25. Sunk Cost Fallacy and Frobisher's 1577 voyage to the Arctic
Michael Lok believed a dubious opinion that the black rock from the Arctic contained gold. A second voyage was sent to Little Hall's Island to mine 200 tonnes of the rock.
During Frobisher’s 1576 voyage to the Arctic, a crewmember on an island picked up an unusual black rock that had within it something that glittered. Suspecting it contained gold, Frobisher held on to it in his cabin. When he arrived back in London, this dense, bread-sized rock became a source of much speculation and analysis. It ultimately led to a voyage to Frobisher Bay in 1577 to gather three shiploads of the rock and then again in 1578 to gather fifteen shiploads more.
Unfortunately, against such high hopes, these expeditions ended with financial disaster, prison for Martin Lok and a damaged reputation for Frobisher.
However, before Lok considered backing another voyage, he initiated several months of research into determining if the glitter was indeed gold or a valueless mineral such as quartz. During the fall of 1576 into the winter of 1577, Michael Lok found several assayers to answer that question.
The majority of assayers assigned to analyze the rock determined it to be valuel…
