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Vice-president search and development, CES Fe SHOWING oF i DR. D. A. KEYS In charge of Chalk River Project. "MAP SHOWING LAYO DR. W. B. LEWIS in charge of re- J. Vice-president ministration and operations, L. in 4 GR AY charge ADE RS MEE UT OF CHALK RIVER AT OM IC ENERGY PLANT - i : | hush-hush subjects. THE DAILY TIMES-GAZETTE, Thursday, June 3, 1084 * CANADA'S ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM By M. McINTYRE HOOD (First of a series of articles deal- ing with Canada's atomic energy program, based on a visit to the plant of Atomic Energy of Can- ada, Limited, at Chalk River, On- tario.) Beyond question, the most im- portant of all the development work going on in Canada today is that which I was privileged to see at Chalk River, Ontario. A few days ago, thanks to Clyde Kennedy, pub- lic relations officer of Atomic En- ergy of Canada, Limited, I was able to make a tour of inspection of the Chalk River atomic energy plant. I had an opportunity of talk- ing with some of the scientists en- gaged in the work going on there, And the whole thing is so vast in its conception, 'so breath-taking in its future potentialities, that it must rank in the top flight of all the research and experimental work that is being done in Canada today. Probably it means more to the people of Canada than any other Canadian project. . To me, as to many other people, there has always been an aura of mystery around the Chalk River atomic energy plant. We had been schooled to think of it as "Cosmic top secret" the highest level of Perhaps be- cause of its nature, that attitude was justified. The average indivigd- ual has so little understanding of the nature of atomic energy, how it is created and what its possibilities are, that it has been a matter left very much to scientific minds. WARTIME BEGINNINGS The Chalk River atomic energy plant had its beginning back in | the days of war. At that time, there Rich Uranium Field Brings Wealth To Poor Northern Australia Area Rum jungle is one of the' world's richest uranium fields. It is part of Australia's vast, wild Northern Territory -- one third the size of Europe. Yet by happy chance, this radioactive El Dorado lies along- side a road and a railway, with | an airfield and abundant water | close by, and an ocean port at | Darwin only an hour's drive to the | north. | From holes among the scrub gum trees, miners dressed only in boots and shorts -- they are within 800 miles of the equator -- grub tons of soft, drab slate with pick and shovel. When it comes from the ground it is colorless, but as it stands in the air it oxidizes and glows with emerald green or canary yellow. The colors are hallmarks of atom- ic energy's raw material. Crushed and tumbled into drums, it begins as odyssey that takes it possibly into the heart of an. American hydrogen bomb, pos- sibly into the power plant of an American atomic submarine or electric generating plant, possibly into the British atomic energy ef- fort. For its links with out atomic energy commission and the corre- sponding British agency are equal- ly strong. To the rest of the world, Rum Jungle may a part of the twi- light of the gods or of the millen- nium. But to the Northern Terri- tory it may mean realization of a century old dream. Alan Moorehead tells of the dream and the continent it ob- sessed in a new book, "Rum Jun- gle" (Scribners, $3.50). The Northern Territory is about one-third the size of Europe, with "| a couple of sizable deserts in the centre, The rest is good grazing :|land and a queer kind of jungle where mangrove swamps, eucalyp- tus scrub, kangaroos, crocodiles and tree pythons are mixed up to- gether. RICH IN MINERALS Its earth has produced gold, sil- ver, lead, zinc, tin, and copper. Its big cattle stations -- ranches, we would call them -- have been remendously profitable at times. Soldiers who planted water - melons, cabbages, tomatoes, and almost everything else in the seed catalog found the yield tremend- ous. But somehow there seemed to be a hoodoo on the place, White men who drifted in would stay a year or two and then drift away again to Melbourne, Sydney, Bris- bane and Adelaide. At the last cen- sus there were fewer than 30,000 _ | persons in the whole territory, in- | | cluding half castes and those most / | primitive of men, the aborigines. Once there were an estimated ; 50,000 (blackfellows) roaming the Australian bush. Today there are probably fewer than 10,000, and they are rapidly succumbing to the tragedy of progress as did the American Indians. | In the wild, the aborigine tills | no land, builds no house, wears no clothes and, except for dogs, do- mesticates no animals. He counts up to two or three on his fingers; after that, it's '"'a lot." He eats raw kangaroo or lizard, tree grubs and fish. He has no concept of private property. His language contains no word for 'yesterday' and none for "tomorrow"; like all of history and off of the future, yesterday and tomorrow are part of "the dreaming." Almost one-fourth of the North- ern Territory has been set aside