties, could put
their fingor on no tangible agent in solu-
ton in them.
Secret Of the Springs.
Now we are beginning to know the Sc
cret of these indeterminees' springs" con-
cluded the doctor. ''They owe their proper
ties to radiations brought up from fabulous
depths in the unknown, mysterious crust
of our earth. And note here the remark
able provision of a friend of mine DR.. l..
Fays of Beaulieu, near Nice. who wrote as
early as 1892 (Societe d'Hydrologie Medicale
de Paris, and again in 1896 (Congres Oily
drologie de Clermont-Ferrand):
1T is probable that these vibratory
movements are different from those known
to us under the names of heat, light, cleo
tricity or magnetism.
.As to the fact itself there is now no
doubt Radium has been discovered in the
indeterminate waters of Bath, in England,
and in the similar waters in Auvergne and
here in the Vosges-'
my mother-in-law came for uric acid"
observed D. ''She said the yittel water
was powerful stuff"
said the doctor. eve leave the strongly
chemical springs aside. Here we are!'
We bent down over small warm water
spring. Around us were the great hills
Not cottage In sight. Four goats eating
bark from tree. And silence and azure
with fieecy clouds above
The doctor filed can.
D. scraped up a handful of the hot
sediment - -
reached down and brought up five small
rocks from the edges of the spring.
Picking Up Rock.
We labeled the can. the box of sediment
and the pieces Of fock. And passed on.
We passed on over goat paths, over
broken-down. stone walls which doubtless
Joan climbed when she was practicing to
wear male costume, through scrub and bits
of forest. -----
Now and then the doctor picked up bit