| Adit |
A horizontal passageway or entrance to a mine |
| Amalgamation, Amalgam |
The production of a mercury alloy. Amalgam is a naturally occurring alloy of mercury and silver. Mercury is also called quicksilver. Gold or silver may be recovered using the amalgamation process. The ore, finely divided and suspended in water, called pulp, is passed over the surface of, or agitated with, mercury to form an amalgam. A fire-refining process is then used to recover the gold or silver. Also see Retort, Retorting |
| Arrastra |
An arrastra is a simple device used to crush ore. Arrastras use a hard rock paving source, such as granite or basalt, about one-foot thick, and two to twelve drag stones (typically four were used) each weighing about 300 lbs. The drags were fastened to a horizontal pole by chains. Men, mules, waterpower, and steam were used to power arrastras. |
| Back |
Top of the mine shaft. |
| Candlestick |
A miner's candelstick was a high quality candle used for illumination. it is mounted on a metal mount that could be driven into timber or driven into the cracks in the rocks. |
| Collar |
The point of entry to a shaft. |
| Concentration Mill |
Concentrators concentrate ore. Example; Ore of, say, half ounce of gold and twelve ounces of silver per ton might be concentrated to 2.5 ounces of gold and 60 ounces of silver per ton of concentrates - the value increased per ton, by a factor of five. This was done to save on freight costs. |
| Crosscut |
A passageway that is used to connect drifts and stopes. |
| Drift |
A near-horizontal secondary passageway that is connested to a shaft, or an adit. Drifts usually follow the ore vein. |
| Dutchman |
A three-cornered hole that occurs when the drill bit is not rotated properly by a shaker. |
| Face |
The surface being advanced forward. |
| Filcher |
A jammed drill bit caused by the drill bit not being aligned properly. |
| Grizzly |
A grating of iron or steel bars for screening ore. |
| Hard Rock Mining |
Lode mining. A lode deposit may be formed from cracks or veins in the rock that have been refilled with quartz or other stone which carry gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, or other valuable minerals. |
| Haulageways |
Passageways used for handling materials. |
| Headframe |
A large wooden frame which supports the cable and bucket or cgae when hoisting ore. Structure over a mine shaft which holds a pulley for the steel cable that raises and lowers the skip in the mine shaft. |
| Highgrading |
Stealing rich ore. Miners at the Kennedy were required to take showers and change their clothes after work while being inspected, to help prevent theft. |
| Hoist |
An engine for raising ore and water from a mine and for lowering and raising men, material and machinery utilizing a drum and steel cable. |
| Iron Pyrite |
A common, metallic looking Iron Sulphide; an isometric mineral, FeS2; crystallizes in cubes; sparks readily if struck by steel; pale bronze to brass yellow in color; hardness varies from 6.0 to 6.5; occurs in veins, in igneous rocks, and in metamorphic rocks; a source of sulfur. Also known as fool's gold. |
| Jaw Crusher |
A machine for reducing the size of materials by impact or crushing between a fixed plate and an oscillating plate, or between two oscillating plates, (forming a tapered jaw) before sending the ore through a stamp mill. |
| Lode |
A fissure or vein in rock filled with minerals, a vein producing valuable metallic ore between definite boundaries, as in the Mother Lode. |
| Manways |
Compartments used by the miners. |
| Milling |
The process of dressing ore by crushing, stamping, amalgamation, leaching, etc. to separate the gold from the base rock. |
| Muck |
The rock pile resulting from blasting. Miners shoveling the muck were muckers. |
| Orepass |
Vertical, or near-vertical cavities built of wood. There are openings at the top in which to dump the ore, and chutes with gates at the bottom from which to draw the ore out. |
| Ore Skip |
The cage, or basket, that carries the ore to the surface. |
| Overhand |
When a drill is aimed at an upward angle. |
| Overhand Stoping |
Drilling upward. |
| Portal |
The point of entry through an adit or tunnel. |
| Powder Monkey |
Miner in charge of explosives. |
| Raise |
A vertical, or inclined passageway, driven at an upward angle. A mine shaft driven upward from a level to connect with the level above, or to explore the ground for a limited distance above one level. After two levels are connected, the connection may be a winze or a raise, depending upon which level is taken as the point of reference. |
| Rat Tails |
A bunch of varying length fuzes. |
| Refining |
Separating the metal wanted (gold) from combinations of metals (gold-mercury). |
| Retort, or Retorting |
Heating a amalgam alloy in an iron pot until the mercury is vaporized from the mass, and conducting any gas away through a pipe. The mercury is then condensed for reuse by condensing it in a section of pipe cooled by a waterjacket. Also see Amalgamation, Amalgam |
| Ribs |
Sides of the mine shaft. |
| Shaft |
A vertical passageway or entrance to a mine. |
| Spitting |
Lighting the fuzes. |
| Shaker |
Miner holding a drill bit for a second miner, who hits it with an 8-pound sledge hammer - called double-jacking.
|
| Sheave Wheel |
A large diameter pulley over which a cable ispassed when hoisting ore. |
| Stamp Mill |
A stamp is a pestle that is raised by some form of power, typically water or steam. Gravity causes the stamp to drop, crushing ore placed between the stamp's shoe and the die. A common pattern in stamp mill design was to use five stamps in a battery. This set up used a tappet at the top and the stamp was lifted and dropped by the revolving cam engaging the underside of the tappet. A machine, and the building containing it, in which crushed rock is crushed even smaller by descending rods with stamp shoes, usually lifted and dropped by a cam, and operated by water power, steam power or later on by electric motor. Usually arranged in groups of five, each stamp weighed up to 2000 pounds and dropped 6 to 8 inches. Each stamp battery dropped up to 100 times per minute, and could be heard for miles. Amalgamation was usually combined with the crushing when gold or silver ore was processed. |
| Steamboat |
Exposive charge misfire. |
| Stope |
The portion of the mine being currently worked. They can follow a vein in every direction, from narrow passageways to huge caverns. Any excavation in a mine, other than development workings, made for the purpose of extracting ore. The outlines of the ore body determine the outlines of the stope. |
| Stull |
Large, log-like pieces of wood used to support ribs. |
| Sump |
An excavation made at the bottom of the shaft, beneath the last level to collect ground water. |
| Tailings |
The waste material left after ore has been crushed and the desired mineral removed. At first dumped near the mine entrance, after 1914 the Kennedy Mine used large tailing wheels to move the mine tailings to an impound dam away from the mill site. |
| Underhand |
When a drill is aimed at a downward angle. |
| Underhand Stoping |
Drilling downward. |
| Whim |
A method of hoisting ore using a horse, and usually two men, pulling a wire rope over a pulley and down into the shaft. This method is a more robust hoisting method than whip method. |
| Whip |
A method of hoisting ore using a horse, or man, pulling a rope that went over a pulley and down into the shaft. |
| Winze |
A vertical, or inclined passageway, driven at a downward angle. A vertical opening driven downward connecting two levels in a mine. When one is standing at the top of a completed connection the opening is referred to as a winze, while when standing at the bottom, the opening is a raise, or rise. |
