Les indes-noirs. English Read online

  CHAPTER VII. 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 ofprecious combustible could no longer be doubted. As to its size andquality, 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 apparatusof the mine, deserted for ten years, must be set up anew. Never mind. Wehave found the vein which was thought to be exhausted, and this time itshall be worked to the end!"

  "Well, Mr. Starr," asked Ford, "what do you think of our discovery? WasI wrong to trouble you? Are you sorry to have paid this visit to theDochart 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 thecottage. To-morrow we will come back here. We will blast this wallwith dynamite. We will lay open the new vein, and after a series ofsoundings, if the seam appears to be large, I will form a new AberfoyleCompany, to the great satisfaction of the old shareholders. Before threemonths have passed, the first corves full of coal will have been takenfrom 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 beginwith the blows of the pick, and mattock, blasts of powder, rumbling ofwagons, neighing of horses, creaking of machines! I shall see it allagain! I hope, Mr. Starr, that you will not think me too old to resumemy 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 lastfor many years, and pray Heaven I shall have the consolation of dyingwithout seeing the end of it!"

  The old miner was overflowing with joy. James Starr fully entered intoit; but he let Ford rave for them both. Harry alone remained thoughtful.To his memory recurred the succession of singular, inexplicablecircumstances attending the discovery of the new bed. It made him uneasyabout the future.

  An hour afterwards, James Starr and his two companions were back inthe cottage. The engineer supped with good appetite, listening withsatisfaction to all the plans unfolded by the old overman; and had itnot been for his excitement about the next day's work, he would neverhave slept better than in the perfect stillness of the cottage.

  The following day, after a substantial breakfast, James Starr, SimonFord, Harry, and even Madge herself, took the road already traversedthe day before. All looked like regular miners. They carried differenttools, and some dynamite with which to blast the rock. Harry, besides alarge lantern, took a safety lamp, which would burn for twelve hours.It was more than was necessary for the journey there and back, includingthe time for the working--supposing a working was possible.

  "To work! to work!" shouted Ford, when the party reached the further endof the passage; and he grasped a heavy crowbar and brandished it.

  "Stop one instant," said Starr. "Let us see if any change has takenplace, and if the fire-damp still escapes through the crevices."

  "You are right, Mr. Starr," said Harry. "Whoever stopped it up yesterdaymay have done it again to-day!"

  Madge, seated on a rock, carefully observed the excavation, and the wallwhich was to be blasted.

  It was found that everything was just as they left it. The creviceshad undergone no alteration; the carburetted hydrogen still filteredthrough, though in a small stream, which was no doubt because it had hada free passage since the day before. As the quantity was so small, itcould not have formed an explosive mixture with the air inside. JamesStarr and his companions could therefore proceed in security. Besides,the air grew purer by rising to the heights of the Dochart pit; and thefire-damp, spreading through the atmosphere, would not be strong enoughto make any explosion.

  "To work, then!" repeated Ford; and soon the rock flew in splintersunder his skillful blows. The break was chiefly composed ofpudding-stone, interspersed with sandstone and schist, such as is mostoften met with between the coal veins. James Starr picked up some of thepieces, and examined them carefully, hoping to discover some trace ofcoal.

  Starr having chosen the place where the holes were to be drilled, theywere rapidly bored by Harry. Some cartridges of dynamite were put intothem. As soon as the long, tarred safety match was laid, it was lightedon a level with the ground. James Starr and his companions then went offto some distance.

  "Oh! Mr. Starr," said Simon Ford, a prey to agitation, which he did notattempt to conceal, "never, no, never has my old heart beaten so quickbefore! I am longing to get at the vein!"

  "Patience, Simon!" responded the engineer. "You don't mean to say thatyou think you are going to find a passage all ready open behind thatdyke?"

  "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, whyshouldn't the good luck go on?"

  As he spoke, came the explosion. A sound as of thunder rolled throughthe labyrinth of subterranean galleries. Starr, Madge, Harry, and SimonFord hastened towards the spot.

  "Mr. Starr! Mr. Starr!" shouted the overman. "Look! the door is brokenopen!"

  Ford's comparison was justified by the appearance of an excavation,the depth of which could not be calculated. Harry was about to springthrough the opening; but the engineer, though excessively surprised tofind this cavity, held him back. "Allow time for the air in there to getpure," said he.

  "Yes! beware of the foul air!" said Simon.