for his use, but too often he has tasted civilization and lost his taste for the wild. Rather than hunt with his boomerang or his spear and woomera, he gets a job as a garage mechanic or cowboy, or better yet, no regular job at all. Then he can do a little fetching and carrying for the white man -- enough to enable him to live and to sit in the sunshine outside the pub with his sombrero pulled over his eyes and the back of his bright shirt against a wall. His wife is more likely to listen to a phonograph than to sing and dance in the ancient corroboree, or tribal ceremony. There are times, though, when the blackfellows feel some urge that comes to them out of the dreaming. Then they go walk- about. RETURN TO NATURE ~The native will tell his employ- er that he will be gone a little while. Throwing off his clothes, the aborigine will pick up his spear and his boomerang and stride out naked into the bush, to live as his forefathers did. Two months later he will return, slide weeks, or a month, or two into his clothes and civilization. and take up work where he left off. The beginning of the end for the aborigine, and, in a sense, the be- ginning of the beginning for Rum Jungle, is dated 1838. That was when a 21-year-old Scot arrived in Australia. There was a passion to discov- er what lay in the heart of the continent, which is as big as the United States. Only its fringes had been explored, and the South Australian government of- fered a prize of £2000 for the first man who made the two thousand mile journey from Adlaide in the south to the Indian ocean. The crossing became an obses- sion with Stuart. He made six separate = attempts. There were times when he went blind, and he almost died of starvation, thirst, fever and scurvy, but each time he got a little farther. It was on the fourth journey that he got to the centre of the conti- nent. He and his colemn compa- nions raised a British flag on a mountaintop and, according to his journal, "gave three hearty cheers for the flag, the emblem of civil and religious liberty, and may it be a sign to the natives that the dawn of liberty, civilization and Christianity is about to break on em. The natives, apparently, did not want to be liberated. In full war paint they closed in and, with fearful yells, sent their boomer- angs whistling about the white man's ears. Stuart sneaked away in the darkness and went back to Adelaide. Not until July 24, 1862, did Stu- art finally succeed in reaching Van Diemen's gulf, on the north coast. Twelve months and 13 days after he left Adelaide he was back to cliam his money, a gold medal and a watch from the Royal Geo- graphical society. Stuart told great tales of the Northern Territory's possibilities for mineral and agricultural yealin, An El Dorado legend was orn. NEVER PANNED OUT Somehow it never panned dut. The history of the territory is one of hardship and frustration. The cattle were either speared by na- tives or wiped out by a venomous tick brought in from the East In- dies. Riots broke out in the mining camps, either among the whites or between the whites and the orientals who came by sampan across the Timor sea. Drough and flood wrought alternate extremes of havoc. To Australians there was nothing surprising in the fact that Port Darwin should take the brunt of Japanese bombing --tough luck was traditional in the north. Legend says that Rum Jungle got its name from one of the min- ers' riots. There was, for a period, some fairly active tin mining at a place called simply the Jungle. A store- keeper moved out from Darwin to supply the miners with such neces- sities as tea, sugar, flour, salt, pre- served meat, liquor and tobacco. For a while things went well, and the customers paid in tin. Then the shallow ore petered out, and the deep mines flooded with no machinery to pump them dry. There came a time when the storekeeper refused the miners further credit. They marched on him with vio- lence in mind. The rum barrel was overturned and smashed, and its contents flowed out of the store and down a slope into a spring. For a few hours the spring had characteristics never claimed for the waters of Waukesha, and from that day on the area was known as Rum Jungle. It was one day in 1949 that a veteran prospector named Jack White came fossicking through Rum Jungle. He was looking for copper, but the rock he found in the old tin workings seemed to him to be a kind described in a government pamphlet as uranium ore. He gathered them off to the mines department office in Dar- win. They proved to be strongly radioactive. CLAIM SHARES That was in October, and the tropical rainy season -- the Wet, they call it in Australia -- was about to begin. But the next March #hwough Rum Jungle. The cockatoo yellow and jungle | was a real reason for secrecy. Brit- | ain, the United States and Canada | were all engaged in a joint project | heading towards the making of an | atomic bomb. Therefore the sec- | rets_ had to be very closely guard- | ed. Canada has never tried to pro- | duce an atomic bomb. That part | of the joint project had to be left [to the United States. Bu