burghmaster
An officer who directs and lays out the meres or boundaries for the workers.
Mining and extraction
591 entries in this trade.
buscon
A prospector (someone who searches for ore).
butterfly
A safety link or detaching hook above the cage attached to the winding rope to prevent the cage from being overwound.
buttocker
A worker who gets coal off at a longwall face.
butty
A miner who works under contract, receiving a fixed amount per ton of coal or ore.
bye-workman
An underground mine labourer.
cage
The drum on which the rope is wound in a hoisting whim.
cager
A person or machine responsible for managing a mineshaft cage.
callow
The upper layer of rubble in a quarry which has to be removed to reach the material to be mined.
canch
An upper or lower portion of stone that is removed to form a gradient between workings.
capel
A composite stone (quartz, schorl, and hornblende) in the walls of tin and copper lodes.
carbon black
A fine black powder of amorphous carbon manufactured by the incomplete combustion of natural gas or oil, and used as a pigment in the manufacture of ink and paint. Used as a filler in rubber and rubber-like polymers, it helps prevent deterioration by ultraviolet rays.
case
A small fissure which admits water into the workings.
cataclastic
adjectiveMining and extraction
describing a type of metamorphic rock that has undergone shearing and granulation by high mechanical stress
cave
In room-and-pillar mining, to extract a deposit of rock by breaking down a pillar which had been holding it in place.
caver
One who works the tailings of a mine to extract small pieces of marketable ore.
CDU
Initialism of crude distillation unit.
chartermaster
A contractor for working a pit or part of a pit.
chat
Mining waste from lead and zinc mines.
check viewer
A viewer employed by the lessor to see that the provisions of the lease are duly observed.
check weigher
A person employed by the miners to check the weight of the mined material and thus ensure the proper wages were paid.
checkweigh
To check the weight of the mined material and thus ensure the proper wages are paid.
chokedamp
A damp consisting chiefly of carbon dioxide, so called for its ability to asphyxiate.
clack door
The removable cover of the opening giving access to a pump valve.
claggy
adjectiveMining and extraction
Adhesive, having coal clinging to it.
clearer
An unskilled labourer who clears away the rubbish etc.
CNG
Initialism of compressed natural gas.
coalface
The surface of coal exposed by mining, or a part of a coal seam that is currently being mined.
cobbing
The manual separation of minerals in ore using a hammer.
cockermeg
An arrangement of pit props used to support a coalface
cockle
The mineral black tourmaline or schorl.
collar
A curb, or a horizontal timbering, around the mouth of a shaft.
collaring
A piece of wood or iron for securing the pumps in a mineshaft.
color
Gold, particles of gold found when prospecting.
comminution
The breaking or grinding up of a material to form smaller particles.
concentrator
An apparatus for the separation of dry comminuted ore, by exposing it to intermittent puffs of air.
concretion
A rounded mass of a mineral, sometimes found in sedimentary rock or on the ocean floor.
contact
The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock.
corf
A large basket, especially as used for coal.
corporal
A worker in charge of the wagonway, reporting to the deputy.
corver
A person who makes corves, or coal baskets.
cosmoline
A substance obtained from the residues of the distillation of petroleum, essentially the same as vaseline, but of somewhat stiffer consistency, and consisting of a mixture of the higher paraffins.
costean
A trench in solid rock intersected by pits which reveals mineral veins.
costeaning
A process for discovering metallic lodes by sinking small pits through the superficial deposits to the solid rock, and then driving from one pit to another across the direction of the vein, so as to cross all the veins between the two pits.
country
The rock through which a vein of ore or coal runs.
country rock
Rock that surrounds reefs or lodes of mined minerals, forming the walls and floors of quarries, or through which mine tunnels are driven.
cow
A chock: a wedge or brake used to stop a machine or car.
cracking
The thermal decomposition of a substance, especially that of crude petroleum in order to produce petrol / gasoline.
craneman
A boy employed to hoist the corves of coals on to the rolleys with the crane.
craunch
A portion of a stratum or vein left in excavating to support the roof.
crop
An outcrop of a vein or seam at the surface.
cropping
An outcrop that is mined for the ore it contains.
cross-course
A vein or lode that crosses the main lode, sometimes accompanied by a change of course in the main lode.
crosscut
A tunnel or level driven across the course of a vein, or across the main workings, as from one gangway to another through the country rock.
crossheading
A narrow opening for ventilation driven through coal or rock, separating the two passages.
crut
A cross-measure tunnel or drift.
crutter
A worker who drills blasting holes, prepares the explosive charge, and removes blasted rock.
cryptocrystalline
adjectiveMining and extraction
Whose crystalline nature only becomes apparent at high levels of magnification.
cuddy
A pony that works in a mine.
cut
The range of temperatures used to distill a particular mixture of hydrocarbons from crude oil.