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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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but when I read about the fact that this bomb was made out of uranium, a rare metal sometimes found in the tailings of old silver and gold mines, I gasped and realized that that must have been what that expedition was about. I don't know how I heard that. I think it came from M. H. M. Lavender of the Phelps-Dodge Company. He didn't say what it was they were looking for. He just said, “Isn't it interesting that the government's so interested now in all these old mines? We're going to have a lot of prospectors up here.” I don't think he knew what the significance of it was.

For instance, I knew enough about the composition of steel to know that metals like tungsten and molybdenum, which are very important to the steel making process and very rare in this country, were very badly needed during the war. I knew that it had become a policy of the government to locate these rare metals, even in small amounts. This was going on before and the mere fact of the war caused more exploration. So when Mr. Lavender told me about all these expeditions in Arizona and the Rockies, I just assumed that they were about these metals. I spent a whole day out there in Phoenix and Jerome, went to three or four metal mining areas. He drove me to Phoenix from the mountains one night - the fastest ride I ever took from snow to orange blossoms. It was a startling thing. He told me that they had to rout out the old prospectors to show them how to work these old diggings. If you told them what you wanted, they'd find it, if it





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