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In 1930 a prospector and promoter named Gilbert LaBine, who had started a company called Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd., was driving his dogsled across the frozen surface of Canada's Great Bear Lake, which is cut by the Arctic Circle. He spotted a vein of curious, glossy stuff which looked something like anthracite coal, with gleams of yellow, pink and green, recognized it as pitchblende. Surveys and assays showed that the deposit was rich and copious. In 1933 a refining plant was completed at Port Hope on Lake Ontario, 3,500 miles away. The Great Bear Lake find broke the Belgian monopoly, reduced the price of radium to its present level of $25,000 per gram. Few months ago Canada celebrated production of its first ounce of radium.
Modern radium extraction is a highly complex process, started with big ovens, reaction vats, filter presses and decanters, working down to delicately controlled processes in vessels hardly larger than thimbles. When the concentration of radium is as high as 1%, trained chemists take over the job, wearing protective gloves and clothing and working intermittently to avoid injury from the potent gamma, beta and alpha rays. The final product is not pure radium but 90 to 94% pure radium bromide.
Director of operations at the Port Hope refining plant is Marcel Pochon, a tall, well-knit Frenchman who once studied under the saintly Pierre Curie. Born in Versailles 48 years ago, Pochon graduated in chemical engineering at the School of Physics and Industrial Chemistry in Paris, studied dyestuff chemistry in Germany, was at War for four years in the French artillery, worked in various laboratories in France and England. In 1932 he joined Eldorado Mines, supervising the transportation and installation of all equipment for the Canadian refining plant. Marcel Pochon speaks fairly good English with a strong accent, wears modish clothes, tells humorous frontier anecdotes with a grave face.
Present rate of production for M. Pochon and his staff is 3½ grams of commercially pure radium bromide per month. This rate is expected to be tripled at the end of 1937 when installation of new equipment is completed. To estimate how well this enlarged output would be absorbed by U. S. hospitals, M. Pochon recently visited the U. S., asked 103 hospitals how much radium they had on hand, how much they thought they would need in the future. Answers showed a combined holding of 51,895 grams, prospective need of 47,470 grams more. Where the hospitals would find the money to pay tor this future supply was not dealt with in the questionnaire but M. Pochon loped that generous donors would come forward.