The Underground City
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Jules Verne >> The Underground City
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10 This etext was prepared by Judy Boss, Omaha, NE
From:
Verne, Jules. _Works of Jules Verne_. Ed. Charles F. Horne. Vol. 9.
New York: F. Tyler Daniels Company, 1911. 277-394. [_Off on
a Comet_, transmitted as a separate file earlier, constitutes pp.
1-276 of Vol. 9.]
The Underground City
OR
The Black Indies
(Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern)
The Underground City
CHAPTER I
CONTRADICTORY LETTERS
To Mr. F. R. Starr, Engineer, 30 Canongate, Edinburgh.
IF Mr. James Starr will come to-morrow to the Aberfoyle coal-mines,
Dochart pit, Yarrow shaft, a communication of an interesting nature
will be made to him.
"Mr. James Starr will be awaited for, the whole day,
at the Callander station, by Harry Ford, son of the old
overman Simon Ford."
"He is requested to keep this invitation secret."
Such was the letter which James Starr received by the first post,
on the 3rd December, 18--, the letter bearing the Aberfoyle postmark,
county of Stirling, Scotland.
The engineer's curiosity was excited to the highest pitch.
It never occurred to him to doubt whether this letter might
not be a hoax. For many years he had known Simon Ford,
one of the former foremen of the Aberfoyle mines, of which he,
James Starr, had for twenty years, been the manager, or,
as he would be termed in English coal-mines, the viewer.
James Starr was a strongly-constituted man, on whom his fifty-five
years weighed no more heavily than if they had been forty.
He belonged to an old Edinburgh family, and was one of its
most distinguished members. His labors did credit to the body
of engineers who are gradually devouring the carboniferous
subsoil of the United Kingdom, as much at Cardiff and Newcastle,
as in the southern counties of Scotland. However, it was more
particularly in the depths of the mysterious mines of Aberfoyle,
which border on the Alloa mines and occupy part of the county
of Stirling, that the name of Starr had acquired the greatest renown.
There, the greater part of his existence had been passed.
Besides this, James Starr belonged to the Scottish Antiquarian Society,
of which he had been made president. He was also included
amongst the most active members of the Royal Institution; and the
Edinburgh Review frequently published clever articles signed by him.
He was in fact one of those practical men to whom is due the prosperity
of England. He held a high rank in the old capital of Scotland,
which not only from a physical but also from a moral point of view,
well deserves the name of the Northern Athens.
We know that the English have given to their vast extent of
coal-mines a very significant name. They very justly call them
the "Black Indies," and these Indies have contributed perhaps
even more than the Eastern Indies to swell the surprising wealth
of the United Kingdom.
At this period, the limit of time assigned by professional men
for the exhaustion of coal-mines was far distant and there was
no dread of scarcity. There were still extensive mines to be
worked in the two Americas. The manu-factories, appropriated
to so many different uses, locomotives, steamers, gas works,
&c., were not likely to fail for want of the mineral fuel;
but the consumption had so increased during the last few years,
that certain beds had been exhausted even to their smallest veins.
Now deserted, these mines perforated the ground with their
useless shafts and forsaken galleries. This was exactly the case
with the pits of Aberfoyle.
Ten years before, the last butty had raised the last ton of coal
from this colliery. The underground working stock, traction engines,
trucks which run on rails along the galleries, subterranean tramways,
frames to support the shaft, pipes--in short, all that constituted
the machinery of a mine had been brought up from its depths.
The exhausted mine was like the body of a huge fantastically-shaped
mastodon, from which all the organs of life have been taken,
and only the skeleton remains.
Nothing was left but long wooden ladders, down the Yarrow shaft--the only
one which now gave access to the lower galleries of the Dochart pit.
Above ground, the sheds, formerly sheltering the outside works,
still marked the spot where the shaft of that pit had been sunk,
it being now abandoned, as were the other pits, of which the whole
constituted the mines of Aberfoyle.
It was a sad day, when for the last time the workmen quitted the mine,
in which they had lived for so many years. The engineer, James Starr,
had collected the hundreds of
workmen which composed the active and courageous population of the mine.
Overmen, brakemen, putters, wastemen, barrowmen, masons, smiths,
carpenters, outside and inside laborers, women, children, and old men,
all were collected in the great yard of the Dochart pit, formerly heaped
with coal from the mine.
