noun
definition
A horizontal or nearly horizontal passage from the surface into a mine, as contrasted with a shaft or vertical entry passage. An adit may be used for ventilation, haulage, drainage, or other purposes.
Examples of adits in a Sentence
The mines are, in general, situated on the slopes of the hills and are easily opened up by adits.
And it is not only the perceptions of eye or ear which tell, but also the association of concepts behind these adits of the mind.
At the same time provision must be made for the integration of knowledge as well as for the winning of it by several adits.
Large pillars of mineral should be left for the protection of the main openings, whether these be shafts or adits.
As already noted large pillars must always be left to protect shafts, adits and the more important mine-passages necessary for drainage, ventilation and the haulage of mineral.
Cars may thus be run through long adits or through branch gangways to some central point for making up into trains.
In mines that are worked from the outcrop by adits or day levels traction by locomotives driven by steam, compressed air or electricity is used to some extent.
In practice it is usual in chalk formations to imitate artificially the action of such underground watercourses, by driving from the well small tunnels, or " adits " as they are called, below the water-level, to intercept fissures and water-bearing beds, and thus to extend the collecting area.
With the exception of the Red Marls forming the upper part of the Keuper, most of the New Red Sandstone is permeable, and some parts contain, when saturated, even more water than solid chalk; but, just as in the case of the chalk, a well or borehole in the sandstone yields very little water unless it strikes a fissure; hence, in New Red Sandstone, also, it is a common thing to form underground chambers or adits in search of additional fissures, and sometimes to sink many vertical boreholes with the same object in view.
Its full capacity has not been ascertained; it much exceeds the present pumping power, and is probably greater than that of any other single well unassisted by adits or boreholes.
A small silver-lead mine comprising two adits (both open) and an associated shaft, 500 yards west of Crymych village.
The two main adits into the Shorts Factory tunnels have been retained.
The ancient adits at Ayios Kyriakos have to be interpreted in this light.
The species associated with mining adits are threatened by capping.