<hw>City</hw>, <i>n</i>. In Great Britain and Ireland the word City denotes "a considerable town that has been, (a) an episcopal seat, (b) a royal burgh, or (c) created to the dignity, like Birmingham, Dundee, and Belfast, by a royal patent. In the United States and Canada, a municipality of the first class, governed by a mayor and aldermen, and created by charter." (`Standard.') In Victoria, by section ix. of the Local Government Act, 1890, 54 Victoria, No. 1112, the Governor-in-Council may make orders, #12:
"To declare any borough, including the city of Melbourne and the town of Geelong, having in the year preceding such declaration a gross revenue of not less than twenty thousand pounds, a city."
<hw>Claim</hw>, <i>n</i>. in mining, a piece of land appropriated for mining purposes: then the mine itself. The word is also used in the United States. See also <i>Reward-claim</i> and <i>Prospecting-claim</i>.
1858. T. McCombie, `History of Victoria,' c. xiv. p. 213:
"A family named Cavanagh . . . entered a half-worked claim."
1863. H. Fawcett, `Political Economy,' pt. iii. c. vi. p. 359 (`O.E.D.'):
"The claim upon which he purchases permission to dig."
1887. H. H. Hayter, `Christmas Adventure,' p. 3:
"I decided . . . a claim to take up."
<hw>Clay-pan</hw>, <i>n</i>. name given, especially in the dry interior of Australia, to a slight depression of the ground varying in size from a few yards to a mile in length, where the deposit of fine silt prevents the water from sinking into the ground as rapidly as it does elsewhere.