Many of these families had existed for generations in the mine
of old Aberfoyle; they were now driven to seek the means
of subsistence elsewhere, and they waited sadly to bid farewell
to the engineer.
James Starr stood upright, at the door of the vast shed in which he had
for so many years superintended the powerful machines of the shaft.
Simon Ford, the foreman of the Dochart pit, then fifty-five years of age,
and other managers and overseers, surrounded him. James Starr took
off his hat. The miners, cap in hand, kept a profound silence.
This farewell scene was of a touching character, not wanting in grandeur.
"My friends," said the engineer, "the time has come for us to separate.
The Aberfoyle mines, which for so many years have united us
in a common work, are now exhausted. All our researches
have not led to the discovery of a new vein, and the last
block of coal has just been extracted from the Dochart pit."
And in confirmation of his words, James Starr pointed to a lump
of coal which had been kept at the bottom of a basket.
"This piece of coal, my friends," resumed James Starr, "is like the
last drop of blood which has flowed through the veins of the mine!
We shall keep it, as the first fragment of coal is kept,
which was extracted a hundred and fifty years ago from the bearings
of Aberfoyle. Between these two pieces, how many generations
of workmen have succeeded each other in our pits! Now, it is over!
The last words which your engineer will address to you are a farewell.
You have lived in this mine, which your hands have emptied.
The work has been hard, but not without profit for you.
Our great family must disperse, and it is not probable
that the future will ever again unite the scattered members.
But do not forget that we have lived together for a long time,
and that it will be the duty of the miners of Aberfoyle to help
each other. Your old masters will not forget you either.
When men have worked together, they must never be stranger
to each other again.
We shall keep our eye on you, and wherever you go,
our recommendations shall follow you. Farewell then, my friends,
and may Heaven be with you!"
So saying, James Starr wrung the horny hand of the oldest miner,
whose eyes were dim with tears. Then the overmen of the different
pits came forward to shake hands with him, whilst the miners
waved their caps, shouting, "Farewell, James Starr, our master
and our friend!"
This farewell would leave a lasting remembrance in all these
honest hearts. Slowly and sadly the population quitted the yard.
The black soil of the roads leading to the Dochart pit resounded
for the last time to the tread of miners' feet, and silence
succeeded to the bustling life which had till then filled
the Aberfoyle mines.
One man alone remained by James Starr. This was the overman,
Simon Ford. Near him stood a boy, about fifteen years of age,
who for some years already had been employed down below.
James Starr and Simon Ford knew and esteemed each other well.
"Good-by, Simon," said the engineer.
"Good-by, Mr. Starr," replied the overman, "let me add,
till we meet again!"
"Yes, till we meet again. Ford!" answered James Starr. "You know
that I shall be always glad to see you, and talk over old times."
"I know that, Mr. Starr."
"My house in Edinburgh is always open to you."
"It's a long way off, is Edinburgh!" answered the man shaking his head.
"Ay, a long way from the Dochart pit."
"A long way, Simon? Where do you mean to live?"
"Even here, Mr. Starr! We're not going to leave the mine,
our good old nurse, just because her milk is dried up!
My wife, my boy, and myself, we mean to remain faithful to her!"
"Good-by then, Simon," replied the engineer, whose voice,
in spite of himself, betrayed some emotion.
"No, I tell you, it's TILL WE MEET AGAIN, Mr. Starr,
and not Just 'good-by,'" returned the foreman. "Mark my words,
Aberfoyle will see you again!"
The engineer did not try to dispel the man's illusion. He
patted Harry's head, again wrung the father's hand, and left the mine.
All this had taken place ten years ago; but, notwithstanding the wish
which the overman had expressed to see him again, during that time
Starr had heard nothing of him. It was after ten years of separation
that he got this letter from Simon Ford, requesting him to take without
delay the road to the old Aberfoyle colliery.
A communication of an interesting nature, what could it be?
Dochart pit. Yarrow shaft! What recollections of the past
these names brought back to him! Yes, that was a fine time,
that of work, of struggle,--the best part of the engineer's life.
Starr re-read his letter. He pondered over it in all its bearings.
He much regretted that just a line more had not been added
by Ford. He wished he had not been quite so laconic.
Was it possible that the old foreman had discovered some
new vein? No! Starr remembered with what minute care the mines
had been explored before the definite cessation of the works.
He had himself proceeded to the lowest soundings without finding
the least trace in the soil, burrowed in every direction.
