Hot Stuff

Through the West and Southwest last week, the scrape of shovel, drone of plane and click of Geiger counter heralded the spread of uranium fever. As prospectors kept discovering uranium where no one had bothered to look before, Texas reported its first ore finds. Among the developments:

P: Near Spur, Texas, the four sons of Mrs. T. E. McArthur dug up 30 tons of sandstone outcropping on their mother's ranch, shipped them to Anaconda Copper's uranium mill at Bluewater, N.Mex., and got the report that they had found Texas' first commercial ore. The McArthur boys, busily shoveling up more ore, reported last week: "The deeper we go, the hotter it gets . . . This shipment is going to average out at 2%," i.e., ten times minimum commercial grade.

P: Near Tucumcari, N.Mex., Anaconda Copper, Gulf Oil and others were in the field, and the county recorder's office was swamped with 75 new claims in two days, following an Atomic Energy Commission announcement that a radioactive area had been discovered.

P: In Dallas, two sons of Croesus-rich Oilman H. L. Hunt bought a half-interest in Wildcatter Samuel L. Shepherd's water-flood-oil property in and around Oklahoma's Nowata County and his process for leaching uranium out of the ground with water (TIME, Jan. 17). Estimated price: $400,000. The two Hunts agreed to pay all future costs of development and exploration. Said 28-year-old N. Bunker Hunt: "It wasn't too long ago that we were still mining sulphur like we mine gold. Then someone thought up the idea of melting it and forcing it to the surface with steam, and it revolutionized the industry. I think Shepherd's process may do the same for uranium." P: Jeeps with scintillometers roamed the back-country roads along Texas' Cap Rock, an outcrop of red sand and limestone running from Big Spring north to Amarillo. The rumor: the entire 200-mile stretch was hot. Other promising uranium areas were being opened up just across the Oklahoma line above Wichita Falls, in the Hueco Mountains near El Paso and in Brewster County and San Saba.

P: Around Riverton, Wyo., where Neil McNeice recently struck a rich lode in the Gas Hills area (TIME, Oct. 25), claims were filed at the rate of 500 a week as prospectors dreamed of another "Lucky" mine.

As the uranium fever spread, geological consulting offices opened up in several Texas panhandle towns, lease prices soared from $1 to $10 an acre, and papers started running tips for prospectors. Exasperated Texas ranchers, whose tempers have worn thin as prospectors tramped across their land, pressured Texas state legislators to pass a bill giving them more protection against the invasion. Said Chairman William Mather of the Minerals Technology Department of San Antonio's Southwest Research Institute: "Uranium is more widely distributed than anyone thought only a few years ago. The problem now isn't to locate it--it's to find an efficient way to recover it."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.