CHEAPER RADIUM

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 172, 13 August 1909, Page 4

CHEAPER RADIUM

A discovery which y: -.:.. ■-.■■ .o cheapen radium by one-half and provide a valuable new source of .supply has lately been made in I'orlugal. (senilis of quartz encrusted with crystals of uraiiite phosphate, containing over 50 per cent, of ovclo of uranium, have been found, and M. llarboni (formerly professor of cliem Istry in l'aris). one'of the experts who have examined specimens, stales that the mineral, by reason of the greater facility of treatment, ought to be at least three times' superior for radiumproducing purposes to pitchblende. Mr. Allan K. Walden, of the ehemiciU departuient of Oxford Vniversity, found no trace of barium or arsenic acid, which led him to the conclusion that the uranite (autunite is the more correct technical term) was particularly pure. In the specimen which he saw. {he percentage of the yellow mineral was 07 per cent., and, as he was given to understand that the sample was bv no means a picked one, he thinks' the'result was very remarkable. The discovery was made in a curious way. Learning that remarkable health-giving properties were attributed to a particular stream, Mr. T. 11. V. Dower visited it. lie followed its course, and on the top of a hill he found it ran over the yellow, crustal quartz, which he analysed as nranite phosphate, lie is convinced that the water has a great medical value.