[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I know where they should look.

Start in the Southeast Missouri Lead District.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Missouri_Lead_District

It contains the highest concentration of galena (lead(II) sulfide) in the world as well as significant economic quantities of silver. Galena is lead ore bound up with silver ore. Importantly, then you need to search for hot underground water.

Acanthite, room temperature silver ore, can look anywhere from amorphous to crystalline, ugly to quite attractive.

Importantly, Spain had any number of slave labor silver mines in northern Mexico, some of which had amazing, if primitive technologies. They had very little iron and steel, so made do with wood and leather, except for hand tools. Yet the amount of silver they produced made Spain very wealthy and militarily dominant in Europe for quite a while.

So at the time, if you wanted to find a profitable silver deposit, you needed a Spanish prospector.

Mexico still has a very large lead mining operation near the city of Torreon. Most of the lead used in car lead-acid batteries in North America comes from there.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Greeneyes, a thread that might interest you!

[piasa]

https://www.bonneterremine.com/diving

[hanamizu]

“Importantly, Spain had any number of slave labor silver mines in northern Mexico,..”

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The Spanish no doubt learned their mining ways from the Romans. The Romans took down a mountain to get at the ore. Not having explosives, but having lots of slaves, they honeycombed the mountain and then turned a river loose on it. Hydraulic mining, but from the inside.