Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
Chapter 16 -- Underground Rivers in English Fiction
Arthur Conan Doyle practiced medicine in Hampshire. But once his A Study in Scarlet (1887)
introduced Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson to the reading public, its creator had no
time to practice medicine.
Doyle wrote much more than mysteries. The Lost World (1912) was his effort at a popular "boy's
book," a tale chronicling the adventures of explorers who discover dinosaurs and ape-men in the
jungles of South America. At one point, the explorers evaluate a lake with no visible outlet.
"It is more than likely that the lake may be an old crater," said Summerlee. "The whole
formation is, of course, highly volcanic. But, however that may be, I should expect to find the
surface of the plateau slope inwards with a considerable sheet of water in the center, which
may drain off, by some subterranean channel, into the marshes of the Jaracaca Swamp."
"Or evaporation might preserve an equilibrium," remarked Challenger, and the two learned men
wandered off into one of their usual scientific arguments, which were as comprehensible as
Chinese to the layman.
In the manner of his popular mysteries, Doyle added a professorial character to elucidate the
reader. Elementary, my dear Watson. Outflow equals inflow less evaporation less underground
discharge to Jarracaca Springs.
Doyle's wife, chronically ill, died in 1907. His son perished in the Great War and Dole's last years
turned increasingly toward spiritual quest, and in particular, desire to communicate with the
deceased. Doyle's Tales of Terror and Mystery (1922) included the short story "The Terror of
Blue John Gap." This work was, as its title suggests, not written to celebrate science.
The farm consists of grazing land lying at the bottom of an irregular valley. On each side are
the fantastic limestone hills, formed of rock so soft that you can break it away with your hands.
All this country is hollow. Could you strike it with some gigantic hammer it would boom like a
drum, or possibly cave in altogether and expose some huge subterranean sea. A great sea
there must surely be, for on all sides the streams run into the mountain itself, never to reappear.
My view is -- and it was formed, as is shown by my diary, before my personal adventure--that in
this part of England there is a vast subterranean lake or sea, which is fed by the great number
of streams which pass down through the limestone. Where there is a large collection of water
there must also be some evaporation, mists or rain, and a possibility of vegetation. This in turn
suggests that there may be animal life, arising, as the vegetable life would also do, from those
seeds and types which had been introduced at an early period of the world's history, when
communication with the outer air was more easy.
As Doyle embraced spiritualism, the behavior of his great underground sea became less
elementary.
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