Hephaestion Report This Comment Date: March 07, 2004 09:57AM
SANDON, BRITISH COLUMBIA— On July 14, 1892, James W. Cockle and his partner
discovered the largest single nugget of galena— also known as a piece of
“float”— ever found to this day. At 7-1/2 feet long, 3 feet wide and nine
feet high, it weighed 120 tons.
Elated with their discovery, the two men staked the “Morning Sun” claim on
the spot where they found the float, which was soon christened The Big Boulder.
Flush with visions of future wealth, they sold The Big Boulder for $2,000 to a
Minneapolis man who intended to exhibit it at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
Instead, it was broken up and shipped to US smelters, with the purchaser making
a profit of over $20,000.
Unfortunately for Cockle and his partner, however, The Big Boulder had
actually rolled downhill hundreds of years before. More experienced prospectors
who traced it to its original source found that it had originated on the
“Slocan Star” claim, which was to become one of the richest mines in the
area.
Cockle eventually gave up prospecting and became a fruit-farmer in Kaslo, but
news of his fantastic discovery— complete with this photograph— was soon
being printed in newspapers as far away as California and England. The
excitement soon reached a fever pitch, and before long thousands upon thousands
of men began to descend on the fabulous Silvery Slocan.
See all this and more at:
[
www.slocanlake.com]
pokey Report This Comment Date: April 29, 2004 10:29PM
I'm rich, biatch!!!
Hard in Harlem Report This Comment Date: June 21, 2004 05:27AM
Unreal and wonderful history!!
BruceD Report This Comment Date: February 28, 2006 03:36PM
Actually, I am pretty sure the largest silver nugget was found outside of Aspen
Colorado, just before the Silver market went bust. To even get the nugget out of
the mine they had to break it into three larger pieces.