Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1909-04-22
All Over theState|
OVER A TON OF RARE EARTHS.

The largest quantity of the rare
earths ever placed at the disposal of
a single investigator, amounting to
over ton and quarter in ALL has
been presented to Prof. Victor Len
her of the department of chemistry
of the University of Wisconsin by the
largest manufacturer of gas nantes
in this country The gift was made
in recognition of the important work
on those rare substances which has
been carried on for some years by
Prof Lenher. Heretofore no chemist
has ever been able to secure sufficient
of the material for Investigation in
order to stury the various earths con-
tanned in any quantities, so that but
| little is known of the properties and
uses of these earths. The gift of so
| large an amount thus opens to the
university vast field for special in
vestigation, and the professors of the
| department of chemistry expect that
much will be added by this means to
| the worlds knowledge of inorganic
chemistry.
The greatest quantity of monazite
sand, which contains the rare earths
in crude form, is found in North Caro-
line, the source of the supply for all
North American manufacture of gas
nantes, as Brazil is the source for
European manufacture. Other min
erals containing the earths are found
| in o1.in1 nf hn
notably in Marathon county, Wiscon-
sin, near Wausau, though in too small
quantities for general use. In the
| form of a b! -product of gas mantle
manufacture, the earthS look like
white -four, and it is in this form of
oxalates that the $500 pounds given
Prof Lenher are stored in barrels in
the chemistry building of the univer-
sity.
AS q result of three months devoted
entirely to experiment on 500 pounds
of earths, Prof. Lenher has, among
many other interesting things, two.
barrels of beautiful pale pink crystals.
! He has received as a gift from the
the chemist of the same manufacture
ing firm two glass bottles holding
fully pound each Of crystals, one
bright rose color and the other leek
green. These are the product OF re-
crystallizing the rare earths 1000
times by dissol7<ng them in water and
again crystallizing them with nitric
acid. When bought in the market
these crystals cost about SIS an ounce
on account both of the difficulty of
obtaining the earths to work with and
| length of time required for process.
The exact composition of the earths
has never been fully ascertained, nor
have scientists ever been able to sep
arate completely the thirty or more
constituents which are believed to
compose the rare earths' mixture.
! Some of the best chemists the science
has ever produced have spent years
| in the endeavor to solve this greatest
! of all problems in pure inorganic
chemistry
| A number of graduate students at
| the university, under the direction OF
Prof Lenher, are devoting their eff
forts to various investigations of the
rare earths. Three of these, Prof. G.
w. Stoddart of the soils department
of the agricultural college, Prof.
RAYMOND C. Benner of the University
of Arizona, who took his degree OF
master of arts at the University OF
Wisconsin in 1905, and Charles W.
Hill. assistant in chemistry at the
university, are at present making
such Investigations the subject OF
their dissertations for the doctors de-
gree. Some of the undergraduate
students in chemistry are also making
a study of the earths, in the hope OF
adding to the slender data now avail
| able REGARDING them.-W.