The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1905-05-05
SNAKE RIVER SANDS.
Recent Discoveries in Chemistry Add
More Values.

may now prepare for another one Of
those pleasant surprises which come
along without warning and are hail
ed with delight by everybody because
they benefit so many and do injury to
none. While great achievements are
being made in other lines, chemistry
and metallurgy are doing their share
The present generation has witnessed
the failure Of mills and mines in one
decade which the men of the next de-
cade have opened and operated at
magnificent profits, made possible by
discoveries in metallurgy. Some new
metal discovered, or new uses found
for what was formerly considered
worthless, makes the difference be-
tween failure and great success, and
it is quite probable that we are now
in the transition period regarding the
sands of our great river bed.
For thirty years the miners have
been trying to devise ways to treat
the Snake river sands to get the gold
which permeates it, and have ever
been on the verge of success and fail
ure. Few of these patient fellows
ever knew that the sands contained
other values than gold. Indeed the
development of electricity and its
use in hundred ways has brought
on market for precious metals
which few people outside of the lab
oratory and the assay office know
anything about, and the black sands
of Snake river carry some of these
values. We are going to give you
just few of these names, and YOU
had better learn to pronounce them
for in few years they may be just
as common to you as celluloid and
aluminium are now, and it is not long
since you were shy about trying to
speak those names, but you had to
come to it.
Platinum is not new subject, yet
few of us know much about it, ex-
cept the fact that it is very expen-
sive. Tantalum has been tantalizing
the chemists for number of years,
but now they have discovered way
to harness it to make brighter electric
lights, substituting it for carbon in
the filaments. 1t is very expensive;
some Of the Snake river sands con-
tain tantalum in great values. Sim
liar good things may be said of os-
MUM, chromite, magnetic, mono
zite, ziricon and iridosmine. The lat
ter is used in pointing gold pens;
ziricon and thorium are used in the
manufacture Of incandescent lamps;
chromite is used to give the deep
green to the enamel Of porcelain.
Some changes are taking place in
the world which may "force great
ness upon u.s." Russia has been pro-
ducing about Is per cent Of the pla-
tinum of the world, and she has done
most of it with convict labor in the
mines. Just now the ,convicts are
permitted to 60 to the front to fight
the Japs, and the supply Of platinum
is being cut off, Notwithstanding the
demand for it in the manufacture of
electrical apparatus is greatly in
creasing; the United States govern
ment has appropriated money to car
ry on investigations to find fields for
supplying these metals, and series
Of careful experiments will be made
at the Lewis and Clark Exposition
this year to find the minerals, and to
determine what devices are best for
separating them from other matter.
The work has been assigned to the
department of geological survey, and
Director Victor c. Hikes, whose head
quarters are at Salt Lake City, is !