Note 1 — BOOK V.
Herbert Hoover translation
[Pg 101][1] It has been suggested that we should adopt throughout this volume the mechanical and mining terms used in English mines at Agricola's time. We believe, however, that but a little inquiry would illustrate the undesirability of this course as a whole. Where there is choice in modern miner's nomenclature between an old and a modern term, we have leaned toward age, if it be a term generally understood. But except where the subject described has itself become obsolete, we have revived no obsolete terms. In substantiation of this view, we append a few examples of terms which served the English miner well for centuries, some of which are still extant in some local communities, yet we believe they would carry as little meaning to the average reader as would the reproduction of the Latin terms coined by Agricola.
Rake= A perpendicular vein.
Woughs= Walls of the vein.
Shakes= Cracks in the walls.
Flookan= Gouge.
Bryle= Outcrop.
Hade= Incline or underlay of the vein.
Dawling= Impoverishment of the vein.
Rither= A "horse" in a vein.
Twitches= "Pinching" of a vein.
Slough= Drainage tunnel.
Sole= Lowest drift.
Stool= Face of a drift or stope.
Winds} = Winze.
Turn
Dippas
Grove= Shaft.
Dutins= Set of timber.
Stemple= Post or stull.
Laths= Lagging.
As examples of the author's coinage and adaptations of terms in this book we may cite:—
Fossa latens= Drift.
Fossa latens transversa= Crosscut.
Tectum= Hangingwall.
Fundamentum= Footwall.
Tigna per intervalla posita= Wall plate.
Arbores dissectae= Lagging.
Formae= Hitches.
We have adopted the term "tunnel" for openings by way of outlet to the mine. The word in this narrow sense is as old as "adit," a term less expressive and not so generally used in the English-speaking mining world. We have for the same reason adopted the word "drift" instead of the term "level" so generally used in America, because that term always leads to confusion in discussion of mine surveys. We may mention, however, that the term "level" is a heritage from the Derbyshire mines, and is of an equally respectable age as "drift."