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But though his knowledge surpassed that of the much-exploited authorities, he was never satisfied with any of his results. "'Pitchblende; no! he would exclaim. 'It has not the great power. The mines are not deep enough, yet! "Then suddenly the great idea that was to bring him success, and cost him his life, came to him. The bowels of the earth must hold the secret!
Tom and Astro recognized them immediately as testing machinery for radioactivity, much more advanced and sensitive than the ordinary Geiger counter. Around the two men was ample evidence of Astro's original assumption that they were digging into a hot vein of uranium pitchblende.
Pitchblende or uraninite is an intensely black mineral of a specific gravity of 9.5 and is found in commercial quantities in Bohemia, Cornwall in England and some other localities. It contains lead sulphide, lime silica, and other bodies. To the radio-active substance which accompanied the bismuth extracted from pitchblende the Curies gave the name Polonium.
"Of course, certainly," answered Hooker. "He could either disintegrate such huge quantities of matter that the mass of the earth would be shifted and its polar axis be changed, or if radioactive substances pitchblende, for example lay exposed upon the earth's surface he could cause them to discharge their helium and other products at such an enormous velocity that the recoil or reaction would accelerate or retard the motion of the globe.
By what methods of combination and refining I do not know, he produced something that was to be the final word of power. Control control that was all that lacked. "Reduced to its simplest terms, it meant this: the doctor had something as much greater than radium as radium is greater than the pitchblende of which a thousand tons are melted down to the one ounce of extract.
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