Adit. - A level; a horizontal drift or passage from the surface into a mine.

Alluvium. - A deposit of loose gravel between the superficial covering of vegetable mold and subjacent rocks.

Amalgam. - Gold or silver combined with quicksilver.

Arastra (Mexican). - A circular combination in which ore is ground to powder by attrition of heavy stones.

Assaying. - Finding the percentage of a given metal in ore or bullion.

Assessment. - Amount levied on capital stock.

Barren Contract. - A contract vein, or a place in the contract vein, which has no mineral.

Base Bullion. - Precious metals contained in lead.

Bedrock. - The formation underlying pay-dirt.

Blende. - An ore of zinc, consisting of zinc and sulphur.

Blind Lode. - A lode having no outcrop.

Blossom Rock. - Float ore, found upon the surface or near where lodes or ledges outcrop, and from which they have become detached.

Bonanza. - Fair weather; a mine said to en bonanza when it is yielding a profit. It is a Spanish term meaning good-luck.

Breasting Ore. - Taking ore from the face, breast or end of a tunnel. Bullion. - Precious metals, gold and silver, etc., not coined.

Cage. - The elevator used for hoisting and lowering the ore cars, men and materials of a mine.

Cap Rock. - Formation overlaying the ore or vein stone.

Carbonate. - A geological formation which carries silver ore, and from 5 to 70 per cent. of lead.

Carboniferous. - Containing coal.

Chlorides. - A compound of chlorine and silver.

Chute. - An inclined channel through which ore slides.

Chopping. - The rock that appears on the surface indicating the presence of a lode.

Claim. - A piece of land 25 to 300 feet wide and 1,500 feet long, which the government sells to the man who finds mineral within its limits.

Conglomerate. - Pudding stones, composed of gravel and pebble cemented together.

Contact. - A touching, meeting or junction of two different kinds of rock, a porphyry and slate.

Contact Vein. - A vein along the contact plane of, or between, two dissimilar rock masses.

Cord of Ore. - 128 cubic feet of broken ore; about seven tons in quartz rock.

Country Rock. - Rock on either side cf a lode or ledge, usually barren; the permanent rock inclosing a vein.

Crevice. - A narrow opening, resulting from a splitor crack; a fissure.

Cribbing. - A timber or plank lining of a shaft; the confining of a wall-rock.

Cross Cut. - A level driven across the course of a vein.

Cupriferous. - Containing copper.

Debris. - Sediment from mines.

Denudation. - Rocks laid bare by running water or other agencies.

Deposit. - A body of ore distinct from a ledge.

Diggings. - Name applied to placers being worked.

Diluvium. - A deposit of superficial sand, loam, gravel, pebbles, etc.

Dip. - The slope, pitch or angle which a vein makes with the plane of the horizon.

Drift. - A horizontal passage underground.

Dump. - The pile of ore or debris taken from mines, or tailings from sluicing.

End Lines. - The lines bounding the ends of a claim.

Face. - End of level or tunnel against the ore or rock.

Fathom. - Six feet square on the vein.

Feeder. - A small vein joining a larger one.

Fissure Vein. A fissure or crack in the earth's crust filled with mineral matter.

Float. - Loose rock or isolated masses of ore, or ore detached from the original formation.

Flume. - A boxing or piping for carrying water.

Flux. - The flow of the ore in the furnace of the smelter.

Foot-wall. - The layer of rock immediately under the vein

Forfeiture. - A failure to comply with the laws prescribing the quantity of work.

Free Gold. - Gold easily separated from the quartz or dirt.

Galena. - Lead ore; sulphur and lead

Gangue. - The substance inclosing and accompanying the ore in a vein.

Gash Vein. - A vein wide above and narrow below.

Geode. A cavity studded around with crystals or mineral matter, a rounded stone containing such a cavity.

Grizzly. - Bars set in a flume to strain out the large stones used in hydraulic mining.

Gulch. - A ravine.

Hanging Wall. - The layer of rock or wall over a lode.