  A quarter of an hour was passed in anxious waiting. The lantern was thenfastened to the end of a stick, and introduced into the cave, where itcontinued to burn with unaltered brilliancy. "Now then, Harry, go," saidStarr, "and we will follow you."

  The opening made by the dynamite was sufficiently large to allow aman to pass through. Harry, lamp in hand, entered unhesitatingly, anddisappeared in the darkness. His father, mother, and James Starr waitedin silence. A minute--which seemed to them much longer--passed. Harrydid not reappear, did not call. Gazing into the opening, JamesStarr could not even see the light of his lamp, which ought to haveilluminated the dark cavern.

  Had the ground suddenly given way under Harry's feet? Had the youngminer fallen into some crevice? Could his voice no longer reach hiscompanions?

  The old overman, dead to their remonstrances, was about to enter theopening, when a light appeared, dim at first, but gradually growingbrighter, 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 whichsupports the lakes, rivers, gulfs, and territories of the counties ofStirling, Dumbarton, and Renfrew, they would have found, under thatenormous lid, an immense excavation, to which but one other in theworld can be compared--the celebrated Mammoth caves of Kentucky. Thisexcavation was composed of several hundred divisions of all sizes andshapes. It might be called a hive with numberless ranges of cells,capriciously arranged, but a hive on a vast scale, and which, insteadof bees, might have lodged all the ichthyosauri, megatheriums, andpterodactyles of the geological epoch.

  A labyrinth of galleries, some higher than the most lofty cathedrals,others like cloisters, narrow and winding--these following ahorizontal line, those on an incline or running obliquely in alldirections--connected the caverns and allowed free communication betweenthem.

  The pillars sustaining the vaulted roofs, whose curves allowed of everystyle, the massive walls between the passages, the naves themselvesin this layer of secondary formation, were composed of sandstone andschistous rocks. But tightly packed between these useless strata ranvaluable veins of coal, as if the black blood of this strange mine hadcirculated through their tangled network. These fields extended fortymiles north and south, and stretched even under the CaledonianCanal. The importance of this bed could not be calculated untilafter soundings, but it would certainly surpass
those of Cardiff andNewcastle.

  We may add that the working of this mine would be singularly facilitatedby the fantastic dispositions of the secondary earths; for by anunaccountable retreat of the mineral matter at the geological epoch,when the mass was solidifying, nature had already multiplied thegalleries and tunnels of New Aberfoyle.

  Yes, nature alone! It might at first have been supposed that some worksabandoned for centuries had been discovered afresh. Nothing of the sort.No one would have deserted such riches. Human termites had never gnawedaway this part of the Scottish subsoil; nature herself had done itall. But, we repeat, it could be compared to nothing but the celebratedMammoth caves, which, in an extent of more than twenty miles, containtwo hundred and twenty-six avenues, eleven lakes, seven rivers, eightcataracts, thirty-two unfathomable wells, and fifty-seven domes, someof which are more than four hundred and fifty feet in height. Likethese caves, New Aberfoyle was not the work of men, but the work of theCreator.

  Such was this new domain, of matchless wealth, the discovery of whichbelonged entirely to the old overman. Ten years' sojourn in the desertedmine, an uncommon pertinacity in research, perfect faith, sustained bya marvelous mining instinct--all these qualities together led him tosucceed where so many others had failed. Why had the soundings madeunder the direction of James Starr during the last years of the workingstopped just at that limit, on the very frontier of the new mine? Thatwas all chance, which takes great part in researches of this kind.

  However that might be, there was, under the Scottish subsoil, what mightbe called a subterranean county, which, to be habitable, needed only therays of the sun, or, for want of that, the light of a special planet.

  Water had collected in various hollows, forming vast ponds, or ratherlakes larger than Loch Katrine, lying just above them. Of course thewaters of these lakes had no movement of currents or tides; no oldcastle was reflected there; no birch or oak trees waved on their banks.And yet these deep lakes, whose mirror-like surface was never ruffled bya breeze, would not be without charm by the light of some electric star,and, connected by a string of canals, would well complete the geographyof this strange domain.

  Although unfit for any vegetable production, the place could beinhabited by a whole population. And who knows but that in this steadytemperature, in the depths of the mines of Aberfoyle, as well as inthose of Newcastle, Alloa, or Cardiff--when their contents shall havebeen exhausted--who knows but that the poorer classes of Great Britainwill some day find a refuge?