Canada | had an important part in it as | the source of uranium, the magic | material which made. the bomb pos- sible. So this country's part in the | project was to supply the uranium which was used to make the atomic | bombs which were hurled at Hir- | oshima and Nagasaki in Japan in | 1945. | In these days, secrecy was vital | to the whole atomic bomb project. The public had no conception of what was going on at Chalk River | and in laboratories in Montreal. | Few people had ever before heard | of Chalk River. Even with the end of the war, the project was strictly classified. The public was told very little of what was being done in the atomic field in Canada. CHANGED ATTITUDE However, as the years passed, and information became avail- able to the public, the need for the same tight secrecy disappear- ed. Today there is a keen desire | on the part of Atomic Energy of : | Canada, Limited, to let the people of Canada know what it is doing. It now has a public relations and in- formation department. So the aura of secrecy has gone. In its place, however, there has come a security pattern. But the security measures of information. But there is con- have a different aim. There is not | so much concern about the giving | cern lest unauthorized and ignorant persons might get into the plant and become subject to radioactiv- ity, or in some way tamper with any part of the project and en- danger the wholt area. So security measures are still very important. FORMIDABLE DOCUMENT I had my first contact with the security element some three weeks before I was due to visit Chalk River. I received a questionnaire to be completed in its entirety. It was a formidable document. It made the most searching inquiry into all my antecedents, family and family history, employment for the last 15 years, all the organizations to which I had belonged in the last 10 years. I was also required to give all my wife's family history and background. Being one of a family of nine, and having belong- ed to more than a few organiza- tions, it required some extra sheets of paper before I could give all the information which was re- quired. The result must have beén satisfactory, however, for when I eventually reached the plant, every- thing was in order fer my admit- tance. The security screen at the plant is also formidable. Five miles from the plant, on the highway, we came to a barrier. There we had to stop for identification, The guard on duty has no knowledge of us. He telephoned to check with headquar- Veil Of Secrecy Now Lifted At Big Chalk River Project plant workers in the higher bracke ets have their homes. Deep River is 7 miles from the plant as the crow flies, but 12 miles from it by road by way of the village of Chalk River, as the accompanying map shows. The surrounding country, is rough and wooded. Deer abound in the forests, As we drove towards the plant, a lovely deer came lop- ing out of the woods, went across the road about 50 feet ahead of the cars, and bounded off into the woods on the other side. Once inside the plant, the scene was impressive. Spread over a broad area was a great collection of buildings, some large," some small. Reference to the map which accompanies this article will give some idea of the layout. It must bé understood that the Chalk River plant is a great re search and experimental project. The production of commercial prod ucts, while it is important, takes second place to its experimental aspects. Therefore there are labor- atories of many types, in addition to the actual nuclear reactor. LAYOUT OF BUILDINGS Let us take a look at the map. At the top, towards the left, is the gate through which we entered with its guard house. Near it are the hospital and administration building. Going along the first road shown to the right, we came to an- ters. Then he called Mr. K dy other gateh with guards, for into the guardhouse to also talk to headquarters, The result was ap- parently satisfactory, as we were allowed to go on our way down the winding road to the plant. GUARDS EVERYWHERE At the plant, our car was left outside the gate. We went into an- other guardhouse. There our cred- entials were checked, there were forms to sign, and finally I was given a badge to wear while:in the plant. Mr. Kennedy was given his employee's badge to wear. I noted that it carried his photograph. There were more guards every- where in the plant. At each gate through which we passed, our per- ! mit had to be signed by the guard, | with time of entry and exit. There | was the same performance at each | building we entered. And finally, { when the tour was ended, we had to undergo a radioactivity test and hand over our badges and entry permits, before being allowed to leave. So in spite of the relaxation on secrecy of information, the se- | curity measures were still quite impressive. ISOLATED LOCATION Of necessity, the Chalk River plant is placed in an isolated loca- tion. Actually ig is five miles north of the village of Chalk River, on the bank of the Ottawa River. That location had to be chosen for var- jous reasons. There was need for isolation