Uranium was not always so highly regarded. No less authority than Webster's Dictionary defined uranium as: "A worthless metal not found in the United States." This was in 1901 but the definition would have held good for better than 40 years. With the development of the atomic bomb it ceased to be worthless and national security demanded that we find it in the United States, for in 1947 at the conclusion of the Manhattan Project and the formation of the Atomic Energy Commission, the entire U. S. reserve consisted of a piddling 2, 000 tons of recoverable uranium oxide. In evaluating the uranium industry today it is important to understand the circumstances surrounding its birth. The only customer was the United States Government which had invested billions of dollars in the uranium enrichment plants without having any raw material supply of its own. The output of these plants was "top secret" and not until two weeks ago was any word publicly released regarding their capacity. With a need that was considered imperative from the standpoint of national security and with no other existing use except for the production of weapons, the objective was to get the supplies, and cost was a secondary matter. After its first faltering efforts the AEC put the price and other economic incentives high enough to appeal not only to the hunting instincts of the professional miner but to that special breed of Americans typified by those who dared to try to better their lot by seeking gold in California in '49, silver in the Comstock and Cripple Creek, gold in the Yukon in '98 and finally uranium in the 1950's. - 3 -