A Very CURIEous Cache Mystery Cache
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Size: 
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A mystery cache located in a (less radioactive!) area close to an old uranium mine near St Stephen.
The coordinates above are for the centre of St Stephen, where there is a pub that you may wish to visit before, after or instead of doing this cache! To discover the real coordinates for the cache, you will need to research some tenuous links to the Curies and radioactivity using the internet.
Don’t worry about the levels of radioactivity in the area of the cache…For access and H&S reasons, I have sited the cache away from the actual mine site. Despite the pretty houses nearby, I wouldn’t wish to live there even though count rates are supposedly no higher than the average dose you would receive from living anywhere else in Cornwall!
Once you’ve found the digits, the cache is Hidden at:
N(K-L)(A-G) (E/M)I.ONF W(H-D)(E-N)L (D-F)M.JFB
You should find it to be a simple cache and dash. N.B., The old mine workings (including unfenced open shafts) are on private land (owned by the Boconnoc Estate) so please don’t be tempted to trespass to get a better look!
The South Terras Mine started its sixty-odd year spate of work in the 1870’s, working iron ore close to surface. Following the lode deeper into the ground, around 1884, the miners found an apple-green coloured mineral that they thought to be worthless low-grade copper mineralization. However, analyses showed it to be valuable torbernite (hydrated phosphate of copper and uranium). Furthermore, it led them to a near unbroken uranium-rich lode over 400m long.
Uranium was first described by Martin Heinrich Klaproth just over 100 years before it was discovered and worked at South Terras.
Q1) What year did Klaproth make his discovery? Ans=ABCD
Stifled by a lack of capital investment, ownership and management of the mine frequently changed hands whilst the miners tried their best to extract the pitchblende (an oxide of uranium) from the aforementioned lode.
Meanwhile, across the Channel in France, Henri Becquerel had ‘accidentally’ discovered radioactivity whilst working with uranium salts in 1896. As Rontgen’s newly discovered X-Rays seemed far more exciting, few people took notice of Becquerel’s uranium rays at the time. However, two people who did pay attention were newlyweds Marie and Pierre Curie. Marie’s investigations into the spontaneous rays from uranium compounds led her to discover that pitchblende and torbernite were much more radioactive than they ought to be, simply because of the uranium that they contained. Together, in 1898, the Curies pioneered a process to extract these previously unknown elements from pitchblende. The first that they discovered was polonium.
Q2)What is the atomic number of polonium? Ans=EF
After more painstaking lab work, crushing and separating radioactive ores, they announced the existence of another new element that they proposed be called radium.
Rightful recognition of their contributions to science came in the form of a Nobel Prize.
Q3) In what year did Marie win a ¼ of the Nobel Prize Fund for Physics along with her husband and Henri Becquerel? Ans=GHIJ
Grinding toxic radioactive dust on a daily basis, coupled with the fact that both of them liked to keep a little bottle of glowing radium salt solution close to hand did no good for the health of the Curies! Whether oblivious to, or simply undeterred by the risks, they considered their work vitally important to mankind and were happy to share their findings freely with others. Even after Pierre died in 1906, Marie continued to work on isolating pure radium for medical use rather than financial gain. She made history again in 1911 as the only woman ever awarded a Nobel Prize twice – by winning the whole prize fund for services to Chemistry.
One company that certainly capitalised on the fact that the Curies chose not to patent their techniques was The United States Radium Corporation. They manufactured a special paint for use on watch dials and instruments for the Military. This highly carcinogenic ‘UNDARK’ paint was unwittingly ingested by its ‘Radium Girls’ who licked the points of their paint brushes to paint the thin lines needed on the various dials. By this time, the dangers that radium posed to human health were known, but the unscrupulous company bosses paid people off, lied to employees and the public and covered up the real cause of death for those who were killed by the harmful effects of the radiation.
Q4) For how many years did The United States Radium Corporation operate in Orange, New Jersey? Ans=K
One hundred years after Pierre Curie died in a tragic accident, polonium was deliberately used as a deadly poison. It silenced the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko on 23 November 2006.
Q5) How old was this poor chap when he was killed? Ans=LM
Besides the uranium deposits (and significantly higher levels of radon!) in Cornwall, uranium has also been found in a few other places throughout the UK. Master of the Queen’s Music Sir Peter Maxwell Davies publicly expressed his objection to mining for Uranium on Orkney by writing a collection of tunes and sketches that he called ‘The Yellowcake Revue’. Perhaps the most well known of these pieces is ‘Farewell to Stromness’.
Q6) The Yellowcake Revue was first performed at the St. Magnus Festival with Eleanor Bron on the 21st June of what year? Ans=19NO
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Zhygv-fgrzzrq gerr orgjrra oevqtr naq gryrtencu cbyr
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