''The Sunless City: From the Papers and Diaries of the Late Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin'' (or simply ''The Sunless City'') is a
dime novel
The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term ''dime novel'' has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, r ...
written by
J. E. Preston Muddock in 1905. The novel is about a
prospector
Prospector may refer to:
Space exploration
* Prospector (spacecraft), a planned lunar probe, canceled in 1962
* '' Lunar Prospector'', a NASA spacecraft
Trains
* Prospector (train), a passenger train operated by the Denver & Rio Grande Western ...
named Josiah Flintabbaty Flonatin who explores a bottomless lake in a
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
, and discovers a land where the norms of society are backwards. The title character is the namesake for the city of
Flin Flon
Flin Flon (pop. 5,185 in 2016 census; 4,982 in Manitoba and 203 in Saskatchewan) is a mining city, located on a correction line on the border of the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with the majority of the city located within M ...
,
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
, Canada.
Plot
The story centres on the lead character, a prospector named Professor Josiah Flintabbaty Flonatin.
Flonatin travels by
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
through a bottomless lake in the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
. While exploring the depths of the lake he discovers a strange city.
Within the city the local currency is
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
, the streets are paved with gold, and the city is ruled by women. Flonatin, who is a bachelor, decides to escape the city, and does so by climbing out of a crater, which is actually an extinct
volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...
.
Flin Flon, Manitoba
''The Sunless City'' had been read by
Thomas Creighton, a prospector who had been exploring in the area of what would become the town of Flin Flon. In 1915 Creighton and some fellow prospectors discovered mineralization, and Creighton named the discovery "Flin Flon". There are various accounts as to how the discovery (which would become the namesake of the city) was named. In one account an associate of Creighton had brought some gold out of a hole from one of their claims, according to this account Creighton said:
A second account of the naming of the discovery suggests that the back pages of the book were missing (stopping at the point in the novel where Flonatin is climbing out of the crater), following Creighton's reading of the book, he approaches a deep hole, approximately wide, and said to his associates:
In 1962 a statue designed by
Al Capp of Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin was built in Flin Flon.
In 1978, the
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...
produced the short documentary ''Canada Vignettes: Flin Flon'' about the origin of the city's name.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sunless City
1905 British novels
British science fiction novels
Prospectors
Novels set in Manitoba
Flin Flon