Word: radiumator
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NORTHWEST TERRITORIES Radium City...
...Canada's Northwest Territories. It is 1,400 miles north of the nearest railhead (at Waterways, Alberta), and 26 miles south of the Arctic Circle, in a part of the continent bleak with long, cold winter nights. The village has no official name, but it is sometimes called Radium City. Last week it suddenly found itself part of an all but incredible world drama, for under its fir-bearded slopes lies the stuff of which atomic bombs are made...
Stains on Rocks. Gilbert La Bine, a sturdy, blue-eyed, weather-toughened French Canadian, found the site of Radium City 15 years ago, while looking principally for gold. He had grown up in the mining town of Haileybury, Ont., at 15 had gone prospecting...
...there was stained with cobalt bloom. . . . Following along, I found tiny dark pieces of ore probably the size of plums. Looking more closely, I found the vein. I chipped it with my hammer, and here it was pitch blende." At that time, pitchblende was famed as a source of radium. Neither La Bine nor anyone else could then guess the greater significance of his find...
Borrowing from U.S. financiers, Pros pector La Bine and his prospector-brother Charles built a refinery at Port Hope, Ont., hired scientists to do the technical work, and began producing radium (sale price: $25,000 a gram). It meant little to them that one of the by-products was uranium oxide. Had it not been for World War II, their prosperous Eldorado Mining & Refining Co., Ltd., which netted $280,000 in 1942, might still be producing dividends for shareholders scattered all over the U.S. and Canada...