Jules Verne

The Underground City Jules Verne

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 HarryFord, 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 todoubt whether this letter might not be a hoax. For many years he had known SimonFord, one of the former foremen of the Aberfoyle mines, of which he, James Starr, hadfor 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 yearsweighed no more heavily than if they had been forty. He belonged to an old Edinburghfamily, and was one of its most distinguished members. His labors did credit to the bodyof engineers who are gradually devouring the carboniferous subsoil of the UnitedKingdom, as much at Cardiff and Newcastle, as in the southern counties of Scotlan