by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

The news and headlines from the Daily Capital Journal:

AUSTRIA STRIKES AS SOON AS ITALY MAKES DECLARATION OF WAR
Franz Josef’s Men Make Attacks By Air and Water In Attempt To Draw
First Blood Against New Rival – Little Damage Done But Greatest Excitement
Prevails When Populace Smells Powder of Enemy

DUSK ANXIOUS HOUR WHEN AIR “CHICKENS” FLY HOME TO “ROOST”

RESPIRATORS SAVE ALLIES FROM GAS BOMBS OF GERMANS
British Escape Fatal cloud and Germans Fall Before Supposed Dead
RUSSIAN WARSHIP SUNK WITH LOSS OF 1400 MEN
Slaves Claim To Be Holding Germans In Check Before Przemysl Fortress

“Vein of Pitchblende Found Near Dallas By Man Digging Ditches” reported the discovery of pitchblende, from which radium is derived. Uraninite, the formal name for pitchblende, is a uranium-rich mineral and radium if found within it as a product of the uranium’s decay.

What is believed to be a large deposit of pitchblende, from which radium is derived, has been found on the John Ritner farm south of Dallas. While ditching on the place some weeks ago J. W. Elliott, and neighbor and a pioneer of Polk county, struck a substance that resembled tar and was so sticky that it was with difficulty that he cleaned it from his spade. Samples of the dirt were sent to the state agricultural college at Corvallis.

The sample results confirmed that it was pitchblende, but the samples could not confirm the presence of radium.

The paper reported on page 3 that “Baptists Have Confidence In President Wilson:

Expressions of confidence in President Wilson’s course in the German crisis were voted yesterday by the delegates to the Northern Baptist convention here (in Los Angeles). . .

“The Northern Baptist convention . . . expresses its warm sympathy with you in your delicate and difficult situation, which as executive chief of the nation, you are compelled to deal with, and its gratitude for the wise and Christian way in which, so far, the issues arising from the war in Europe have been met. . . .”