The Washington herald., 1914-05-17

uses Of radium, except incidentally. In
stead, the unique history of the metal
as an American industry will be related.
Radium. as all persons know, perhaps
throws OF energy. Electric energy is
continuous. that is. its radiations are in
unbroken flashes. Radium energy, how
ever, is emanated in short, unattached
dashes as though 1t were jumping up
and out into the atmosphere. Strange
to say, the energy SO emitted can be
gathered and stored. It is claimed BY
scientific men that this regular flow Of
energy from a tiny piece Of radium will
continue, at least, for 1000 years.
"Radfum," DR.. Holmes said in the in
terview he gave me, rs found principally
in carnotite ore. Thirty-three years aeu
Andrew J. Talbot found some of the ore
In Colorado. Nothing was then known,
you understand. about radium, which was
not to be discovered until 1888 and then
by Madam Curie, the Polish chemist and
physicist. Talbot shipped samples of tho
ore to Leadville and. was notihed that II
carried IS a ton in gold. The carnot1te
ore now mined, let me say, does not show
any trace Of gold.
How Carnotite Got It's Name,
In 1896 two men, Gordon KimbaIl and
Thomas Logan, sent specimens of the ore
ington and were informed that It con-
tanned uranium. For a ten-ton shipment
to Denver they received $500 because
Of its uranium content. The following
year, 1887, Mr.. Kimball gave samples Of
the ore to Charles Poulot. Q French
chemist residing in Colorado. In 1893
Mr.. Poulot shipped a small quantity of
the new and mysterious ore to France.
where 1t was examined by Friedal ana
Commong. The Paris chemists, recog-
nizing the existence of a strange metal
named the, ore carnottte, in honor Of
Adolph Carnot. famous French min
eralogist.
THE first published notice that car
notite contained radium appears to be
an article in tho Engineering and
Mining Journal Of the issue of Septem-
Der 20. 1902. Stephen L. Lockwood. Of
Buffalo, N. Y, was the author of the
article. He had found that a photo
graph could be obtained with carno-
| ttte without the aid Of a camera.
"A glass Photographic plate, covered
with two sheets of black paper can be
laid on a table in the evening"" DR..
Holmes went on to say, and IL key
or coin is placed on the paper, d.
rectly under a chunk of carnotite or
pitchblende, which may be kept of thS
key or coin by matches. there will be
photograph on the plate, the next
morning. Such, in brief, was Mr..
ILockwood's discovery. 1t was not long
before quantities of carnotite were be-
| ing shipped from Colorado and Utah
to Europe.
THE earliest shipments of carnotite
abroad, however, were because OF the
uranium they contained. Expectations
continued-even after the ores were
desired for radium, as well as for
uranium and vanadium-untfl 1913,
when radium in commercial quantities
was first produced in the United States.
lvanadium, might say. is employed
principally as an alloy in steel to in
crease it's toughness. Steel so treated
Is manufactured into piston rods. au-
tomobile parts, boiler plates, gun bar
rels, tires, and so on.
Uranium salts have long been used
to give the beautiful color known as
| .opalescent' and to give pottery brilliant
fireproof tints of yellow. orange and
black Radium, as every one knows. Is
used in scientific research and In medi-