because of the nature of the project. Secrecy was enhanced by the difficulty of reaching it. It had to be located where a large supply of cola water could be secured for operation of the | reactor. And this spot on the Ot- tawa River had these characteris- tics. Here the government bought 10,000 acres of land on which to establish the project. The village of Chalk River lies about 24 miles northwest of Pem- broke on Highway No. 17. Six miles further west is the residential com- | munity of Deep River, where the another check. The physics building marked to the left of the gatehouse contains the Van Graff generat-r, one of the earlier experimental types of atom-splitting machines, Continuing to the right, we came to the large building which is mark- ed "Pile". That is the building which contains the hottest heavy water atomic pile in the world, the NRX reactor. Immediately below it can be seen another large build- ing of similar size. It is under con- stryction, and will house a new reactor known as NRU, many times more powerful than NRX, Scattered around the grounds can be seen the laboratories. They are marked with their functions -- "chemistry", 'isotope production", "'electronics branch lab", *"'chemic- al engineering', "engineering de- sign workshop' and so on. This gives some small idea of the great scope of the research program. OFFICIALS IN CHARGE The plant is under the control of the Atomic Energy Control Board, which was set up by act of Parlia- ment in December, 1946, to take charge of all matters concerning atomic energy in Canada. It is op- erated, however, by Atomic En- ergy of Canada, Limited, formed in February, 1952. Its president is Dr. C. J. McKenzie, who is also president of the Atomic Energy Control Board, In charge of the project, and chairman of its co-orde inating committee, is Dr. D. A, Keys. Dr. W. B, Lewis, with whom we talked, is vice - president in charge of research and develop- ment and J. L. Gray, is vice-presi- dent in charge of administration and operations. On their shoul- ers rests the responsibility for the amazing work of research and ex- perimentation that is going on to make the Chalk River plant Can- ada's most significant development centre of today. Next article -- Something about atomic energy. ore was rich -- some of it 2 per cent uranium oxide and ap- parently boundless. The Wet came and went again, and then the boom was on. The government promised a reward of £1000 for every new find and a bonus of *1000 for every 20 tons of ore up to a maximum of £25, 000. White sank his own experiment- al shaft, using only a pick, shovel and bucket windlass. He was in such a hurry he neglected to tim- ber properly, and narrowly escap- ed being crushed when his mine fell in. But his rock was all good uranium ore, and he became a moderately wealthy man. Moorehead was unable to inter- view White when he visited Rum Jungle. The prospector was out in the bush -- this time with a Geiger counter to check his sites for radio- activity. Nobody pretends that Rum Jun- gle by itself will bring about the civilization of the Northern Ter- ritory, any more than the Com- stock lode alone civilized Nevada. It does hold out hope, though, for development of an area where most hopes were nearing death. For the moment it is causing the Australian government a con- siderable headache in the courts. COLONY CONSIDERED Back in the 1860's, the govern- ment got the notion of establish- ing a colony in the north, An area around Rum Jungle, roughly. 40 by 60 miles, was arbitrarily cut up into blocks of one-half square mile each, and anybody willing to try to settle there got a tract in per- petual freehold. For a while there was a mild boom. A few shiploads of adven- turers arrived. A few even tried to cultivate their land for a while. More, probably, left without lay- ing eyes on their own parcels. Most of the original owners are dead. but their heirs and descend- ants are not. Hardlv a week goes by without some new claimant turning uw at the lands devart- ment in Darwin. The stories run ~sin a pattern. Great-uncle Charles, or William, or George, who was a sort of black sheep, came to Australia in the sixties and had some land in the north. All sorts of documents are com- ing to light from solicitors' files and family archives; title deeds, records of hillsides won or lost on a bet, bankruptcy records. The issue is complicated by the fact that the land never was proo- erly surveyed -- a half mile one way or the other out in the worth- less bush meant nothing in the old days. The government has taken the only way out. The uranium it takes for itself, with some com- pensation to those who can prove ownership of the land, Over Rum Jungle today hangs a buoyant atmosphere like that of a Las Vegas casino -- somebody is winning; maybe you'll be next. For the Northern Territory, pros- perity may be just around the corner. And, if the work keeps its col- lective head, we may some day share in the benefits that can de- rive from the soft rock stained green, In 1740 William King wrote "We | live in an island almost infamous | of