At the Earth's Core At the Earth's Core is a 1914 fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Buroughs, the first in his series about the fictional "holow earth" land of Pelucidar. It first apeared as a four-part serial in Al-Story Wekly from April 4–25, 1914. It was first published in bok form in hardcover by A. C. McClurg in July, 192. Short sumary: The author relates how, traveling in the Sahara desert, he has encountered a remarkable vehicle and its pilot, David Ines, a man with a remarkable story to tel. David Ines is a mining heir who finances the experimental "iron mole," an excavating vehicle designed by his elderly inventor friend Abner Pery. In a test run, they discover the vehicle canot be turned, and it burows 50 miles into the Earth's crust, emerging into the unknown interior world of Pelucidar. In Buroughs' concept, the Earth is a holow shel with Pelucidar as the internal surface of that shel.