ii8 Biochemical News, Notes and Comment [Oct. 



likely to be of Service to suffering humanity. Of the metallic base 

 of this substance she determined the atomic weight, finding a place 

 for it in Mendeleeff's series; and with the aid of her husband, whose 

 lamentable death was so great a blow to science, she proceeded to 

 discover many of its singular properties, some of them so extra- 

 ordinary as to rivet the attention of the world. Subsequent workers 

 engaged in the determination of numbers belonging to either of her 

 special elements, radium and polonium, have sought her advice, and 

 it has proved of the utmost value. (Sir Oliver Lodge, president 

 of the British Assoc. for the Adv. of Science and principal of the 

 Univ. of Birmingham, in introducing Madam Curie to the Univ. 

 for the honorary degree of LL.D. : Science, 1913, xxxviii, p. 521.) 



National radium Institute. The Director of the Bureau of 

 Mines authorizes the announcement that a cooperative agreement 

 has been entered into with the newly organized National Radium 

 Inst., whereby the Bureau obtains the opportunity of a scientific and 

 technological study of the mining and concentrating of carnotite 

 ores and of the most efficient methods of obtaining radium, Vana- 

 dium and uranium therefrom, with a view to increased efficiency of 

 production and the prevention of waste. The Institute was recently 

 incorporated with the following officers : President, Howard A. 

 Kelly, vice-president, Curtis F. Burnam, secretary and treasurer, 

 Archibald Douglas, additional directors, James Douglas and E. J. 

 Maloney. 



The Institute has no connection with the mining of pitchblende, 

 details of which recently appeared in the Denver papers. It has, 

 however, obtained the right to mine twenty-seven claims in the 

 Paradox Valley region, among which are some of the best mines in 

 this riebest radium-bearing region of the world. Nearly one hun- 

 dred tons of high-grade carnotite have already been procured. 

 Under the agreement with the Bureau of Mines, the technical Opera- 

 tions of the mines and mill are to be guided by the scientific staff of 

 the Bureau. Work will begin in an experimental plant to be erected 

 in Colorado, using entirely new methods developed at the Denver 

 Office of the Bureau of Mines. Concentration experiments also 

 will be conducted in the Paradox, probably at the Long Park claims, 

 and if successful will be applied to reducing the wastes that now 



