Culm

Holonyms: spoils, tailings

Here he lay down on a place soft with culm, to take his contemplated rest, and, before he was aware of it, sleep had descended on him, overpowered him, and bound him fast.

Q. (By Mr. Manager FLOYD.) Mr. Rittenhouse, what do you mean in your report by the slush pile?—A. I mean the waste that goes through the finest mesh that they use. It is called tailings; it is called slush. Q. State the origin and meaning of the word "culm" of the term "culm dump."—A. Culm meant and means anything that is waste. Back in the early days it was called culm when they put chestnut in the pile; it was all the waste rock and the material that was thrown out in the breaker; rough coal and slate were thrown indiscriminately on this pile, and it was called culm pile. As the years went by and they used chestnut coal, when that was taken up the coal before it went to the culm dump. It was the same way with pea coal; following that, buckwheat No. 1; then again No. 2, and again No. 8; so that now what represents culm or culm pile, as it goes by, is the finest sand or silt as it goes through three thirty-seconds or the eighth of an inch or the sixteenth of an inch mesh, whatever they happen to use. Sometimes that is separated, and when it is separated and the slate in larger pieces is not mixed with it it is a slush. Q. In the common acceptation of the term a culm dump is the material in the dump made from coal mines, including particles of coal and other waste, is it?—A. Yes, sir.

[…] because, upon hearing him out, she sank down on the lawn in an impossible posture, examining a grass culm and frowning, he had taken his words back at once; […]