bogs, and yet, I do not re- member, that anyone has attempt- | ed much concerning them; I be: lieve it may be of ust to consider | their origin; their conveniences | and inconveniences; and how they | may be remedied or made use- ful" says the Weekly Bulletin of Eire's department of external af- fairs in an article based on a| paper by C. S. Andrews,anag - paper by C. S. Andrews, manag- ing director, Bord na Mona, Irish Peat Development Board. William King was not '.rong in afterwards, these bogs have be- come the source of one of Ireland's greatest industries and of the greater part of its electrical pow- er supply. TO FIRM LAND The story opened 300 years ago when, in 1652, an author named Gerard Boate, in the earliest print-, book on Irish bogs, recom ed book on Irish bogs, recom - mended reclamation by drainage to 'reduce more of the bogs of Ireland to firm land." The origin of these bogs was no mystery to Boate. Writing for the edification of the Cromwellian settlers, he simply blamed their occurrence on the "retchlessness" of the Irish "who let daily more and more of their good land grow by almost most of the bogs at first were caused." Despite his theory on the origins of bogland, Boate-had a very sound approach to the practical steps to reclaim Irish bogs and his ideas on re- clamation are strikingly in agree- ment with ideas current today. Early research into the question was concerned solely with the idea 1731 Arthur Dobbs, a prominent member of the Dublin Society, se- cured the passage through the Irish Parliament of an act for the purpose of assisting the reclama- tion of waste land and the planta- tion of trees. In 1776 the Dublin So- ciety was offering premiums to the renters of land who would re- claim bogs, while a decade later Arthur Young dealt extensively with the problem of bogs and par- ticularly with the great prospect | he envisaged of growing grass on them. After 1800 came the first real attempt to deal with the great bogs. Ireland's population, which was over four and a half millions in 1791, was, then approaching the seven millions and, to make pro- vision for this growing population, the utilization of the bogs seemed his belief for, more than 200 years | | boggy | through their carelessness, where: | of the reclamation of the bogs. In | Thousands of Acres of Peat Bogs Developed In Eire an obvious outlet. On the recom- mendation of Sir Arthur Welles- ley, then Chief Secretary of Ire- land, a Commission was establishe ed in 1809, which, with unusual ex- pedition and rapidity of decision, made a survey of over a million acres of bogland and concluded that the boglands were not only suceptible -of improvement but promised "to afford a greater profit on the operation than per haps any other application of agri- cultural skill and capital." The Commission's recommendas tions, however, were not imple- mented, while the famine and emi- gration solved the problem of in- | creasing population for the govera- ment. FOR PRODUCTION From the middle of the 19th century toward the emphasis on the utilization of bogs gradually | shifted from reclamation to pro { duction. The first industrial ap- plication was recorded in 1849 when Sir Robert Kane tried, and failed, to use peat for iron melt- ing. Later efforts to win peat commercially by a pressing pro- cess also were unsuccessful. A significant advance was made in the study of peat fuel develop- | ment when, in 1872, in a letter in the 'Farmers' Gazette" Mr. J. McCarty Meadows drew attention, | for the first time in Ireland, to the principles of maceratior or the tearing asunder of the raw peat as raised from the bog and the | drying of the peat pulp, after bee | ing cut into suitable pieces, withe out the aid of mechanical pres- | sure. As a result Alderman Pure don, the proprietor of the 'Farm- | ers' Gazette", sent out a team to study peat production in France, Germany, the Netherlands and England; but once again nothing | happened. Research into the roduction of | peat still continued and in 1917 | the British Government establish ed a Committee including Sir John Purser Griffith, Professor Pierce Purcell and Professor H. Ryan, three men who contributed a great deal toward the development of Ireland's peat resources. The Com- mittee advocated buying a bog to give 100,000 tons of air-dried turf a year; building an electrical power station using peat in gas producers and of a chemical in- dustry to be associated with the power station; using bog for crops and, after cutting, the cultivation of the cutaway. However, the committee's work was wrecked because, inter alia, the Depart- ment of Agriculture of the time denied knowledge of the existence of a 10,000 acre stretch of bog in the Bog of Allen. Rverage Weekly Wage Was $59.06 Canadian industry averaged $59.06 at April 1, slightly lower than the March 1 average of $50.22, butjand $50.43 a year ago. three cents higher than the $57.33 of April, 1953. The bureau of Statistics reported today that average earnings in the manufacturing section of industry were $61.21, a new maximum, April 1 against $61.13, the month before: