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Bed-rock
American slang for one's last shilling. A miner's term, called in
England the “stone-head,” and in America, the “Bed-rock,” the hard
basis rock. When miners get to this bed the mine is exhausted. “I'm
come down to the bed-rock,” i.e. my last dollar.
“ `No, no!' continued Tennessee's partner, hastily, `Ill play this
yer hand alone. I've come down to the bed-rock; it's just this:
Tennessee, thar, has played it pretty rough and expensive, like, on a
stranger ... Now what's the fair thing? Some would say more, and some
would say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a
watch- it's about all my pile- and call it square.' ” —Bret
Harte; Tennessee's Partner.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Bed-rock from Infoplease:
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