In the first sentence of a 1967 novel, a man facing a firing squad, Colonel Aureliano, recalls when "his father took him to discover" this substance.
A man who breaks plates without touching them opens a factory that produces this stuff, then builds a railroad to improve its business. In a tent, a giant with a copper nose ring opens a pirate chest containing this stuff, which is proclaimed "the greatest invention of our time." A character's only happy moments after his first sight of this stuff occurs while he sits in his workshop crafting tiny (*)  gold fish. A man pays five reals  (ree-ALLS)  to touch this substance while searching for the gypsy Melquíades. In the first sentence of a 1967 novel, a man facing a firing squad, Colonel Aureliano, recalls when "his father took him to discover" this substance. For 10 points, name this cold substance, a motif in Garcia Marquez's  One Hundred Years of Solitude , in which it is initially mistaken for diamonds.
A man who breaks plates without touching them opens a factory that produces this stuff, then builds a railroad to improve its business.
ice  [or  el  hielo ]