Natick High School - Sassamon Yearbook (Natick, MA)

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Le 5'fl5'S'A1 WGN z 1934 sessed the same property. They dis- covered, however, that pitchblende, a min- eral from Austria, was more radioactive than an equal amount of either uranium or thorium. Observing this peculiarity they decided that pitchblende must contain some substance far more radioactive than any element known to science. Madame Curie experimented for several months and finally in 1898 she succeeded in sepa- rating from the pitchblende a minute quan- tity of this radioactive substance in a fair- ly pure state. She found it to be an en- tirely new element and she named it ra- dium. Radium is a silvery-white metal which tarnishes very quickly when exposed to the air. Any substance under the influ- ence of its rays becomes a conductor of electricity. Radium decomposes water very rapidly in a manner similar to elec- trolysis. The metal is very rarely ob- tained in the pure state, but is kept in the form of a bromide or chloride salt. Today most of the radium produced comes from deposits of pitchblende found in the Belgian Congo region of Africa. Pitchblende is an oxide of uranium and is about fifty per cent pure. There are some smaller deposits in other parts of the world, but they are not large enough to compete with the mines in the Congo. For a few years it was thought that pitch- blende was the only mineral that contained radium, but after experimenting, scientists found that other compounds of uranian principally carnotite found in Utah and Colorado, and autunite found in Portufral contained radium. Radium is so rare that it takes about five hundred tons of carnotite to produce one gram of radium. When the cost of hundreds of tons of chemicals, coal and distilled water is added to that of mining the carnotite it can be easily seen why ra- dium is an expensive metal. Extracting the metal is a very tedious process and each producer has his own system. but in general the methods arc similar and have the same rules: First: The uranium mineral compound is put into solution. Second: All the metallic sulphates which are insoluble in water are separated from the solution. tThese include all the barium and radium salts.J Third: The sulphates are converted into double salts. Fourth: The barium and radium com- pounds are purified. Fifth: By fractional crystallization the radium is separated from the barium. Radioactive elements emit rays and dis- These. intigrate to form other substances. if they are radioactive minerals or gases, disintigrate to form a third product, which also changes. This makes a series called a disintegration series which continues uu- til some substance which is not radio- active is produced. Radium is member of such a series called the uranium-radium- lead disintegration series. Uranium disintegrates and forms an en- tirely new substance, known to science as uranium X1 this in turn forms uranium X2, and this process continues until radi- um, the sixth member of the series appears. Radium goes on to make radon, but when lead is produced the series stops as lead is not radioactive. Each of the members of the series lasts for a certain length of time before it has entirely disintegrated, and of the series uranium has the longest life. lt lasts eight billion years. This means that every year one eighth billionth part of each molecule of uranium disintegrates and forms a new substance, uranium X1. All radioactive elements emit three rays: first, the alpha rayg second, the beta ray: and third, the gamma ray. Use is made of these rays in medical works in an attempt to cure such diseases of the flesh as tumors, cancers, and corns. and to remove scars. The rays reduce the number of corpuscles in the flesh and burn the tissues of the body which are exposed to the radium. The reason it is effective is that healthy tissues are form four to seven times as resistant to the rays as diseased tissues and do not burn so quick- ly. As yet there is no positive proof that this treatment with radium heals cancer. but it is known that it relieves the pain in cancerous conditions. The less pure salts of radium are some- times used to make luminous paint for PAGE SlQVEN'1'EhJN

