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.