CANADIAN RADIUM

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 37, 14 February 1933, Page 7

CANADIAN RADIUM

MME. CURIE TO USE IT

MANUFACTURING PLANS

Mme. Pierre Curie, co-discoverer with her husband of radium, will use Canadian radium in her researches, lime. Curie has been handicapped in her work recently by inadequate supplies of the metal, known chiefly for its curative properties in the treatment of cancer. Arrangements whereby sho will receive supplies of Canadian radium were made with Major Bernard Day, representative of Canadmn radium interests, who has been visiting in Europe, says the "New York Times." Major .Day recently told the Institute of, Mining in London he believed mineral' fields in tho Great Bear lako area of Northern Canada some day would yield as much radium as the celebrated Katanga mines of the Congo, which gave Belgium a virtual monopoly of the world's radium supply. Tho only radium refinery in the British Empire is operating in tho quiet Lake Ontario town of Port Hope, and its product will go to all parts of the world. Made from Canadian ore, shipped by Canadian airways to the all-Canadian plant, the radium will be Canada's challenge to the Belgian syndicate which now controls the world's supply. If present plans materialise, radium will be so cheaply and efficiently produecd that its price will bo lowered. Fifty-six tons of pitchblende are stacked at the El Dorado plant. According to Canadian Government geologists, it averages between 40 and 50 per cent, uranium ovide and will produce about 125 milligrams of refined radium to the ton. The" present price of radium, is about 7,000 dollars a milligramme. "Par np on the shores of Great Bear Lake, Gilbert Labino, a veteran prospector, stumbled across the pitchblende veins. Laboriously the fifty-six tons were obtained. Twenty tons were sent to Ottawa, the rest to Port Hope. Now all has been concentrated at the new plant. Scientists the world over are watching this little factory. The closelyguarded secrets of a now radium-pro-cessing, discovered by Canadian scientists, have aroused tremendous interest, for with this method the fullest possible recovery of radium from pitchblende is expected. Wesley A. Gordon, Federal Minister of Mines, announced the discovery of the process thus:— "Chemists of the Department, under the direction of w. B. Timm, have been working for more than a year on a process of taking radium from Great Bear Lako area. They have now succeeded in developing a method which they,believe will be applicable to the various types of ore that may be found. "Fortunately for this new field,' ana fortunately for humanity, the Canadian process will permit as great, if not greater, percentage of recovery, involving a shorter time and less complicated methods than any of the lesser known operations. I have every confidence Canada not only will be fiblo to supply our own needs for therapeutic, scientific, and commercial purposes, but we will be able to enter the world markets m competition with any existing monopoly." Transportation of tho pitchblende proved a problem. Aeroplanes solved it. By air the ore was carried to junction points, where it was transferred and shipped by water and rail to the South. The cost was somewhere around 400 dollars a ton, but the ore will bring, even after> the expensive processing, a. price which will provide tremendous profits.