Here’s a better one. Out in Nevada during the gold rush, one site wasn’t panning out too well. Conditions were primitive & rough, with a heavy thick blue mud that was everywhere and stuck to everything. Nobody was finding any gold. One fellow who had some geology background was curious about that blue mud and sent off a sample for assay.
It came back as about 85% pure silver or somesuch. He quietly bought up all the nearly worthless “gold” claims he could, cheap. It ended up being one of the richest silver mines in world history, basically an entire mountain made of silver known as the Comstock Lode.
I have a post card somewhere from Greensburg, KS. Home of the world’s largest palasite meteorite. Also the big well.
And a famous speech, “...Cross of Gold...”
The Comstock financed the Union during the Civil War.