9781422279526

Uranium: CHAPTER 1

Discovery and History

U ranium was discovered, in part, due to the silver min- ing industry in France. In the early 1500s, in a dense forest in France, miners discovered a huge deposit of silver. This was already one of the most valuable metals in the world, but this particular deposit held another treasure. This dig became the largest mining operation in Eu- rope at the time and resulted in the production of more than two million silver coins. The region flourished, and silver be- came a worldwide form of currency. There was a limited supply of silver in the mine, as with any natural resource. The supply lasted less than a century, and be- came depleted . Silver became cheaper and more economical to import from the American colonies than to continue mining

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