A Look at Miners
Inches
A miner's inch is not a
measure of length, but it is the measurement of the rate
of water flow in a miner's sluice. Flow was measured by a
hole one inch square with a head of one inch. Generally,
one miner's inch is a flow of 1.5 cubic feet per minute
You will find references to "miner's inches" in old water
right filings and notices, as well as older decrees
governing water rights.
As water demand increased with the development of
large-scale mining technologies and the development of
irrigation uses, the miner's inch became an inadequate unit of
measurement for flow rates, and was replaced by cubic feet per
second.
A miner's inch is not the same in all of the states:
|
State
|
Number of
miner's inches per CFS (cubic foot per
second)
|
|
Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, New
Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota
|
50 miner's
inches
|
|
Arizona, California,
Montana, Oregon
|
40 miner's
inches
|
|
Other states
|
38.4 miner's
inches |
|