Gold Rush Vocabulary and Concepts
1. gold rush – a term used when many people come quickly to an area where gold has been discovered, hoping to strike it rich
2. staking a claim – the act of claiming land to mine – put 4 posts in corners of land and register the claim to secure the land as yours
3. grubstake – a miner’s supplies – tent, tools, and food to get him started
4. strike – to find a place where gold was abundant
5. boomtown – a town that grew quickly as new strikes of gold were found
6. argonauts – the men who traveled by ship to reach California
7. overlanders – people who traveled in covered wagons or by horse to come to California
8. placer gold – gold found in streams and rivers
9. hydraulic mining – using high-pressure water in hoses to blast away rock so it could be processed for gold – done by large mining companies after most of the placer gold was claimed
10. coyote mining – looking for gold by digging a deep tunnel straight down into the earth with steep sides
11. color – miners’ slang for gold
12. nugget – a lump of gold
13. mountain canary – a pack mule
14. panning – using a pan in a circular motion to separate the gold from the dirt and sand in the riverbed
15. cradle – a wooden mining tool which was one rockers operated by two or three men
16. long tom – a mining tool using troughs to divert water from a river that contained riffles to trap the gold.
17. riffles – small pieces of wood running perpendicular to the water ’s flow in a cradle or long tom. The heavy gold would remain trapped behind the riffles.
18. bandana – a square cotton cloth used as a handkerchief or worn around the neck
19. jumping a claim – taking another person’s claim when they were gone for a short period of time
20. paydirt – dirt containing gold