In a desolate section of Southwestern Colorado and
in Southwestern Utah there were large deposits of an ore
called Carnotite. These cover a territory of about eight
hundred square miles. The district in which the greater
quantity of these ores was to be found is about sixty-five
miles from any railroad and so mountainous that in many
places there is a rise or fall in the local trails of two thousand
 feet in a mile.
Prior to the World War carnotite ores from these
Colorado deposits were shipped abroad for French and
German production of Radium on a small scale. The
embargoes on shipping stopped this export completely,
although it had been falling off in quantity.
With the decision that these Colorado fields must be
the source from which to obtain his ores, Mr. Flannery
gave every thought to ways and means. The ore fields
are five thousand feet above the sea level. The region was
uninhabited and there was little to attract even the prospector
 and less to hold the type of men that could hope
fo find a solution of the many different problems involved.
In the European ores with which Madame Curie had
worked, there was about a gram of Radium in every five
or six tons. In the Colorado ores, there is only one gram
of Radium in every five or six hundred tons of ore, and in
order to obtain each of these five or six hundred tons, it is
frequently necessary to handle one hundred tons of worthless
 material.
The men that had worked with the European ores were so
few, they could be counted easily. They were unwilling
to work in the wilderness of Colorado. For the new conditions,
 Mr. Flannery trained new men.
Headquarters were established at a point central to the
work as a whole. A concentration mill was built at a
point that was convenient to the manv ore claims that he
hought and leased.
Burros were used to carry the ores from the deposits
in the mountains to this mill, and to carry back to the
miners the water and other supplies, for all of which they
were dependent upon the general headquarters. Where
the ore appeared on the surface and along the rim rocks.