Albert Pereone, age 9, of Rochester, N. Y., or his question:

What is pitchblende?

A lump of pitchblende may look like a steely black chunk of coal. But actually it is not at all related to coal. Coal is made mostly of carbon and it is formed from the remains of ancient forests. Pitchblende is one of the earths rocky minerals. It contains oxygen and uranium. And uranium is a precious fuel used to make atomic energy.

Pitchblende is one of the most valuable of uranium ores. We mine it to take out its uranium. It is worth mining even when we get less than a pount of precious uranium from a hundred pounds of pitchblende. Prospectors search for pitchblende with a Geiger counter   an instrument which sets up a clicking noise when it comes near to a radioactive material. The faster the clicking, the more radioactive material is present in the pitchblende.