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Slick-haired young Dr. Aristid von Grosse, research chemist of Chicago's Universal Oil Products Co., created a stir at a chemistry convention summer before last by exhibiting a speck, weighing one-tenth of a gram, of pure protoactinium which he had isolated. It was the first of the 92 elements to be isolated in the U. S. and this crumb constituted the world supply. Last week Dr. von Grosse created another stir by revealing that the world supply of protoactinium had unfortunately disappeared...
Heavier than any other element except uranium, protoactinium is radioactive. It is 25% rarer than radium in pitchblende. One ton of that mother ore was reduced to extract a half gram of protoactinium oxide. In a phosgene chlorinating bath this was transposed to a chloride. Using the method evolved by General Electric's famed Irving Langmuir. Dr. von Grosse spread the chloride on a tungsten filament in a vacuum, heated the filament, boiled off the chlorine, obtained his bit of pure protoactinium...
...time. Therefore instead of letting the vertically opposed cylinders (1¼ in. in diameter) compress the substance directly, he inserted between them a flat, hard steel block, ground microscopically smooth on its upper and lower sides. Between the block surfaces and the cylinder faces are placed specks (one-tenth gram or less) of the stuff to be tested. Straight pressure is applied, squeezing out some of the stuff from under the pistons, until the friction of its flow becomes so great that no more escapes. Then, as the pressure is stepped up, the steel block is rotated...
...water and started reducing it by repeated electrolysis and selective evaporation. The tons shrank to hundredweights, the hundredweights to pounds, the pounds to ounces. Last week Chairman Hugh Stott Taylor of the Chemistry Department announced that Dr. Selwood's final residue is ten drops (half a gram) of heavy water containing one part of tritium in 10,000- richest sample of triple-weight hydrogen in the world, possibly rich enough to reveal something of its properties...
Fortnight ago The Nation printed an article by Raymond Gram Swing, denouncing Judge Wilson's actions in this petty case, rehashing the practical politics behind his appointment. Last week the Department of the Interior gave out The Nation article as an official press release, an hour later sent messenger boys around trying to retrieve it. Washington correspondents were told it had all been a mistake. But the fat was on the fire, because not only Judge Wilson but Messrs. Harrison, Cummings and Farley were denounced in the article. Stuart Godwin, the Interior's pressagent, had a toothache...