The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-09-15
THE DUTY ON RADIUH
APPRAISER TRYING TO DECIDE . WHAT IT SHOULD BE.

Ounce, but the Question Is a Big One
 -The Metal was Discovered After
 the DingIey Law Went Into Effect.
 General Appraiser Lunt gave hear ing in New York Tuesday to H Liebler Of the Thorium Chemical Company in regard to the paying of duty on import ed radiun. The solemnity of the pro- ceedlngs were bit disproportionate to the amount of radium in question, for the Thorium Chemical Company, who are the biggest importers of radium in the United States, have in stock just one-fifteenth of an ounce. There isn't so much as pound of radium in ex- istence. Radium was discovered after the passage of the Dingley law, and so it is still something of an open question how much the duty on it should be. or wether there shall be any duty on it at all.
 Hitherto the appraisers have assessed it at 25 per cent. ad. yalorem. Radium is so expensive in the European market that the payment of so large duty AlettASs LAS PlISc VI II e1lAlioSl PA0LAibAlAAC in America.
 The duty is to be especially regretted, say the importers, as radium Is used on- ly in the laboratories of colleges for ex- perimental purposes and for the treat ment of cancer.
 The case involves a delicate point of law. It is impossible to obtain pure ra- dium. The most elaborate processes of refinement can only procure it com bined with chlorine as radium chloride or with bromine as radium bromide.
 Now the general law in regard to min erals provides that crude minerals may
 be admitted free of duty. and the ques- tion arises whether radium chloride and radium bromide may not be considered as crude, and so come Tn scot free.
 tRadium is produced said MT. Lieb- | Ter from pitchbIende, which is com posed of radlum, uranium, thorium, 1 barinm, and other clements.
 aThe pitchblende is roasted with soda over a slow fire, and the residue is roasted again with a carbonate of soda. i The residue of this second process is 1 treated with acids which crystalize 1t and which finally give barium and ra- dtum mixed together The bariunl is more soluble than radium, and 50 can
 be removed. Unluekily. however, the radium combines with bromide or chlo- rine during the process, and chemists have been quite unable so far to sepa- rate them Since, therefore, the radiun cannot be procured in a puree state, the
 radium bromide, though it is the result of an elaborate process of refinement I should be considered a crude mineral l William Hallock, professor of physics | at Columbia, was called upon to testify and he gavee some startling answers t
 the simple questions of the appraisers In what form asked the appraiser
 lis radium found in pitchblende?
 T should be winning gold medals if could tell you that the professor re piled The latest evidence, however
 seems to show that it was not presenf theree in the beginning of things, bu | that it is being gradually produced in
 side the pitchblende."
 I Are the quantities in radium bro I mide definite?''
 Yes; they are deefinite; but they art undetermined, So far it has been i'm. l possible to discover the proportion be. ltween the bromine and the radfum. Bui l we know they are definite because tht \ specific gravity and chemical properties of all the samples of radium bromid,
 are the same.''
 l This subject reminds me of what Sil
 William Ramsay said the other night
 He has provided that radlum gradual!
 breaks up and produces that curious l gas, helium, and 1t is probably througf
 some such disintegration that radiun
 itself comes into being. Indeed Si
 William announced that he may be q
 the eve of discovering how artificial.
 to construct an element.