Broken Hill is a mining city which stands on the richest silver-lead-zinc deposit ever discovered in the world. In 1875 two men discovered silver ore while sinking a well. Then in 1883, Charles Rasp, a German chemist, pegged out 40 acres of a "broken hill". He originally thought the samples he found were oxide of tin, but they turned out to be a silver-lead-zinc deposit. He formed a syndicate which later became known as the Broken Hill Proprietry (BHP), and he made a fortune. Within 8 years, a major town of 20,000 people was formed. More than one-third of the world's silver came from that mine.
