DCHP-1 Online

sluice-box † Placer Mining, Hist.

• n. a long box or trough containing riffles (def. 2) by means of which gold is separated from gravel. [See picture above.]

  See also: long tom  riffle ((n.)) (def. 2)  rock-bottom sluice-box  sluice ((n.))   sluicing-box  

  • 1869  He was busy fixing his sluice-boxes and had evidently dropped on a good thing.
  • 1962  There was a small, battered piano . . . an old sluice box; and a "cradle rocker" from some long-forgotten gold claim.