Ore Strike

The unexpected discovery of a rich, previously unworked body of ore -- most often used of a single dramatic find rather than the routine, gradual proving-up of a known deposit.

Historical usage

'Making a strike' is common usage across the English-speaking mining world, from the great American and Australian gold and silver rushes of the 19th century to small-scale British metal mining, where a strike could revive interest in ground long thought worked out. Arn Gill Mine in Swaledale is a home-grown example: its deeper Adelaide Level only became commercially significant after the Muker lead miner George Cottingham and his son struck a rich pocket of galena there in 1865, worth around £12,000.

How it worked

A strike was usually made while driving an exploratory working -- following float (loose ore fragments), a gossan (the oxidised, rust-coloured outcrop of a metal vein), or simply continuing a level or shaft on a hunch -- and breaking suddenly into ore far richer than anything worked nearby. Because it was, by definition, unexpected, a strike often came after years of unrewarded work on ground otherwise considered poor or exhausted.

Why it was used

A genuine strike could transform a struggling or marginal working overnight -- reviving investment, restarting abandoned levels, or triggering a wider rush of new claims nearby, since a rich pocket was reasonable evidence that the same vein might carry more of the same along its length.

Risks & limitations

Not every reported strike was genuine or lasting: a rich pocket could be a one-off, exhausted within weeks, and the promise of a strike was valuable enough to attract deliberate fraud -- most notoriously 'salting', in which gold, silver or other valuable material was planted in a claim's ore or workings to deceive a prospective buyer or investor into believing a worthless site was productive.

Mines associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis — not every mine where this might plausibly apply.

• Arn Gill Mine — North Yorkshire (well documented example)
  The mine's own history describes George Cottingham and his son making exactly this kind of unexpected rich find -- the 1865 galena strike at the Adelaide Level -- in these terms.

Sources

1. (secondary) Glossary of Mining Terms — Legends of America
2. (secondary) Salting (confidence trick) — Wikipedia

Record created: 1 September 2026 · Last researched: 1 September 2026