Edgar Rice Burroughs

At the Earth's Core Annotated Edgar Rice Burroughs

At the Earth's Core is a 1914 fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first in his series about the fictional "hollow earth" land of Pellucidar. David Innes is a mining heir who finances the experimental "iron mole," an excavating vehicle designed by his elderly inventor friend Abner Perry. In a test run, they discover the vehicle cannot be turned, and it burrows 500 miles into the Earth's crust, emerging into the unknown interior world of Pellucidar. This strange world is inhabited by prehistoric creatures of all geological eras, and dominated by the Mahars, a species of flying reptile both intelligent and civilized, but which enslaves and preys on the local stone-age humans.