ARIZONA URANIUM RUSH

But other types, like the Hacks Canyon, could and may qualify.

For the prospector in the southwest the bonus has little meaning. Such a "natural" would indeed be most unusual. Perhaps the "prize" has value as a psychological incentive, but it is misleading to many. Prospectors read about it and call us and say: "I've found something that looks like uranium. Will you come and see if I can get the prize?" Others come to our office bearing rocks containing uranium and are sometimes a bit perturbed when we can't give them a $10,000 check.

The Atomic Energy Commission's program may serve the purpose of intriguing the prospector, but after the first flush of "Baker-like" deposits are exploited and exhausted they may find it will be necessary to raise the ante before our nation reaches a semblance of self-sufficiency in uranium supplies. After all, by whose judgment is the price set at $3.50 per pound? If it is really so vital and valuable to us as a nation why shouldn't it be $3.50 per ounce or any other amount that would give us an adequate domestic supply? And, after all, if someone does make an unusually rich strike, the government gets most of it back. So what do they fear in nominating a price that would create sufficient incentive to solve the problem?

Prospectors have one great but simple aid in uranium prospecting called the Geiger counter. It quickly and accurately detects any element giving off rays and there are few besides uranium that do. The principal part of the Geiger counter is the counter tube. It consists of two electrodes or electric terminals, usually about as long as a lead pencil, parallel but separated, in a sealed glass tube. The tube is filled with a gas commonly neon with some admixtures. These electrodes or terminals are connected in circuit with high voltage batteries, earphones, dials, red lights, automatic sounders, or whatever may be desired to fit the purpose of the particular instrument. When a ray strikes the counter tube it causes a momentary short circuit which registers in the phones or dial.

Certain other rays besides those from rocks affect the instrument. Among these are cosmic rays which are always with us, but which we know very little about and which will penetrate over fifty feet of solid lead. They vary with the time of day, weather, sun spots, location, and perhaps with the personality of the investigator. But there are always some, and in using the instrument as a measurer of rays we must first determine their effect, and such effect is called the background count.

In using the Geiger counter to inspect uranium activity, the background count must first be determined, and it should also be borne in mind that any specimen will produce activity in proportion to its mass and inversely as (the square of) its distance. So when prospectors come to us and say a "Geiger counter reads so-and-so; what does it mean?", there is no sensible answer.

Certain concerns supply analyzed samples of uranium ore in weighed amounts in containers, together with empty containers of the same size, to use for unknown samples by comparison. Without such a standard means of comparison the use of the Geiger counter can only be for very rough qualitative purposes.* "... Prescott, county seat of Yavapai, is a city of an historic past, a comfortable present, and a healthy future..."

Prescott

Back in the early 1860's Pauline Weaver, famous mountain man, established a permanent camp on the banks of Granite Creek to become the first resident of what was to become the first capital of Arizona. He was the first of a long line of settlers and citizens who have contributed their arts and skills to wresting this rich mountainous area from the wiles of the Yavapai and Apache. The settlement was built on a site at the almost geographic center of the Territory. Prescott, now the county seat of Yavapai County, is a city of an historic past, a comfortable present, and a healthy future.

Second, Prescott is a place of moderation in terms of economic cycles. The community never reaches the height of prosperity of industrial communities, nor does it drop to the low of depression. There is some steadying influence in the very character of the economy that gives a moderation that produces an average mean to the "boom and bust" cycle of business trends.

Third, the climatic conditions and the nature of its population have given Prescott a moderation that places it healthfully and pleasantly in terms of social accelera-tion somewhere between the extremes of languidness of the southern "mañana land" and the rushing briskness of the colder regions of the temperate zone.

BY CHARLES FRANKLIN PARKER

Fourth, there is a sense of balanced living that is the heritage melded from the forebears of New England, the upper Mississippi basin and the Southland whence came the early settlers. This is coupled with the influence of the early population which, while always poised for action, was always able to relax and play. This with the mixed tradition of the cowhand and the prospector gives a lively yet genteel character to Prescott.

"The mile high city in the pines" is situated in a bowl shaped valley banded by the Bradshaws and Sierra Prietas. In all directions, save the opening toward the upper Verde Basin, pine clad hills surround the city, and the adjacent regions of Granite Dells, Williamson Valley, Skull Valley, Chino Valley, and Lonesome Valley.

Prescott is one of Arizona's earliest old line American settlements. As such it reflects much of the eastern influence that migrated with the earliest statesmen to the Territory. This has been a basic factor in the entire development of the area. Even today its way of life and future outlook probably are affected more by this than by even the natural geographic characteristics. Prescott, probably as no other early Arizona city, is northeastern and mid-western in pattern. Even the courthouse square at the center of the city, though called the plaza as a slight nod to Spanish influence, is unmistakably the same as many county seats of the upper and central Mississippi Valley, antedated in turn by the village green of New England.

"TO THE ROUGH RIDERS" BY JERRY MCLAIN. 4x5 Speed Graphic on tripod, Kodak Ektar f 4.7 lens, Graphex shutter, 1/25th second at f16, Kodachrome. The equestrian statue in Prescott's Courthouse Plaza, created by Solon Borglum, was erected in 1907. It carries this inscription: "Erected by Arizona In Honor Of The First U. S. Volunteer Cavalry, Known To History As Roosevelt's Rough Riders, And To The Memory of Captain William O. O'Neill And His Comrades Who Died While Serving Their Country In The War With Spain."