prospectors
They pan streams
Prospectors are people who search for valuable natural resources, especially gold, silver, or other minerals.
The term evokes the nineteenth-century American West, where individual prospectors panned streams and staked claims hoping to strike it rich.
Today prospecting continues in mining industries, though often with more sophisticated methods.
The word extends metaphorically to anyone searching for something valuable: talent prospectors scour college campuses for recruits.
Ore-bearing mining territories
- claimsStatements of truth
- stakesPosts or wagers
- panningLateral camera traverse
- sluiceGated water conduit
nuggets · placer · ore · diggings · assay · motherlode · strikes · grubstake
1849 gold rush migrants
- KlondikeYukon gold rush region
- YukonNorthwestern Canadian territory
- CaliforniaWest coast megastate
- sourdoughsCultured dough or frontiersmen
boomtowns · frontier · pioneers · rushes · settlements · stagecoach · saloons · tents
Uncultivated, uninhabited natural region
- trailsMarked outdoor paths
- mountainsTall elevated landmasses
- streamsContinuous flows of something
- riversFlowing bodies of water
terrain · expeditions · surveying · mapping · scouting · discovery · searching · wandering
Those who pursue answers
- searchersThose who look
- huntersPursuers of prey
- explorersThose who venture unfamiliar lands
- speculatorsThose betting on markets
entrepreneurs · opportunists · venture · pursuit · fortune · dreams · ambition · visionaries
goldfields
Ore-bearing mining territories
sluice · nuggets · placer · ore · diggings · assay · motherlode · strikes · grubstake · pickaxe
forty-niners
1849 gold rush migrants
- KlondikeYukon gold rush region
- YukonNorthwestern Canadian territory
- CaliforniaWest coast megastate
sourdoughs · boomtowns · frontier · pioneers · rushes · settlements · stagecoach · saloons · tents · camps
wilderness
Uncultivated, uninhabited natural region
rivers · terrain · expeditions · surveying · mapping · scouting · discovery · searching · wandering · remote
seekers
Those who pursue answers
speculators · entrepreneurs · opportunists · venture · pursuit · fortune · dreams · ambition · visionaries · gamblers
- frontier Americapioneers, settlers, homesteaders, homesteading, sodbusters
- Gold Countrygold mines, gold panning, Sutter's Mill, gold nuggets, forty-niners
- Southwest historySanta Fe Trail, frontier, Old West, Wild West, statehood
- Kimberley DiamondsKimberley, De Beers, diamond rush, diamond mining, diamond mines
- Goldfieldsgoldfields, gold mining, gold mines, mining tunnels, gold nuggets
- 1800s AmericaOregon Trail, Trail of Tears, transcontinental railroad, Civil War, Abraham Lincoln
prospectorssalaried workers
Employees with fixed pay
wage earners · pensioners · landowners · rentiers · bondholders
- gold prospectorOne seeking precious metal