Lexicon

adit:  An adit is an entrance into a mine from a hillside.  These are generally horizontal or slightly slopping. Most mines in the Rush area were entered via adits while a few were entered by shafts.

bat gate: Bat gates have been erected at the entrances of the mines in the Buffalo National River to protect visitors from the many hazards of abandoned mines while maintaining the habitat of bats. Many of the mines host large colonies of bats.

black jack: Black jack was a miner's term for a dark brown to almost black variety of the mineral sphalerite.

breccia

calcite: Calcite is calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). It is the principle mineral forming limestone. It also occurs as deposits in caves like Blanchard Springs Cave. 

concentrator 

dolomite: Dolomite is a calcium and magnesium carbonate  CaMg(CO₃)₂. It is the principle mineral forming the rock dolostone. In some of the Rush mines it occurs as rather spectacular pink colored crystals.

dolostone: Dolostone is the rock formed mainly by the mineral dolomite. It is one of the most common minerals found in the Rush area.

fault

galena: Galena is lead sulfide (PbS). It occurs as shinny silvery cubic crystals. Little galena is found in the Rush mines however it was found in commercial quantities near Yellville.

limestone: Limestone is the rock formed by the mineral calcite generally the result of deposition in shallow seas.

mill: When the zinc minerals smithsonite and sphalerite were taken from the mines they usually were mixed with other minerals like quartz, calcite, and dolomite. It was to expensive to ship this raw ore to the distant smelter so the mills were erected to concentrate the zinc minerals and remove these waste minerals. A mill consisted of a rock crusher which broke the ore down in to small pieces the size of a pea and screens which separated out the various sizes of crushed ore. The peas size material was then passed through a concentrator which used gravity to separate the heavy zinc minerals from the lighter dolomite, calcite, and quartz. The process was not 100% effective but it did produce a much higher grade material for shipping. View of the Morning Star Mill circa 1918.

quartz: Quartz (SiO2) is a silicate mineral. In the Rush area is occurs as sand along the river, as grains in sandstone like the St. Peter  Sandstone, and a sparkly crystal coatings on many of the rocks from the mines.

rosin jack: Rosin jack was the term the miners used for a amber colored variety of sphalerite (ZnS) the was found in many of the mines.

sandstone: Sandstone is a sedimentary rock that forms by collecting together sand grains and cementing them together to form a rock.

shaft: Shafts were vertical holes dug into the rock to reach the mineral deposits. These were usually 5 to 10 feet across and could be as much as a 100 feet deep. However shafts were not that commonly used in the Rush area to access the mineral deposits.

smithsonite: Smithsonite is zinc carbonate (ZnCO₃).  It was the principal ore mineral of zinc which the miners mined at Rush. 

sphalerite: Sphalerite is zinc sulfide (ZnS). It is one of the main ore minerals of zinc found in the Rush Mining District. Photograph of sphalerite at the Morning Star Mine.

smelter: Smelters is a furnace like device that takes the concentrated ore and heats it to the point where the metallic zinc separates from the carbonate or sulfur. The Rush ores were smelted at smelters located well away from the Rush area. There was an early attempt to erect a smelter to win silver from the local ore, however this was constructed under the mistaken idea that silver was in the ore, it wasn't. 

stromatolite: Stromatolite is a rock which is made of the fossilized remains of blue green algae. They lived in the shallow Ordovician sea that once covered the Rush area.  Pictured here are stromatolite 'cabbage' heads found in the stream bottom of Clabber Creek. Really good examples of stromatolite can be seen while walking along the trail near the Morning Star Mine. More photographs of stromatolite from the Rush area.

turkey fat: A variety of smithsonite that has a very pronounced yellow color which is probably due to the presence of small amounts of the element cadmium in the smithsonite.