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