They had even attempted to find coal under strata which are usually
below it, such as the Devonian red sandstone, but without result.
James Starr had therefore abandoned the mine with the absolute
conviction that it did not contain another bit of coal.
"No," he repeated, "no! How is it possible that anything
which could have escaped my researches, should be revealed
to those of Simon Ford. However, the old overman must well
know that such a discovery would be the one thing in the world
to interest me, and this invitation, which I must keep secret,
to repair to the Dochart pit!" James Starr always came
back to that.
On the other hand, the engineer knew Ford to be a clever miner,
peculiarly endowed with the instinct of his trade.
He had not seen him since the time when the Aberfoyle
colliery was abandoned, and did not know either what he was
doing or where he was living, with his wife and his son.
All that he now knew was, that a rendezvous had been appointed
him at the Yarrow shaft, and that Harry, Simon Ford's son,
was to wait for him during the whole of the next day at
the Callander station.
"I shall go, I shall go!" said Starr, his excitement increasing
as the time drew near.
Our worthy engineer belonged to that class of men whose brain is always
on the boil, like a kettle on a hot fire. In some of these brain
kettles the ideas bubble over, in others they just simmer quietly.
Now on this day, James Starr's ideas were boiling fast.
But suddenly an unexpected incident occurred. This was the drop of cold
water, which in a moment was to condense all the vapors of the brain.
About six in the evening, by the third post, Starr's servant brought
him a second letter. This letter was enclosed in a coarse envelope,
and evidently directed by a hand unaccustomed to the use of a pen.
James Starr tore it open. It contained only a scrap of paper,
yellowed by time, and apparently torn out of an old copy book.
On this paper was written a single sentence, thus worded:
"It is useless for the engineer James Starr to trouble himself,
Simon Ford's letter being now without object."
No signature.
CHAPTER II ON THE ROAD
THE course of James Starr's ideas was abruptly stopped,
when he got this second letter contradicting the first.
"What does this mean?" said he to himself. He took up the torn envelope,
and examined it. Like the other, it bore the Aberfoyle postmark.
It had therefore come from the same part of the county of Stirling.
The old miner had evidently not written it. But, no less evidently,
the author of this second letter knew the overman's secret,
since it expressly contradicted the invitation to the engineer to go
to the Yarrow shaft.
Was it really true that the first communication was now without object?
Did someone wish to prevent James Starr from troubling himself either
uselessly or otherwise? Might there not be rather a malevolent intention
to thwart Ford's plans?
This was the conclusion at which James Starr arrived,
after mature reflection. The contradiction which existed
between the two letters only wrought in him a more keen
desire to visit the Dochart pit. And besides, if after all it was
a hoax, it was well worth while to prove it. Starr also thought it
wiser to give more credence to the first letter than to the second;
that is to say, to the request of such a man as Simon Ford,
rather than to the warning of his anonymous contradictor.
"Indeed," said he, "the fact of anyone endeavoring to influence my
resolution, shows that Ford's communication must be of great importance.
To-morrow, at the appointed time, I shall be at the rendezvous."
In the evening, Starr made his preparations for departure.
As it might happen that his absence would be prolonged for some days,
he wrote to Sir W. Elphiston, President of the Royal Institution,
that he should be unable to be present at the next meeting
of the Society. He also wrote to excuse himself from two
or three engagements which he had made for the week.
Then, having ordered his servant to pack a traveling bag,
he went to bed, more excited than the affair perhaps warranted.
The next day, at five o'clock, James Starr jumped out of bed,
dressed himself warmly, for a cold rain was falling, and left his
house in the Canongate, to go to Granton Pier to catch the steamer,
which in three hours would take him up the Forth as far as Stirling.
For the first time in his life, perhaps, in passing along the Canongate,
he did NOT TURN TO LOOK AT HOLYROOD, the palace of the former
sovereigns of Scotland. He did not notice the sentinels who stood
before its gateways, dressed in the uniform of their Highland regiment,
tartan kilt, plaid and sporran complete. His whole thought was to reach
Callander where Harry Ford was supposedly awaiting him.
The better to understand this narrative, it will be as well to hear
a few words on the origin of coal. During the geological epoch,
when the terrestrial spheroid was still in course of formation,
a thick atmosphere surrounded it, saturated with watery vapors,
and copiously impregnated with carbonic acid. The vapors gradually
condensed in diluvial rains, which fell as if they had leapt
from the necks of thousands of millions of seltzer water bottles.
