Name       : Francium
Symbol     : Fr
Atomic #   : 87
Atom weight: 223 (Most stable isotope)
Melting P. : 27 (Calculated value)
Boiling P. : 677 (Calculated value)
Oxidation  : +1
Pronounced : FRAN-si-em
From       : Named for the nation of discovery, France
Identified : Marguerite Perey in 1939
Appearance : 
Note       : Highly unstable radioactive element
             
[Properties]

  Francium is the heaviest of the alkali metals in Group 1A on the periodic
chart. It is also the most scarce of these metals. In fact there is only an
ounce of natural francium scattered throughout the soil and rock of the
earth; so no one has bothered to come up with a way to find it, let alone
refine it. All francium samples that are available for study today are
manufactured artificially. There are two different approaches to producing
small quantities of francium. The more direct approach is to bombard thorium 
with protons. The second approach is less direct, but usually more 
practical. Radium is the parent element in this case. Once it is subjected
to heavy neutron bombardment, it is converted to a species of actinium
that decays naturally and quickly to thorium. Finally, the thorium decays
naturally to francium.