RADIUS IN CANADA

Evening Star, Issue 21138, 25 June 1932, Page 6

RADIUS IN CANADA

IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES The Government of Canada is giving serious study to the question of control of vadium production and conservation, foliowing important discoveries at Great Bear Bake, a remote region in the North-west Territories, 1,000 miles from civilisation. In a debate in the Senate Mr Arthur Meighen, Government leader in that Chamber, said: “It looks iis though Canada had a supply of radium of inestimable value to this country and to the world such as to imply the necessity of a I borough and most careful investigation.” Tile Government, was concerned with these radium deposits freni the broad standpoint of humanity, he said, rather than as a possible source of revenue, but pending further inquiry lie was not prepared to approve the formation of a Radium Commission. Senator (Major-general) A. D. M Rac, of Vancouver, spoke of the danger of a mining rush into Great Bear Lake and t.ie possibility of winter overtaking a horde of inexperienced men before they could out, unless tlic Government took 1111mediate control of the situation. General MTiae feared also that the new radium (ield« might fall into the hands of foreign interests, and declared it had been stated authoritatively that the interests m control of African radium deposits were interested in the proposition. A report issued by the Federal Department of Minos sets forth the result of tests of two samples of pitchblende from different veins in the Great Bear Lake aiea. Both samples are declared to be from very m<di-m-ado radium-bearing ores, their value hem?’enhanced by the absence of .the element thorium and the analysis simplified bv the low-iron content. 'Great Bear Lake is 1,000 miles northwest of Edmonton and 800 miles beyond (ho end of the railroad at Waterways, Alberta, in a direct lino. . Enterprising prospectors have gone in by airplane, which ji tile onlv means of access in winter and spring. More leisurely parties are taking the 1.500-milc water route by the Mackenzie River. Radium is the big obicclive of them all, but they have a keen also in reports of neb deposits of silver, copper, and perhaps golds