Heading. - The vein above the drift.

Headings. - In placer mining, the mass or gravel above the head of sluice.

High Grade Ore. - Ore which runs more silver than twenty ounces to the ton, with 50 or more per cent of lead.

Horse. - A mass of rock matter occurring in or between the branches of a vein.

Inch of Water. - About two and a half cubic feet per minute; the water that will run out of an opening one inch square.

Incline. - A slanting shaft.

Jumping a Claim. - Relocating a claim on which the required work has been done.

Level. - A tunnel cut on the vein from the main tunnel. A drift.

Ledge. - A vein or lode.

Little Giant. - A movable nozzle attached to hydraulic pipes.

Locate. - To establish the possessory right to a mining claim.

Lode. - A metallic vein.

Low Grade Ore. - Ore which runs below twenty ounces of silver to the ton, fifty per cent of the ton being lead.

Mill Run. - A test of quality of ore after reduction.

Outcrop. - That portion of a vein appearing at the surface.

Pan or Panning. - Usually to wash the dirt from the free gold with a pan, the pan resembles an ordinary milk-pan.

Patch. - A small placer claim.

Petering. - The ore giving out.

Pitch. - The same as a dip.

Piping. - Washing gravel in a hydraulic claim by discharging water upon it through a nozzle.

Placer.m - A gravelly place where gold is found; includes all forms of mineral deposits, excepting veins in place.

Pocket. - A rich spot in a vein or deposit; sometimes an entire claim contains but one or two pockets.

Porphyry. - A rock consisting of a compact base, usually felds-pathic, through which crystals of feldspar are disseminated.

Primary or Primitive Rocks. - Consist of the various kinds of slate, quartz, serpentine, granite and gneiss; they are the lowest group of rocks, are irregularly crystallized, and contain a few animal relics.

Prospecting. - Hunting for mineral lodes or placers.

Pulp. - Pulverized ore in the lixiviation process.

Reducing. - Separating from foreign substances; the reductioon of ores consists in extracting from them the metals they contain.

Salting a Mine. - Placing mineral or ore in barren places to swindle.

Shaft. - A vertical or inclined excavation for purpose of prospecting or working mines.

Side Lines. - The lines which bound the sides of a claim.

Slag. - Scum; dross; the excrement of a metal; vitrified cinders; waste from the smelters.

Slimes. - The finest of the crushed ore and gangue from mills.

Sluices. - Boxes or troughs through which gold-bearing gravel is washed.

Smelting. - Reducing the ores in furnaces to metals.

Soft Carbonate. - Silver-bearing mineral so soft that it can be readily taken out with a pick and shovel. It is usually sand impregnated with mineral, the mineral having been carbonated or oxydized.

Stamps. - Machines for crushing ores.

Stope. - A body or column of mineral left by running drifts about it.

Stoping. - The act of breaking down a stope and excavating it with a pick.

Strata. - A series of beds of rock.

Stull. - Platforms of timbers between levels for strengthening the mine by supporting the walls, and for storing ore and depositing wall rock and waste material upon.

Stull Timbers. - The large timbers placed across the vein or lode from one wall to another, to support the lagging upon which the ore or waste is placed.

Strike. - A find; a valuable mineral development made in an unexpected manner.

Sulphuret. - Combination of sulphur with a metallic, earthy or alkaline base.

Sump or Sumph. - A pit sunk at the bottom of a mine to collect the water. It can be the bottom of a shaft.

'Tailings. - The auriferous earth that has once been washed and deprived of the greater portion of the gold it contained.

Tunnel. A level, driven at right angles to the vein which its object is to reach.

Vein. - Aggregations of mineral matter in fissures of rocks.

Walls. - The sides next to the lode.

Wash. - The first geological formation, being composed of earth, sand, gravel, and other mineral "washed" down from the mountains during a long series of ages.

Whim. - A machine for raising ores and refuse.

Wizen. - A shaft sunk from one level to the other.