Natick High School - Sassamon Yearbook (Natick, MA)

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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

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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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