Minecraft wiki entry for Mining, associated text: The player can use silverfish to clear a lot of stone away to reveal the valuable stuff. To do this, get a bunch of silverfish in a hole, and position themselves above the hole. Most of the silverfish will go into the stone, but make sure there are at least some left visible. While standing above the leftover silverfish, throw a splash potion of poison, then a splash potion of regeneration immediately after. Every time the poison hurts the silverfish, it will call any nearby silverfish out of the stone, then it will get healed by the regeneration potion, so it can keep getting hurt instead of being pinned at 1 health. Soon, all of the silverfish will come out of the stone, and they can kill them at this point, then mine all of the minerals left behind.