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.
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