The weekly Alaska citizen., 1917-11-12

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 and unmistakably rich canary.yellow.
 yet ores of good shipping grade t2 per cent content U3OO vary in color
 from yellow to black. owing to the
 percentage of vanadium. always as sociated with the uranium thourG in varying proportions. that may present.
 Moreover. the deposits are invar
 ably in the form of pockets, though often of considerable size. and n rule-ofthumb method of prospectin, can be depended upon to bring re suits The ore Is found in light colored sandstone that 3 oyerlain in places by shale and conglomerates. and takes the form of an incrusta- tioH on the faces of Joints and along fracture planes, and Is deposited around and in between individual grains of the white sandstone base. often adhering strongly even to the surface of the grains A large per centage of the outcroppngs are so patchy that ore in commercial quan- tity Is not readily available. The approximate grade of the ore is de termined In the field by electro scopic tests. though exact valuations must be made chemically
 To take the carnotite, once idenl.- fled, from the ground, is relatively easy, most of the ore occurring near the surface and much of it directly under the grass roots; so very eE- tensive operations have not been necessary. Hand drilling was usci exclusively in the mining, slow anl la borious and yet necessitated both by the notable scarcity of water in the entire district and by the fact that the extreme softness of the ore. which often crumbles into pow der in the hand, makes very careful feeling of the way quite necessary both in drilling holes and blasting. Otherwise the best of the ore be comes 80 shattered and pulverized that it is a total loss.
 In mining uranium ore, for every ton marketed there used to be five tons of low-g grade material thrown in the mine. Foreign buyers early established two per cent of uranium oxide content as the minimum for commercially profitable ores and the buying was done on this basis. MT. Davis built a small mill in Long Park to experiment with the concentration of Two grade ores and this mill ran successfully for several months and has since been sold tD another company carrying on simi- lar work. By concentration the bulk Of ore to be hauled and freighted was reduced and at the same time the percentage of mineral content in an otherwise unmarketable pro duct was raised to a point where it is commercially profitable. Dry method concentration was used, quan- titles of water sufficient for wet method processes not being available in Long Park.
 Uranium salts have been used for number of years in glass manu- facture to color the glass yellow and, when employed in sufficient quantity, to create a fine opalescent effect. These salts have also been used in ceramics to obtain brilliant fireproof tones of yellow and or ange, and uranium Is of benefit as an alloy of steel, the other far cheap CT metals possessing similar prop critics have proved available substi- tutes. AS for radium, since the time of its discovery by Madame Curie the whole scientific world has been set agog and the study of radum and its dsintegration pro ducts has opened up amazing vistas of research and has already modi- fled and enlarged the whole previ- ous conception of physicists as to the composition of matter and the nature of the clements But the commercial demand for radium must largely depend at least for the i'm mediate future, upon it's use by phy- sicians and surgeons, radium thera- py having developed with enormous strides during the last few years. Radioactive waters are now used as factor in the treatment of sub acute and chronic rheumatism, for gout and some forms of neuralgia. and for various diseases of the mu-.r cous membranes, for anemia, cRlo- rosis. and lymphatic disorders; / while