This liquid, loaded with carbonic acid, rushed in torrents over
a deep soft soil, subject to sudden or slow alterations of
form, and maintained in its semi-fluid state as much by the heat
of the sun as by the fires of the interior mass. The internal
heat had not as yet been collected in the center of the globe.
The terrestrial crust, thin and incompletely hardened, allowed it
to spread through its pores. This caused a peculiar form of vegetation,
such as is probably produced on the surface of the inferior planets,
Venus or Mercury, which revolve nearer than our earth around
the radiant sun of our system.
The soil of the continents was covered with immense forests.
Carbonic acid, so suitable for the development of the vegetable
kingdom, abounded. The feet of these trees were drowned in a sort
of immense lagoon, kept continually full by currents of fresh
and salt waters. They eagerly assimilated to themselves the carbon
which they, little by little, extracted from the atmosphere,
as yet unfit for the function of life, and it may be said
that they were destined to store it, in the form of coal,
in the very bowels of the earth.
It was the earthquake period, caused by internal convulsions,
which suddenly modified the unsettled features of the
terrestrial surface. Here, an intumescence which was to become
a mountain, there, an abyss which was to be filled with an ocean
or a sea. There, whole forests sunk through the earth's crust,
below the unfixed strata, either until they found a resting-place,
such as the primitive bed of granitic rock, or, settling together
in a heap, they formed a solid mass.
As the waters were contained in no bed, and were spread over every
part of the globe, they rushed where they liked, tearing from
the scarcely-formed rocks material with which to compose schists,
sandstones, and limestones. This the roving waves bore over
the submerged and now peaty forests, and deposited above them
the elements of rocks which were to superpose the coal strata.
In course of time, periods of which include millions of years,
these earths hardened in layers, and enclosed under a thick
carapace of pudding-stone, schist, compact or friable sandstone,
gravel and stones, the whole of the massive forests.
And what went on in this gigantic crucible, where all this
vegetable matter had accumulated, sunk to various depths?
A regular chemical operation, a sort of distillation.
All the carbon contained in these vegetables had agglomerated,
and little by little coal was forming under the double influence
of enormous pressure and the high temperature maintained by
the internal fires, at this time so close to it.
Thus there was one kingdom substituted for another in this
slow but irresistible reaction. The vegetable was transformed
into a mineral. Plants which had lived the vegeta-tive
life in all the vigor of first creation became petrified.
Some of the substances enclosed in this vast herbal left their
impression on the other more rapidly mineralized products,
which pressed them as an hydraulic press of incalculable power
would have done.
Thus also shells, zoophytes, star-fish, polypi, spirifores, even fish
and lizards brought by the water, left on the yet soft coal their
exact likeness, "admirably taken off."
Pressure seems to have played a considerable part in the formation
of carboniferous strata. In fact, it is to its degree of power that
are due the different sorts of coal, of which industry makes use.
Thus in the lowest layers of the coal ground appears the anthracite,
which, being almost destitute of volatile matter, contains the greatest
quantity of carbon. In the higher beds are found, on the contrary,
lignite and fossil wood, substances in which the quantity of carbon
is infinitely less. Between these two beds, according to the degree
of pressure to which they have been subjected, are found veins
of graphite and rich or poor coal. It may be asserted that it is
for want of sufficient pressure that beds of peaty bog have not been
completely changed into coal. So then, the origin of coal mines,
in whatever part of the globe they have been discovered, is this:
the absorption through the terrestrial crust of the great forests
of the geological period; then, the mineralization of the vegetables
obtained in the course of time, under the influence of pressure and heat,
and under the action of carbonic acid.
Now, at the time when the events related in this story took place,
some of the most important mines of the Scottish coal beds had
been exhausted by too rapid working. In the region which extends
between Edinburgh and Glasgow, for a distance of ten or twelve miles,
lay the Aberfoyle colliery, of which the engineer, James Starr,
had so long
directed the works. For ten years these mines had been abandoned.
No new seams had been discovered, although the soundings had been
carried to a depth of fifteen hundred or even of two thousand feet,
and when James Starr had retired, it was with the full conviction
that even the smallest vein had been completely exhausted.
Under these circumstances, it was plain that the discovery
of a new seam of coal would be an important event.
Could Simon Ford's communication relate to a fact of this nature?
This question James Starr could not cease asking himself.