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j Tze - 1934 j by dying in an insane asylum. The origi- nal plan of de Lesseps was to have a sea- level type of canal, but it was soon found that it would not be practical, and it was decided to change to a lock type. but the change came too late. The company de- clared itself to be bankrupt in 1887. The whole story of the French attempt may be summed up in one statement, Eighty million cubic yards of earth had been ex- cavated at a cost of 3S260,000,000. That was 320,000,000 more than the committee had said the entire project would cost. A new Panama Canal Company was or- ganized in 1894 and work went along favorably with all the assets and proper- ti-es of the old company being transferred to the new one. Meanwhile public senti- ment in the United States had been strong- ly impressed with a desire for a canal across the Isthmus under American con- trol, and in December 1898 a full report of the Technical Committee of the French Company was presented to President Mc- Kinley. In order to have American control ot canal rights, the permission of Columbia was necessary because, Panama was a pro- vince of Columbia. Columbia did not agree to American terms but Panama did. The Panama proposition looked hopeless until something speedily happened. On November 3, 1903, Panama revolted and severed a connection of eighty-two years with Columbia. The Columbian govern- ment could do nothing but quickly agree. After Panama had been recognized by a number of nations, United States bought the canal rights from the French company, and drew up a treaty with the Republic of Panama. From the time that the treaty was rati- fied by both countries, work on the canal went rapidly forward. The United States had to compete with the same obstacles as the former companies. Both the preced- ing companies had been seriously handi- capped by the numerous cases of Malaria that had reduced the laborers by thous- ands. The first step the United States took was to, literally, clean up Panama. ' Many doctors were sent by the government to find the cause of the deadly disease, and many lives were risked in experiment- PAGE SIXTEEN ing, before it was discovered by doctors, Finley and Ross, that the female Anophe- les mosquito was responsible for the high death rate of the people of Central Ameri- ca. The quarters of the laborers were as comfortable as the homes of the white residents, all rooms were screened in to protect the occupants from the malaria gerin. The streets of the city were paved and kept as clean as the streets of Ameri- ca. No more refuse was thrown out on the streets, as was done in former times. Electric lights and water systems were in- stalled, and one could drink from a foun- tain in the center of Panama, without the least fear of Malaria, for the water was clear spring water, which was piped in from mountain springs, far from Panama. The Panama Canal is of great value to the world. It saves a long, hard trip of over three thousand miles around Cape Horn. and although it was a great expen- diture to the United States, it gave the country the power and jurisdiction over the greatest canal, in the world. The cost of a ship passing through the canal, costs about 51.20 per ton, and takes about ten hours to cover the stretch of fifty miles from deep water to deep water. The Pan- ama Canal zone extends five miles on each side of the canal, and is under the control of the American government, but the re- public of Panama is governed by its own constitution, which was drawn up just at- ter they revolted against Columbia in 1903. MAURICE FEATHERMAN RADIUM In 1896 a Frenchman, Henri Becquerel. discovered that something resembling X-rays is radiated by some minerals, such as pitchblende, that contain aranium. He also found that if he wrapped a photo- graphic plate ln black paper and placed it near one oi these minerals a shadow photograph would be formed of any dense object which intervened. This quality or certain minerals is called radioactivity. Shortly after this, three French chem- ists. M. G. Belmont, and Monsieur and Madame Curie found that thorium pos-

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ffze gfqcgyfqzt : 1934 coating watch dials. The luminous ma- terial which is used is a mixture of radi- um and a special preparation of zinc sul- phide. The reason that it can be used so extensively on cheap watches is that only about one millionth of a gram of radium is needed to coat the average watch dial. As radium is a very rare metal, con- sequently it is very expensive. The radi- um produced in the Belgian Congo mines in Atrica costs seventy thousand dollars a gram. As only the rays of radium are used in curing diseases. the metal itself may be used over and over. Because of this, radium banks have been established R in many of the large cities of the world where a minute glass tube of radium may be rented at the rate of fifty dollars a day. Today there are about three Pounds ot radium in the world which have been ex- tracted from the ore and are in a form suitable for use. Scientists hope to find a way of increas- ing the rate of disiutigration of uranium and thereby obtain large quantities of radium. but this might not be safe for civilization, as the rays of radium are so destructive to all types of plants and ani- mals. JOHN DOWNING Wx Ik 16 QQJAQ df, w . YY 1 F,' 1 'f 255 'L' xi' x fr rt fl Hi PAGE EIGIITEEN