Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 731 / December 29, 1877

Many of our most important inventions and discoveries owe their origin to the most trivial circumstances; from the simplest causes the most important effects have ensued. The following are a few culled at random for the amusement of our readers.
The trial of two robbers before the Court of Assizes of the Basses-Pyrénées accidentally led to a most interesting archæological discovery. The accused, Rivas a shoemaker, and Bellier a weaver, by armed attacks on the highways and frequent burglaries, had spread terror around the neighbourhood of Sisteron. The evidence against them was clear; but no traces could be obtained of the plunder, until one of the men gave a clue to the mystery. Rivas in his youth had been a shepherd-boy near that place, and knew the legend of the Trou d'Argent, a cavern on one of the mountains with sides so precipitous as to be almost inaccessible, and which no one was ever known to have reached. The Commissary of Police of Sisteron, after extraordinary labour, succeeded in scaling the mountain, and penetrated to the mysterious grotto, where he discovered an enormous quantity of plunder of every description. The way having been once found, the vast cavern was afterwards explored by savants ; and their researches brought to light a number of Roman medals of the third century, flint hatchets, ornamented pottery, and the remains of ruminants of enormous size. These interesting discoveries, however, obtained no indulgence for the accused (inadvertent) pioneers of science, who were sentenced to twenty years' hard labour.
The discovery of gold in Nevada was made by some Mormon immigrants in 1850. Adventurers crossed the Sierras and set up their sluice-boxes in the cañons; but it was gold they were after, and they never suspected the existence of silver, nor knew it when they saw it. The bluish stuff which was so abundant and which was silver ore, interfered with their operations and gave them the greatest annoyance. Two brothers named Grosch possessed more intelligence than their fellow-workers, and were the real discoverers of the Comstock lode; but one of them died from a pickaxe wound in the foot, and the other was frozen to death in the mountains. Their secret died with them. When at last, in the early part of 1859, the surface croppings of the lode were found, they were worked for the gold they contained, and the silver was thrown out as being worthless. Yet this lode since 1860 has yielded a large proportion of all the silver produced throughout the world. The silver mines of Potosi were discovered through the trivial circumstance of an Indian accidentally pulling up a shrub, to the roots of which were attached some particles of the precious metal.