OCTOBEE 31, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



613 



out, so far as I may, some of those future 

 developments that already begin to be more 

 or less distinctively visible. 



A bulletin on the radium, uranium and 

 vanadium situation, by R. B. Moore, phys- 

 ical chemist in charge of the Denver office 

 of the Bureau of Mines, and K. L. Kithil, 

 mineral technologist of the Bureau, will 

 appear within a few weeks and will contain 

 much detail of interest to the mining indus- 

 try. Last April an advance statement, 

 authorized by the director, regarding this 

 bulletin, brought out particularly the fact 

 that practically all of the camotite ore 

 mined in the world in 1912 was shipped 

 abroad and that this country was furnish- 

 ing annually nearly three times as much 

 radium from its Colorado camotite deposits 

 as all the rest of the world put together. It 

 was further pointed out that this material 

 has been bought by European buyers at a 

 price entirely incommensurate with its 

 radium value and that efforts should be 

 made to keep at home both the radium itself 

 and the profits of its manufacture ; also that 

 too much stress could not be laid upon the 

 extensive waste of valuable radium ore 

 thrown on the dumps of mines and pros- 

 pects — ^much of it under such conditions 

 that it could never be recovered. 



The publication of this statement has al- 

 ready resulted in an increase of at least 33 

 per cent, in the price of carnotite ore, and 

 European buyers are awakening to the fact 

 that they must pay to the American miner 

 a price nearer the actual value of his ore. 

 Also, a much lower grade of ore is now 

 marketable, for whereas six months ago ore 

 containing 2 per cent, uranium oxide was 

 the lowest grade accepted by European 

 buyers, agents of these buyers are now ask- 

 ing for and actually purchasing ore con- 

 taining no more than half this content of 

 uranium. Furthermore, the operators are 

 taking more care in separating their low 



grade ore from the gangue and in protect- 

 ing it from wind and weather. Moreover, 

 old dumps are being sold and ore that a few 

 months ago was thrown aside as valueless 

 will be recovered from them. 



In this paper I shall refer to other facts 

 contained in this bulletin and shall mention 

 some new developments having a direct 

 bearing upon the American radium indus- 

 try which have taken place since the manu- 

 script was sent to the printer. 



As is well known to all of you, the pop- 

 ular belief has been that the chief source of 

 radium is the mineral pitchblende, espe- 

 cially that obtained from the mines now 

 under the control of the Austrian govern- 

 ment at Joachimenthal, Bohemia, and pitch- 

 blende is the richest and most eagerly 

 sought uranium radium ore. Outside of the 

 ore in Austria, the only pitchblende de- 

 posits of any size are those in Gilpin 

 County, Colorado, from which some thirty 

 tons, more or less, have been procured since 

 the mineral became valuable as a source of 

 radium. The Denver papers recently an- 

 nounced that these pitchblende-bearing 

 mines have been acquired by Alfred I. du 

 Pont, of Wilmington, Delaware, and it is 

 greatly to be hoped that their exploitation 

 under his direction will yield an increased 

 supply of this valuable mineral. It is not, 

 however, so generally recognized that the 

 mineral camotite, which, outside of the 

 United States, occurs only in the Olray dis- 

 trict of South Australia and in low-grade 

 ores mixed with ilmenite as a calcium car- 

 notite (communicated by W. F. Hillebrand) 

 under the name of Tyuyamyunite, in Ferg- 

 hana, Russian Turkestan, low-grade ore 

 mixed with ilmenite, is by far the more 

 important source of radium. From the 

 most authentic sources it can be definitely 

 stated that the Australian and Russian 

 deposits do not compare in extent or rich- 

 ness with our own. The American carno- 



