The weekly Alaska citizen., 1917-11-12

Htpd4 d.'t a4lu pdIailtu+ luStu ".tIi intense heat and Ieached with pow erful chemicals. until at last. as the result Of handling tons upon tons Of ore ego tons of per cent USOS to make gram of radium bromidc) there lies at the bottom of a tiny glass tube a few flashes of gray white salts; and these. cased in vel vet and morocco. like far less pre- c,ous diamonds. and sheathed in lead that shuts in the rays that burn. are of such great value that they are carried from city to city only by he high officials of the corporations "ho offer radium for sale. Above nd about all these marvelously in rlicate operations one feels, watch .ng it, peryading background ol mystery. Even the most yitally in terested of these men make no at tempt to dclImit or define the very element they employ, just as the in deties the analysis and detles the definition even Of an Edison. In fact, in the light ot the eNhaustless energy already known to be penO up in radium, 1t would seem as though We had up until now mas tered it about as little as had Frank lin tanned the lightning by his hall play with the kite
 Seemingly the country at large Was and still is quite unaware ol the enormous quantity of radium bearing ore sent abroad up to the outbreak of the European war. il Is estimated that the equivalent ol l1.43 grams of radIum bromide could have been obtained from the ore exported in the year 1912 alone while bulletin of the federal Bu- reau of Mines states with emphasis There can be no doubt that ill 1912 and 1913 there was obtaineu and probably three times as much fadium as from all other ores com blned.' One of our great natIOnal resources thus leaked away for years to the great benefit of foreign mar kets and our own great detriment. The ores went into foreign lands and opened up to foreign medicine and science opportunities for inyes- tagation, and treatment of malignant .seases, that have been denied to our own people except by repur chasing manufactured radium com pounds at almost prohibitive prices only one Amer,can company prepar ed salts containing d high percentage of radium, and up to 1914 had pro duced only two grams of radIum metal.
 In 1912 and 1913, however, when this situation first began to be sus- pected, a survey of the known car notte bearing district in the west was made by experts of the Bureau of Mines and the extent to which the ore was being depleted was first brought to light
 Two elements affect the future OI the industry in this country the duration of the war, with the conse- quent presumable reOpening of the European markets and the further development, through eXperimenta- ton and wider use in therapeutics, of the use of radium by the medical professions in this country, with oth- CT wide industrial possibilities.
 While it seemed a most patent | patriotic duty to develop this in dustry at home and to obtain radi- um in America and for America, the whole subject was so little under stood and the word "radium" stood in the public eye for something so inscrutable, so mystic and impOnder- able, that appropriations from Con gress were not forthcoming by means of which the Government itself could have made suitable investigations. France, Austria, Germany, and Eng land had their radium institutes, fos- tered by the Government or sup ported by philanthropic foundations, and during 1913 extensive appropria- tons were made by foreign states, provinces, and cities for the purchase of radium, owing to an eVer-lncreas- ing demand for this material in the treatment of diseased tissue in the human body. Prussia, for instance, appropriated 37O,0O0 marks to buy gram of the precious stuff, and numerous German cities by munic.- pal enactment or public subscription procured tubes of the white powder