The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-11-01
RAD|UM MINERALS
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the most abundant of these min
erals and now furnish the bulk of
the worlds radium. They cannot
be told apart by the eye, for both
are of bright, canary-yellow color
and are powdery, finely crystalline.
or, rarely, claylike in texture. Car
notite is a hydrous potassium-uran-
ius vanadate. Tyuyamunite is SINH
lar in composition but contains lime
instead of potash. The greatest
known deposits of these two min
erals are in southwestern Colorado
and southeastern Utah, where both
are associated with fossil wood and
other vegetation in friable, porous,
f~ine-grained sandstone. Small guam
titles of carnotite have been pro-
duced near DIARY, South Australia.
The only other deposits that yield
tyuyamunite in notable quantity are
those of Tyua-Muyun, in the Andi-
yam district, Ferghana Government,
central Asiatic Russia RUSSIAN
Turkestan), where tyuyamunite oc-
ours with rich copper ores in d pipe
in limestone.
A drop of strong hydrochloric
acid on either ~carnotite or tyuyami-
mite gives it at once a rich reddish
brown color, and the addition of a
drop of water Immediately changes
the color to yellowish green. The
reddisk-brown color shows the pres
ence of vanadium, and the yellowish
green color the presence of uranium,
for il vanadium alone were present
the color would be clear green or
blush green. Iron, however, may
interfere with the test, producing a
color that covers or masks the
others. Surer tests may be made
either with an electroscope or with
a Photographic plate. If a piece Of
radium-bearing ore is placed on a
plate holder containing a sensitized
plate with only the cover of the
plate holder between the specimen
and the sensitive film of the plate.
the plate will be light struck" in
from "a hours to four or five days.
the length. of time consumed de-
pending on the richness o; the
specimen. Specimens should never
be placed on the plate Itself, be-
cause the pressure of the specimen
will give an effect that Stimulates
light striking. This test may he
made with other uranium minerals
to which the acid test given would
not be applicable
Radium is a metal and is de-
scribed as having a white metallic
luster. 1t has been isolated only
once or twice. and few persons have
seer it. 1t is ordinarily obtained
from it's ores in the form of hy-
drous sulphate, chloride, or bro
mide, and it is in the form of these
salts that it is usually sold and
used. These are all white or nearly
white substances, whose appearance
is no more remarkable than that OF
common salt or baking powder.
Radium, radium salts, and radium
minerals are not generally lumi-
nescent. Tubes containing radium
salts glow because they include i'm
purities which the radiations from
the radium cause to give light.
Radium is found in nature in
quantities so exceedingly small that
it is never visible even when the
material is examined with a mi
croscope. Radium ore ordinarily
carries only a small fraction OF a
grain of radium to the ton, and ra-
dunn will never be found in large
masses. because it is formed by the
decay of uranium. a process that IS
wonderfully slow; and radium itself
decays and changes to other ele-
ments SO rapidly that it does not ac-
cumulate naturally in visible
masses.