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li> NIKA LASKY
JERUSALEM —
Several week:- before Israel cel
ebrated her first birthday and im
mediately after the blue-and-white
flan was hoisted over Elath, on the
Red Seat, a neology instructor at
the Hebrew University was asked
whether he would like to go and
find out what natural resources the
Negev holds. The 2,500,000 acre
rock desert was fairly unknown.
Bedouin and wild gazelles and cam
els wandered around in it, but
there were few roads and even
fewer houses.
The instructor was delighted.
With a colleague from the Haifa
Te bn ion, a small band of students
and a large band of guards he set
out to map the Negev, rock by rock,
wadi by wadi. And every now and
then we read in the papers that
phosphates, clay, gypsum, glass
sands, iron and other ores had been
found, were being further explored,
already exploited.
We never heard that Dr. Ya'acov
K. Bentor also found uranium.
That came to light only a few
weeks ago when Israel’s chief dele
gate to the U. N. told the Political
Committee of the General Assem
bly of Israel’s progress in nuclear
research. And maybe he wouldn't
have talked about it — and we
would not know that there is ura
nium m the Negev — had not the
French delegate talked first about
Israel’s work in this field of re-
searc :. For French and Israeli nu
clear physicists have become part
ners when the atomic energy com
missions of the two countries sign
ed agreements to this effect, and
they are working closely together
all the time.
T*.e geologists found uranium in
the phosphate deposits (which have
been named ’’Oron’’). When they
found it nearly five years ago, they
did not know that all phosphates
contain low-grade uranium; every
country jealously guarded its dis-
coveiies in nuclear research and
development, and only a year or
so later did it become common
knowledge. So called “rich” ura
nium ores, of which there are very
few, contain 0.1 percent uranium;
phosphates contain “a few grains
per ton," says Dr. Benton.
Using a special process, a local
pilot plant has produced small
quantities of uranium from these
phosphates. But it is feasible to
produce uranium on an industrial
The Southern Israelite
in Israel
scale, and with this process, explo
itation of low-grade ores should be
no more expensive than the pro
cedure in use in other parts of the
would for rich uranium.
The discovery of uranium alone
would have been enough to fire
Israelis’ excitment. But that is not
all by a long way. Mr. Eban spoke
of many other scientific discoveries
as he addressed the UN Political
Committee; all are connected in
one way or another with nuclear
research.
He mentioned above all, a pro
cess — by a chemical method —
of producing heavy water, one of
the materials used in the splitting
of the atom, developed by 42-year-
old Dr. Israel Dostrovsky, head of
the Isotope Research Department
of the Weizmann Institute. Heavy
water is a substance chemically
identical with ordinary water, but
containing also deuterium, the iso
tope of hydrogen, which has dou
ble the atomic mass of ordinary
hydrogen and contains a charge-
less neutron in addition to its pro
ton. It is the deuterons which are
used in the atom splitting process
as the bombarding agents which
release energy.
Hitherto, heavy water has been
produced by means of infusion into
water of enormous amounts of elec
trical power. Dr. Dostrovsky sub
stitutes a chemical process for the
electrolytic one, thus cheapening
production for those countries (Is
rael included) which have no elec
tric power to spare.
This discovery, which, it is said,
is not yet as far advanced as that
of cheap uranium extraction, is at
present being tested on pilot-plant
level both in Israel and in French
atomic research laboratories.
In retrospect, people now under
stand why so many physicists of
would renown, among them Nobel
Prize winner Dr. Nils Bohr, have
been calling at the Weizmann In
stitute these past few years. When
they came, Israelis connected their
visits with the country’s strides in
scientific research generally. They
did not know anything beyond the
fact that two years ago, the then
Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion,
had appointed a four-man atomic
energy commission, with himself
as a member. And they interpret
ed this merely as a safety measure.
It seems none of those involved
in nuclear research here were at
all pleased with the revelations in
BEDROOM — KITCHEN — MIRRORS
NORTH STATE
Manufacturing (Jo.
THOMASVIIXE, N. C.
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