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To general praise of her collection of clocks she was impervious; it was unique, and she did not require you to tell her so, but exhibit admiration for the clock with the little trumpeter, and she melted. It was the one oasis of sentiment in the Sahara of her mental outlook, the grain of radium in the pitchblende.

In the mad rush for the uranium-yielding pitchblende, they had swarmed over the deserts toward the dwarf mountains by the thousands. Greedy, thinking only of the fortunes that could be torn from the rugged little mountains, they had come unprepared for the heat of the Martian deserts and nine out of ten had never returned. Each boy thought, too, of the dangers they had just faced.

"Uranium pitchblende isn't concentrated enough to cause a reaction like that on the instruments. It would take a big chunk of pure uranium to do the job." "But if that were so," Astro protested, "wouldn't the instruments still be acting up? In fact, wouldn't we start feeling the effects of the radiation?" "Not necessarily, Astro," said Tom. "I understand what Roger's getting at.

For two blocks on either side of the street, in building after building, cafés, pawnshops, cheap restaurants above and below the street level, supplied the needs of countless shadowy figures who came and went as silently as ghosts. Spaceman's Row was where suspended spacemen and space rats, prospectors of the asteroids for uranium and pitchblende, gathered and found short-lived and rowdy fun.

If an active body be surrounded by a radioactive envelope, a screen should prevent this body from receiving any impression from outside, and yet there is no diminution apparent in the activity presented by a certain quantity of radium when it is lowered to a depth of 800 metres under ground, in a region containing a notable quantity of pitchblende.

The commonest form of the element, which in itself is very far from common, is what is known to chemistry as chloride of radium which is a combination of chlorin and radium. This is a grayish white powder, somewhat like ordinary coarse table salt. To get enough to weigh a single grain requires the treatment of 1,200 pounds of pitchblende. The second form of radium is as a bromide.

But what do you think it will be like with a full-fledged commander in our hands, eh? And a rocket cruiser like the Polaris to run around in." "You wouldn't dare kidnap Commander Walters!" exclaimed Tom. "Oh, no." Ross laughed. "Listen, punk, with a murder charge hanging over our heads, and a couple of million credits' worth of pitchblende in the holds, both of us would do anything!

"In total darkness I laid a piece of pitchblende the ore from which radium is extracted face down upon a sensitized plate, and let it act with its own light for twenty-four hours. The result was a photograph, where the black pitchblende appeared light owing to the emanations from the radium contained in it. The photograph also shows these going off into space from the sides of the specimen.

She set herself the task of finding out this agent and in conjunction with her husband, Professor Pierre Curie, made many tests and experiments. Finally in the ore of pitchblende they found not only one but three substances highly radio-active.

Then we just sit tight and wait until the situation clears up here on Titan." "What about that investigation?" asked Miles, keeping his eyes on the cadets, who were now staggering back to the stairs, each carrying a heavy lead box containing the precious uranium pitchblende. "What can an investigation prove?" snorted Brett. "I don't know. Walters and Strong are pretty smart cookies."