Review of Atomic Number 92

by Lupe Fernandez

A snow avalanche threatens to bury two intrepid boys and an old miner. Will they ever find The Lost Uranium Mine? This adventure chapter book was published in 1964 by Benefic Press, written by Henry Bamman and Robert Whitehead, and illustrated by Berthold Tiedemann. 

At a child, I would check this book out from the Hayward Public Library in my hometown of Hayward, CA. It has everything a house-bound boy would love. A lost treasure. A ghost town. Hiking gear and a Geiger counter. I wanted a Geiger counter so bad. If I had a one, I would wander around his house and listen to the clicking of decaying atoms. 

Our hardy young heroes, Mark and Rich follow old miner friend, Patrick brave a snowstorm in search of the ghost town of Great Bear, deep in the Rocky Mountains.

Since I grew up on the snow-less shores of the San Francisco Bay Area, I was fascinated by their trek through a blizzard, plunging knee deep in drifts, wind shrieking. Page after page, the illustrations put me on the mountain with the boys. When the three explorers find refuge in a cave, old Patrick tells the boys a tragic tale of greed and death in the discovery of the Lost Uranium Mine. 

The motivation for finding uranium, says Old Patrick, “…our country has been looking for uranium for a long time…the money you get for finding the ore is very good.” And the hunt is on. But the Ghost of Great Bear menaces their every step. When the party finds the abandoned town of Great Bear, they settle in for the night in one of the abandoned buildings. They talk about finding the black ore which is processed to extract uranium. Rich says, “Uranium and money, just what I want.” 

After escaping a cave-in, a wild bear and crawling around in tunnels, the uranium hunters find the black ore. The Geiger counters click away. Rich says, “That’s money talking!” 

Their last encounter with the mysterious Ghost of Great Bear yields, after a fist fight in the dark, a claim jumper posing as the ghost to scare away Rich, Mark and old Patrick. 

A page count in parenthesis ended every chapter. Chapter one is 918 words. Total word count: 7,676. The book includes a vocabulary count page. Total words: 282 Uranium is used 7 times. Kill is used 17 times.

The next page has a map and an article about the method of finding and claiming a uranium mine. Cool. I would draw my own maps with trail keys to places unknown where monsters dwell. 

Some Facts About Uranium

• Atomic Number 92
• Name derived from the planet Uranus
• Atomic Weight: 238.03
• Periodic Table Symbol: U
• Popular Isotopes: Uranium 235 and Uranium 238
• Isotope 235 is used atomic bombs
• Isotope 238 is used to make plutonium.
• Uranium Oxide (UO2) is used in nuclear reactors.
• Extracted from open and underground mines. 
• Milling ore results in radioactive tailings. 

In the 21st century, I know a lot more about uranium than I did as a child. If The Lost Uranium Mine were written in the 50’s - when we really loved the atom - I wonder if such a book would‘ve included a radioactive sample for educational purposes? 

I tracked down a copy of this elemental tale of adventure before my memory decays and the story of The Lost Uranium Mine is gone forever.