Dochart Pit

Fictional record. This page describes a mine from a fictional setting, not a real place. Information is based on the cited canon, with adaptations and interpretation distinguished where necessary. It is kept separate from the real MineArchive corpus — see Fictional.

Overview

The pit of the Aberfoyle coal-mines in Jules Verne's 1877 novel The Underground City. Given up as exhausted, it hides a vast new seam in a natural cavern under Loch Katrine, where the old overman Simon Ford and the engineer James Starr found New Aberfoyle and its underground settlement, Coal Town, while a vengeful former 'monk' of the pit tries to destroy it.

History

The Aberfoyle coal-mines near Stirling were given up when their seams were thought exhausted, and the engineer James Starr said farewell to the miners at the Dochart pit. The overman Simon Ford refused to leave and stayed underground with his wife Madge and son Harry. Ten years later he summoned Starr secretly to the Yarrow shaft: he had found a huge new seam in a natural cavern stretching beneath the lochs and hills of Stirlingshire. New Aberfoyle was opened, and the miners settled underground in Coal Town on the banks of Loch Malcolm, a subterranean lake, lit by electric discs, with a chapel of St Giles. Mysterious accidents dogged the work: fires, a sawn-through water tank, falls, and finally the sudden emptying of Loch Katrine into the mine. They were the work of Silfax, the last 'monk' of the Dochart pit, who had fired fire-damp in the workings before safety lamps and had lived in the mine ever since with his granddaughter Nell and an owl, Harfang. At Harry and Nell's wedding he tried to destroy the mine with fire-damp, and drowned himself.

Workings

The Dochart pit's old galleries, reached in the story only by long wooden ladders down the Yarrow shaft; New Aberfoyle's natural galleries and tunnels in the seam, a double railway in a sloping tunnel with hydraulically hauled wagons, ventilation shafts, and electric lighting throughout Coal Town.

Closure

The old Dochart workings were abandoned when the seams were thought exhausted; the new workings flourish at the end of the novel.

What became of it

Working at the end of the novel, with Coal Town established and Silfax dead.

Canon & adaptations

The record follows the anonymous English translation on Project Gutenberg (The Underground City; or, The Black Indies); other translations are titled The Child of the Cavern and Black Diamonds and may spell names differently. The novel gives no year for the story.

Recorded claims

Each claim is marked with its basis — explicit canon, MineArchive inference, adaptation only, or fandom interpretation — and attached to the source(s) below. Where tellings disagree, both are kept.

• The Dochart pit, reached by the Yarrow shaft, was one of the pits of the Aberfoyle coal-mines. (explicit canon) ¹
• The Aberfoyle mine was abandoned as worked out about ten years before the story. (explicit canon) ^1,2
• Simon Ford, the old overman who stayed in the mine, discovered a large new vein of coal. (explicit canon) ^1,2
• The miners settled underground in Coal Town, on Loch Malcolm, beneath the eastern end of Loch Katrine. (explicit canon) ^1,2
• The sabotage was the work of Silfax, the last 'monk' of the Dochart pit, who had lived in the mine since its closure with his granddaughter Nell. (explicit canon) ^1,2
• Loch Katrine suddenly emptied through a fissure in its bed into the depths of the mine, raising Loch Malcolm. (explicit canon) ¹

Sources

1. (primary canon) Jules Verne, The Underground City; or, The Black Indies (Project Gutenberg eBook #1355) — Project Gutenberg
2. (interpretation) The Underground City — Wikipedia — Wikipedia

Record created: 9 October 2026 · Last researched: 11 October 2026