NEW ABERFOYLE
The old overman’s experiment had succeeded. Firedamp, it is well known,
is only generated in coal seams; therefore the existence of a vein of
precious combustible could no longer be doubted. As to its size and
quality, that must be determined later.
“Yes,” thought James Starr, “behind that wall lies a carboniferous bed,
undiscovered by our soundings. It is vexatious that all the apparatus
of the mine, deserted for ten years, must be set up anew. Never mind.
We have found the vein which was thought to be exhausted, and this time
it shall be worked to the end!”
“Well, Mr. Starr,” asked Ford, “what do you think of our discovery? Was
I wrong to trouble you? Are you sorry to have paid this visit to the
Dochart pit?”
“No, no, my old friend!” answered Starr. “We have not lost our time;
but we shall be losing it now, if we do not return immediately to the
cottage. To-morrow we will come back here. We will blast this wall with
dynamite. We will lay open the new vein, and after a series of
soundings, if the seam appears to be large, I will form a new Aberfoyle
Company, to the great satisfaction of the old shareholders. Before
three months have passed, the first corves full of coal will have been
taken from the new vein.”
“Well said, sir!” cried Simon Ford. “The old mine will grow young
again, like a widow who remarries! The bustle of the old days will soon
begin with the blows of the pick, and mattock, blasts of powder,
rumbling of wagons, neighing of horses, creaking of machines! I shall
see it all again! I hope, Mr. Starr, that you will not think me too old
to resume my duties of overman?”
“No, Simon, no indeed! You wear better than I do, my old friend!”
“And, sir, you shall be our viewer again. May the new working last for
many years, and pray Heaven I shall have the consolation of dying
without seeing the end of it!”
The old miner was overflowing with joy. James Starr fully entered into
it; but he let Ford rave for them both. Harry alone remained
thoughtful. To his memory recurred the succession of singular,
inexplicable circumstances attending the discovery of the new bed. It
made him uneasy about the future.
An hour afterwards, James Starr and his two companions were back in the
cottage. The engineer supped with good appetite, listening with
satisfaction to all the plans unfolded by the old overman; and had it
not been for his excitement about the next day’s work, he would never
have slept better than in the perfect stillness of the cottage.
The following day, after a substantial breakfast, James Starr, Simon
Ford, Harry, and even Madge herself, took the road already traversed
the day before. All looked like regular miners. They carried different
tools, and some dynamite with which to blast the rock. Harry, besides a
large lantern, took a safety lamp, which would burn for twelve hours.
It was more than was necessary for the journey there and back,
including the time for the working—supposing a working was possible.
“To work! to work!” shouted Ford, when the party reached the further
end of the passage; and he grasped a heavy crowbar and brandished it.
“Stop one instant,” said Starr. “Let us see if any change has taken
place, and if the fire-damp still escapes through the crevices.”
“You are right, Mr. Starr,” said Harry. “Whoever stopped it up
yesterday may have done it again to-day!”
Madge, seated on a rock, carefully observed the excavation, and the
wall which was to be blasted.
It was found that everything was just as they left it. The crevices had
undergone no alteration; the carburetted hydrogen still filtered
through, though in a small stream, which was no doubt because it had
had a free passage since the day before. As the quantity was so small,
it could not have formed an explosive mixture with the air inside.
James Starr and his companions could therefore proceed in security.
Besides, the air grew purer by rising to the heights of the Dochart
pit; and the fire-damp, spreading through the atmosphere, would not be
strong enough to make any explosion.
“To work, then!” repeated Ford; and soon the rock flew in splinters
under his skillful blows. The break was chiefly composed of
pudding-stone, interspersed with sandstone and schist, such as is most
often met with between the coal veins. James Starr picked up some of
the pieces, and examined them carefully, hoping to discover some trace
of coal.
Starr having chosen the place where the holes were to be drilled, they
were rapidly bored by Harry. Some cartridges of dynamite were put into
them. As soon as the long, tarred safety match was laid, it was lighted
on a level with the ground. James Starr and his companions then went
off to some distance.
“Oh! Mr. Starr,” said Simon Ford, a prey to agitation, which he did not
attempt to conceal, “never, no, never has my old heart beaten so quick
before! I am longing to get at the vein!”
“Patience, Simon!” responded the engineer. “You don’t mean to say that
you think you are going to find a passage all ready open behind that
dyke?”
“Excuse me, sir,” answered the old overman; “but of course I think so!
If there was good luck in the way Harry and I discovered this place,
why shouldn’t the good luck go on?”
As he spoke, came the explosion. A sound as of thunder rolled through
the labyrinth of subterranean galleries. Starr, Madge, Harry, and Simon
Ford hastened towards the spot.
“Mr. Starr! Mr. Starr!” shouted the overman. “Look! the door is broken
open!”
