were not sufficient
to admit much daylight into New Aberfoyle, yet it had abundance of
light. This was shed from numbers of electric discs; some suspended from
the vaulted roofs, others hanging on the natural pillars--all, whether
suns or stars in size, were fed by continuous currents produced from
electro-magnetic machines. When the hour of rest arrived, an artificial
night was easily produced all over the mine by disconnecting the wires.

Below the dome lay a lake of an extent to be compared to the Dead Sea
of the Mammoth caves--a deep lake whose transparent waters swarmed with
eyeless fish, and to which the engineer gave the name of Loch Malcolm.

There, in this immense natural excavation, Simon Ford built his new
cottage, which he would not have exchanged for the finest house in
Prince's Street, Edinburgh. This dwelling was situated on the shores
of the loch, and its five windows looked out on the dark waters, which
extended further than the eye could see. Two months later a second
habitation was erected in the neighborhood of Simon Ford's cottage: this
was for James Starr. The engineer had given himself body and soul to New
Aberfoyle, and nothing but the most imperative necessity ever caused
him to leave the pit. There, then, he lived in the midst of his mining
world.

On the discovery of the new field, all the old colliers had hastened to
leave the plow and harrow, and resume the pick and mattock. Attracted
by the certainty that work would never fail, allured by the high wages
which the prosperity of the mine enabled the company to offer for labor,
they deserted the open air for an underground life, and took up their
abode in the mines.

The miners' houses, built of brick, soon grew up in a picturesque
fashion; some on the banks of Loch Malcolm, others under the arches
which seemed made to resist the weight that pressed upon them, like the
piers of a bridge. So was founded Coal Town, situated under the eastern
point of Loch Katrine, to the north of the county of Stirling. It was a
regular settlement on the banks of Loch Malcolm. A chapel, dedicated
to St. Giles, overlooked it from the top of a huge rock, whose foot was
laved by the waters of the subterranean sea.

When this underground town was lighted up by the bright rays thrown from
the discs, hung from the pillars and arches, its aspect was so strange,
so fantastic, that it justified the praise of the guide-books, and
visitors flocked to see it.

It is