Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-09-12

long Is; of Clements. \ writer in the
Ediaan MONTH";. say of tunsstea:
up TO ,en o. lite, IL years ago tung-
stem was lass, among tae rare and
costly lerals of the world, for
which. q Owever, there was little de-
manG hen ) VAS d.s1oF rel thas
tungsten was one of the most remark
able u -, > for s,eel. BY it's addition,
steel as 1aa u harder ana kept from
losing 8 enti.-. Recently the
rese5l ch, Of continental chemists
have iloUS Il about lte application of
tunfsse1 to Il NOR p..tes for battle
ships. hi Joy Gives them a re
sistine n,H - Isl hcrto unknown.
TO q seaer1l public, however. the
name 'tun. = en- Is mere familiar in
conre ,t.Ga ! n he Glaments of in
candosecnt lamps. The properties that
have broI&ht tungsten into so much
demand for this purpose are its speci-
fic electrical conductjvity and its high
melting point. The tungsten FL
ament gives . brilliant white light; it
has an efficiency Of TO 1.2 watts per
candle power che ordinary carbon
lamp uses from S.5 to 4 watts per cam
die power, ii has an average eff
Client life ct more than 1000 hours, AM
it is hut little affected by irregularity
of voltage.
Tungsten is found il many parts of
the world, from Argentina to Austria,
from Spain to SinglIep. from England
to Australia. But most of these de-
posits are small ana uncertain. About
half of the worlds supply comes from
the United states. and large percen-
tage of al the tungsten that is pro-
duced in America comes from the
great tungsten farm in Boulder
county. colorado. This Boulder coun-
ty tungsten is The purest in the world.
the only foreign deposits which APP
proat n II beng those of SaXony and
Bohemia, For this reason several of
the largest manufacturers of incan-
descent lamps specify that Boulder
county tungsten must be used in their
filaments.
THE supply of this Colorado 'tung-
stem farm is practically inexhaustible.
So vast is it in extent. so abundant
and so easy to mine that the price of
this valuable metal has gone down I'M
til it is available for widest CONNER
cial use. This farm stretches for a
great distance along a steep noun
tain side. The ore lies on it in great
windows, thousands, hundreds of
thousands, perhaps millions of tons.
AS yet no one has attempted TO cal
culate its extent. There is too much
of it. Still more surprising great
quantity of the ore is about 20 per
cent pure. Altogether it is probably
the most remarkable deposit of this
mineral in the world
Tungsten is usually found In veins
from sixty TO one hundred feet below
the surface. Therefore. in some re-
mote geological age this mountain
side where the farm now is was tilt
ed by some mighty CONFUSION of the
earth and tie loose covering rolled and
slid off the great ribs of black, heavy
rock. Then, in the millions of years
that followed, the action of the gla-
ciers, the impereeptible but powerful
touch of heat and cCld and the wash
of the rains laid their mountain ribs
bare. They were broken up and the
fragments Strewn in orderly confusion
along their bases At a distance il
now looks like long piles of coal sun
ming up the mountain side with the
same regularity as the windows of
tall grass that fall behind the scythe
OF the discovery of the Colorado
tungsten farm the Literary Digest
says: "A dozen years ago the only
known deposit in the United States
was in Arizona. 1t was worth nearly
as much as gold in those days. One
summer prospeetor from Arizona,
following up the old Caribou road,
saw lot of tungsten ore on the sur
face. He could not imagine how this
treasure had been overlooked. Hur-
riedly he staked one claim, then an
other. and a third. Then he saw that
the loose tungsten ore covered the
ground for miles. Men had walked
over it for years, kicking about the
heavy black Jumps without knowing
their value. 1t was not long before
this prospector from Arizona was on
the high road to fortune. In London
in Sheffield. in Essex, the steel work
ers began to wonder where the unusu-
al supply was coming from. Mean
while other miners were amazed. Ev-
eryone began picking up tungsten
from the ground and shipping it.
There were so many thousands of
acres of the public domain covered
with tungsten that it was hardly
worth while to stake claims. 1t was
simply a question of transportation