The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1913-07-02
We Produce Most of the
Worlds Product.
Price s2,25o,OO0 AN OUNCE
Europe Gets All Our Valuable
Ore. While Our Coun.
try Suffers.
rs sMEIrED AND SENT BACK

The applications OF radium in the
domain OF medicine and the posi-
bilities of its ultimate efficiency in
the treatment of disease are still
too little understood to permit of
any geDeralizations or unchalleng-
ed statements in respect to radio
therapy- The readiness with which
the Guack and nostrum faker have
adopted the improved virtues of
Tadio-activity in the prosecution of
their lucrative nefarious practices
is familiar to all. Despite this mis-
use of the newer contributions of
chemistry it must be admitted that
radium, with its unknown POSSIBLE
Hies, as well as its marvellous prop
critics. has entered into both medi-
cal thinking and doing in a way
that cannot be overlooked. The al
legged potency of the element is only
exceeded by its actual price.
Radium Institutes have been. es-
tablished in Austria, France, Ger
many and England, yet few persons
are cognizant of the fact that the
United States has radium- producing
deposits within her borders and has
taken the palm from Austria as the
radium-pro1ucing country of the
world. The experts. of the Bureau
of Mines have lately revealed a sit
iation in respect TO this unusually
valuable element which leads to the
rather surprising conclusion that
while all the radium placed on the
market in the last few years has
been produced in Europe, a large
portion of this output has come
from American ores. Carnotite and
pitchblende are the uranium miner
ais which carry the radium. Prac-
tically the total American output of
pitchblende, the richest of these,
has come from the mines in Gilpin
county, Colorado. Pitchblende of
the highest grade was sent out of
the country at a time when the
worlds radium output was suppes-
ed to be coming. from Austrian
ores.
Parsons has pointed out that
while the Austrian Government.
realizing the untold possibilities of
the radium ores of st. Joachims-
thai. has purchased the mines, put
their output under direct govern
mental supervision. and entered
into an agreement whereby this ore
is worked up in cooperation with
the Vienna Academy of Sciences for
experimental purposes in a care
fully administered radium institute.
America has allowed her much
more extensive resources to be ex-
plotted on basis which wastes per-
haps irretrievably large portion
of the material mined, and has ex-
ported carefully selected ores at a
price by no means commensurate
with their radium value if worked
up at home. At least 90 or 25 tons
of high-grade pitchblende have al
ready been sent out of the country.
OF late the foreigners have real
lied the value of our carnotite re-
sources. The mineral, which al /
ways carries vanadium as we'll as
uranium and radium. is purchased |
almost wholly for the radium which
II contains. The more important
deposits are scattered over a con-
area in Colorado and
Utah. The United States Bureau of
Mines has discovered that these
ores are being shipped abroad in
some quantity.
Bearing in mind that practically
every ton OF Misunderstanding ore
mined in 1912 went abroad. that
the American deposits are by no
means inexhaustible. that We are
rapidly depicting our reserve and
shipping away material of great