“A secret party of surveyors [was taken] to lay out the 3,000 acre future Brilliant City, complete with neighborhoods: Discovery Claim, Ruby Gulch, Diamond Flat, Sapphire Hollow. On this trip there were of course more diamonds. Alfred Rubery, a rich Englishman, found one of the fabled anthills. At first he couldnt believe his eyes. It was a sure-enough anthillnatural to this area . . . a foot or two high, made of coarse rock and mineral grains. But this one was sprinkled with many red and white stones of uniform size. Looking closer, he realized they were rubies and diamonds. Practically screaming with ecstasy, he shoveled the whole thing into a sack, ants and all.”

—Kevin Krajick, from Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic, 2002. Watch out, Alfred, the anthill was real, but the overall scheme is a hoax!