Science: English Radium

Their candle blew out while an English metallurgist named Hodgson and his son, according to last week's despatches, were poking about the Golconda lead mine at Hopton, Derbyshire. In the blackness they saw a dull greenish glow. It came from a chunk of radioactive rock, no surprise in a lead mine.* The rock assayed $300 worth of radium to the ton, a new "natural resource" for Britain and science.

*In atomic disintegration, uranium (238.2) goes to ionium (230) to radium (226) to radon (222) to polonium (210) to lead (207.20).

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