BLASTING, among miners, a term for the tearing up rocks, which they find in their way, by gun-powder. The method of doing which is this: they make a long hole like the hollow of a large gun-barrel in the rock they would split; this they fill with gun-powder; then they firmly stop up the mouth of the hole with clay, except a touch-hole, at which they leave a match to fire it. A small quantity of powder does great things this way.