Ford’s comparison was justified by the appearance of an excavation, the
depth of which could not be calculated. Harry was about to spring
through the opening; but the engineer, though excessively surprised to
find this cavity, held him back. “Allow time for the air in there to
get pure,” said he.
“Yes! beware of the foul air!” said Simon.
A quarter of an hour was passed in anxious waiting. The lantern was
then fastened to the end of a stick, and introduced into the cave,
where it continued to burn with unaltered brilliancy. “Now then, Harry,
go,” said Starr, “and we will follow you.”
The opening made by the dynamite was sufficiently large to allow a man
to pass through. Harry, lamp in hand, entered unhesitatingly, and
disappeared in the darkness. His father, mother, and James Starr waited
in silence. A minute—which seemed to them much longer—passed. Harry did
not reappear, did not call. Gazing into the opening, James Starr could
not even see the light of his lamp, which ought to have illuminated the
dark cavern.
Had the ground suddenly given way under Harry’s feet? Had the young
miner fallen into some crevice? Could his voice no longer reach his
companions?
The old overman, dead to their remonstrances, was about to enter the
opening, when a light appeared, dim at first, but gradually growing
brighter, and Harry’s voice was heard shouting, “Come, Mr. Starr! come,
father! The road to New Aberfoyle is open!”
If, by some superhuman power, engineers could have raised in a block, a
thousand feet thick, all that portion of the terrestrial crust which
supports the lakes, rivers, gulfs, and territories of the counties of
Stirling, Dumbarton, and Renfrew, they would have found, under that
enormous lid, an immense excavation, to which but one other in the
world can be compared—the celebrated Mammoth caves of Kentucky. This
excavation was composed of several hundred divisions of all sizes and
shapes. It might be called a hive with numberless ranges of cells,
capriciously arranged, but a hive on a vast scale, and which, instead
of bees, might have lodged all the ichthyosauri, megatheriums, and
pterodactyles of the geological epoch.
A labyrinth of galleries, some higher than the most lofty cathedrals,
others like cloisters, narrow and winding—these following a horizontal
line, those on an incline or running obliquely in all
directions—connected the caverns and allowed free communication between
them.
The pillars sustaining the vaulted roofs, whose curves allowed of every
style, the massive walls between the passages, the naves themselves in
this layer of secondary formation, were composed of sandstone and
schistous rocks. But tightly packed between these useless strata ran
valuable veins of coal, as if the black blood of this strange mine had
circulated through their tangled network. These fields extended forty
miles north and south, and stretched even under the Caledonian Canal.
The importance of this bed could not be calculated until after
soundings, but it would certainly surpass those of Cardiff and
Newcastle.
We may add that the working of this mine would be singularly
facilitated by the fantastic dispositions of the secondary earths; for
by an unaccountable retreat of the mineral matter at the geological
epoch, when the mass was solidifying, nature had already multiplied the
galleries and tunnels of New Aberfoyle.
Yes, nature alone! It might at first have been supposed that some works
abandoned for centuries had been discovered afresh. Nothing of the
sort. No one would have deserted such riches. Human termites had never
gnawed away this part of the Scottish subsoil; nature herself had done
it all. But, we repeat, it could be compared to nothing but the
celebrated Mammoth caves, which, in an extent of more than twenty
miles, contain two hundred and twenty-six avenues, eleven lakes, seven
rivers, eight cataracts, thirty-two unfathomable wells, and fifty-seven
domes, some of which are more than four hundred and fifty feet in
height. Like these caves, New Aberfoyle was not the work of men, but
the work of the Creator.
Such was this new domain, of matchless wealth, the discovery of which
belonged entirely to the old overman. Ten years’ sojourn in the
deserted mine, an uncommon pertinacity in research, perfect faith,
sustained by a marvelous mining instinct—all these qualities together
led him to succeed where so many others had failed. Why had the
soundings made under the direction of James Starr during the last years
of the working stopped just at that limit, on the very frontier of the
new mine? That was all chance, which takes great part in researches of
this kind.
However that might be, there was, under the Scottish subsoil, what
might be called a subterranean county, which, to be habitable, needed
only the rays of the sun, or, for want of that, the light of a special
planet.
Water had collected in various hollows, forming vast ponds, or rather
lakes larger than Loch Katrine, lying just above them. Of course the
waters of these lakes had no movement of currents or tides; no old
castle was reflected there; no birch or oak trees waved on their banks.
And yet these deep lakes, whose mirror-like surface was never ruffled
by a breeze, would not be without charm by the light of some electric
star, and, connected by a string of canals, would well complete the
geography of this strange domain.
Although unfit for any vegetable production, the place could be
inhabited by a whole population. And who knows but that in this steady
temperature, in the depths of the mines of Aberfoyle, as well as in
those of Newcastle, Alloa, or Cardiff—when their contents shall have
been exhausted—who knows but that the poorer classes of Great Britain
will some day find a refuge?