or LODE, in Mining, a word used especially in the tin-mines, for any regular vein or course, whether metallic or not; but most commonly load means a metallic vein. When the substances forming these loads are reducible to metal, the loads are by the English miners said to be alive; otherwise they are termed dead loads.

In Cornwall and Devonshire the loads chiefly hold their course from eastward to westward, though in other parts of England they frequently run from north to south. See VEINS, GEOLOGY Index.

LOAD is also used for nine dishes of ore, each dish being about half a hundred weight.