Jeanne Monroe,, age 12, of Scipio, Utah, for her question:

Where do we‑got helium?

Helium is scattered throughout the rocks of the earth's crust and mingled with the atmosphere which envelopes the globe  However, these traces are too small to become a source of usable helium, It occurs during the process of radioactive decay and radioactive minerals are very scarce  There is only one part of helium to 185,000 parts of ordinary air  Other small traces of helium are present in certain mineral springs and among the gases of erupting volcanoes,

Since helium is a byproduct of radioactive decay, it is possible to make 3t with our powerful atom smashing machines  It occurs when the elements lithium or boron are bombarded with high speed particles  Helium too is an element and here the modern scientist fulfills the dream of the ancient alchemist of turning one element into another, The ancient alchemists, however, were seeking to turn lead into gold, In our modern world, we rate helium as a far more useful element than gold 

So far, the only helium in large enough quantities to be usable has been found in natural gas, This is the mixture of gases which occurs with underground petroleum, Pockets of this natural gas are often found lying above the layer of porous rocks which act as a reservoir for the petroleum, Some of these gas deposits contain mere traces and some up to eight per cent of helium 

It is possible to extract the helium from the mixture of gases by a shilling process  Helium becomes liquid at minus 268 degrees centigrade, a mere five degrees above absolute zero, which is as cold as anything can possibly get  All the other gases in the mixture have chilled to liquid long before this temperature, leaving the helium as a gas 

The history of helium begins with spectrograph pictures taken of a solar eclipse in 1868  It was identified as an element, than unknown on earth and named in honor of the sun  In 1895, Sir William Ramsey identified this same element as one of the rare gases of the air  In 1903, a disappointing gas well was drilled in Dexter, Kansas, The gas, though plentiful, refused to do its duty and burn, Two years later, this gas was found to contain a 1  84 percentage of helium ‑ and one of the qualities of helium is its refusal to burn or explode  As a safe lifting gas for balloons helium was in great demand  For it is almost as light as hydrogen, which is the lightest gas, though highly explosive 

Before World War I, the cost of producing helium was around $3,000 a cubic foot  In 1932, a new plant at Amarillo, Texas was producing helium for less than five cents a cubic foot  This great reservoir of helium  hearing natural gas was the first of many in the United States  It is now being processed from reservoirs in Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado and Utah  Little or no helium‑bearing gas has been found in any other country  All our helium and almost all of the world supply comes from the United States 

Most of our great reservoir is controlled by the government for use in wartime and other emergencies  As a safe lifting gas for balloons and dirigibles, it has no competitor  A mixture of helium and oxygen is also used by divers and men who work under pressure in mines and tunnels  A blanket of helium is used to cool certain motors and prevent fires around high tension switch boxes