Miner's Jargon

One of ours sons just got a new job.  It's basically the same thing he's been doing for years, but the language is different.  I guess every industry has it's own vernacular.  This is some of the miner's jargon:

Adit - a horizontal working with one entrance

Cross Cut - a working that connects two drifts

Desert canaries - the miner's burros

Drift - a horizontal working that attempts to follow a vein

Drill steel - a sharpened, hardened steel rod held by one miner while another strikes it with a jack.  Must be rotated after each strike.

Fire in the hole - shouted when the fuse of an explosive charge was lit

Glory hole - a large open pit from where ore has been extracted

Headframe - the structure above the shaft that supported the winch cable

High grade - rich ore

High grader - someone who is stealing ore from the mine

Incline  - inclined working

Jack - single jack was a short-handled sledge hammer slung with one hand; a double jack was long-handled and required both hands to swing it.

Muck - blasted rock

Mucking - digging out the blasted rock

Ore - material that contains valuable minerals and can be mined at a profit

Ore bucket - used to haul ore to the surface

Ore chute - spout used to load ore onto wagons

Ore shoot - valuable part of the vein

Salting a vein - putting high grade ore in a barren vein to swindle someone into buying worthless property

Shaft - vertical working

Stope - excavation from which ore has been extracted

Tunnel - horizontal working that has an entrance and an exit

Vein - long, thin structure containing valuable minerals

Widow makers - air hammers (invented in the 1880's) used to drill blasting holes because they create a fine powder that miners inhale and causes silicosis, a deadly lung disease.

Winze - a steeply inclined shaft connecting different levels

Working - general term for any mine development or prospect hole made by a miner.