The Underground City OR THE BLACK INDIES (Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern) By Jules Verne Verne, Jules. _Works of Jules Verne_. Ed. Charles F. Horne. Vol. 9. New York: F. Tyler Daniels Company, 1911. 277-394. Contents CHAPTER I. CONTRADICTORY LETTERS CHAPTER II. ON THE ROAD CHAPTER III. THE DOCHART PIT CHAPTER IV. THE FORD FAMILY CHAPTER V. SOME STRANGE PHENOMENA CHAPTER VI. SIMON FORD’S EXPERIMENT CHAPTER VII. NEW ABERFOYLE CHAPTER VIII. EXPLORING CHAPTER IX. THE FIRE-MAIDENS CHAPTER X. COAL TOWN CHAPTER XI. HANGING BY A THREAD CHAPTER XII. NELL ADOPTED CHAPTER XIII. ON THE REVOLVING LADDER CHAPTER XIV. A SUNRISE CHAPTER XV. LOCH LOMOND AND LOCH KATRINE CHAPTER XVI. A FINAL THREAT CHAPTER XVII. THE “MONK” CHAPTER XVIII. NELL’S WEDDING CHAPTER XIX. THE LEGEND OF OLD SILFAX 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