384 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
eata (ray ah’ ta), a rawhide rope, used for lassoing. 
ubric, a flourish, which Mexicans and native Californians 
append to their signatures, and which, in fact, they consider 
as an important part of their signatures, and the most difficult 
to imitate or counterfeit. They often use their “rubrics” alone 
as signatures. To rubricate, to sign with a rubric. 
Sluice, a wooden trough about fourteen inches wide, and 
ten deep, and not less than thirty feet long, used for washing 
pay-dirt. 
Ground-Sluice, a trough cut in the ground for washing pay- 
dirt. 2 
Tail-Sluice, a sluice put in below a number of other sluices, 
and depending on them for its supply of dirt and water. 
Sluice-Fork, a fork similar to a manure fork, but with blunt 
prongs, as wide at the point as at the heel. The fork is used 
for throwing stones out of the sluices. 
Sluice-Head, the quantity of water used in a sluice; a 
constant stream of water running through an aperture, usually 
two inches high, and from five to fifteen inches long, under a 
pressure of seven inches. 
Slum, slimy mud. 
To strip, to throw off worthless dirt from the top of pay- 
dirt. 
Sierra (see er’ ra), originally a saw, a chain of mountains. 
Square Meal, a good meal at a table, as distinguished from 
such meals as men make when they are short of provisions, a 
condition not uncommon among men who make adventurous 
trips into the mountains. 
Tailings, the waste of a sluice, tom, rocker, or quartz-mill. 
Tom, a wooden trough, from ten to fifteen feet long, for 
washing pay-dirt. 
Tom-Stream, or Tom-Head, the amount of water used in a 
tom. 
Rocker, or Cradle, a machine resembling a domestic cradle, 
for washing pay-dirt. 
Wing-Dam, adam in a creek or river, running partly across 