Was he called to make conquest of another corner of these rich
treasure fields? Fain would he hope it was so.
The second letter had for an instant checked his speculations on this
subject, but now he thought of that letter no longer. Besides, the son
of the old overman was there, waiting at the appointed rendezvous.
The anonymous letter was therefore worth nothing.
The moment the engineer set foot on the platform at the end
of his journey, the young man advanced towards him.
"Are you Harry Ford?" asked the engineer quickly.
"Yes, Mr. Starr."
"I should not have known you, my lad. Of course in ten years
you have become a man!"
"I knew you directly, sir," replied the young miner, cap in hand.
"You have not changed. You look just as you did when you bade us
good-by in the Dochart pit. I haven't forgotten that day."
"Put on your cap, Harry," said the engineer. "It's pouring,
and politeness needn't make you catch cold."
"Shall we take shelter anywhere, Mr. Starr?" asked young Ford.
"No, Harry. The weather is settled. It will rain all day,
and I am in a hurry. Let us go on."
"I am at your orders," replied Harry.
"Tell me, Harry, is your father well?"
"Very well, Mr. Starr."
"And your mother?"
"She is well, too."
"Was it your father who wrote telling me to come to the Yarrow shaft?"
"No, it was I."
"Then did Simon Ford send me a second letter to contradict the first?"
asked the engineer quickly.
"No, Mr. Starr," answered the young miner.
"Very well," said Starr, without speaking of the anonymous letter.
Then, continuing, "And can you tell me what you father wants with me?"
"Mr. Starr, my father wishes to tell you himself."
"But you know what it is?"
"I do, sir."
"Well, Harry, I will not ask you more. But let us get on, for I'm
anxious to see Simon Ford. By-the-bye, where does he live?"
"In the mine."
"What! In the Dochart pit?"
"Yes, Mr. Starr," replied Harry.
"Really! has your family never left the old mine since the cessation
of the works?"
"Not a day, Mr. Starr. You know my father. It is there he was born,
it is there he means to die!"
"I can understand that, Harry. I can understand that! His native mine!
He did not like to abandon it! And are you happy there?"
"Yes, Mr. Starr," replied the young miner, "for we love one another,
and we have but few wants."
"Well, Harry," said the engineer, "lead the way."
And walking rapidly through the streets of Callander, in a few
minutes they had left the town behind them.
CHAPTER III THE DOCHART PIT
HARRY FORD was a fine, strapping fellow of five and twenty.
His grave looks, his habitually passive expression, had from
childhood been noticed among his comrades in the mine.
His regular features, his deep blue eyes, his curly hair,
rather chestnut than fair, the natural grace of his person,
altogether made him a fine specimen of a lowlander.
Accustomed from his earliest days to the work of the mine,
he was strong and hardy, as well as brave and good.
Guided by his father, and impelled by his own inclinations,
he had early begun his education, and at an age when most lads
are little more than apprentices, he had managed to make himself
of some importance, a leader, in fact, among his fellows,
and few are very ignorant in a country which does all it can
to remove ignorance. Though, during the first years of his youth,
the pick was never out of Harry's hand, nevertheless the young
miner was not long in acquiring sufficient knowledge to raise
him into the upper class of the miners, and he would certainly
have succeeded his father as overman of the Dochart pit,
if the colliery had not been abandoned.
James Starr was still a good walker, yet he could not easily
have kept up with his guide, if the latter had not slackened
his pace. The young man, carrying the engineer's bag,
followed the left bank of the river for about a mile. Leaving its
winding course, they took a road under tall, dripping trees.
Wide fields lay on either side, around isolated farms.
In one field a herd of hornless cows were quietly grazing;
in another sheep with silky wool, like those in a child's
toy sheep fold.
The Yarrow shaft was situated four miles from Callander. Whilst walking,
James Starr could not but be struck with the change in the country.
He had not seen it since the day when the last ton of Aberfoyle coal had
been emptied into railway trucks to be sent to Glasgow. Agricultural life
had now taken the place of the more stirring, active, industrial life.
The contrast was all the greater because, during winter, field work is at
a standstill. But formerly, at whatever season, the mining population,
above and below ground, filled the scene with animation. Great wagons
of coal used to be passing night and day. The rails, with their
rotten sleepers, now disused, were then constantly ground by the weight
of wagons. Now stony roads took the place of the old mining tramways.
James Starr felt as if he was traversing a desert.
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