elvan

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. An improper form of elfin.
2. n. The name given in Cornwall (England) to dikes, which are of frequent occurrence in that region, and which, throughout the principal mining districts, have a course approximately parallel with the majority of the most productive tin and copper lodes. The elvans—or elvan-courses, as they are frequently called—have almost identically the same ultimate chemical and mineralogical composition as the granites of Cornwall, but differ considerably from them in the mode of aggregation of their constituents. They vary in width from a few feet to several fathoms; they traverse alike granites and slates, but are more numerous in the vicinity of the granites than they are elsewhere. Many elvans have been worked for the tin ore which they sometimes contain. The rock of which elvans are made up when occurring in loose fragments is also called elvan or elvan-rock.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Pertaining to elves; elvish; elven.
2. adj. mining Of or relating to certain veins of feldspathic or porphyritic rock crossing metalliferous veins in the mining districts of Cornwall.
3. n. mining The rock of an elvan vein, or the vein itself.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Pertaining to elves; elvish.
2. adj. (Mining) Of or pertaining to certain veins of feldspathic or porphyritic rock crossing metalliferous veins in the mining districts of Cornwall.
3. n. The rock of an elvan vein, or the elvan vein itself; an elvan course.