Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 14 -- Hollow Earth Geophysics
Noting that other things in nature are likewise hollow -- bones, reeds and hair, for example -- and
using spherical bowls of sand, magnets and iron filings to demonstrate his physics, Symmes
carried his case to the public.
A Symmes’ advocate proposed to the United States Congress an expedition to the earth's interior
to open profitable trade with the natives. As Congress preferred to explore the West, not the
Under, however, the proposal was defeated, 56 to 46.
By 1824, Symmes had abandoned the idea of multiple concentric spheres in favor of a single
hollow shell. Late in life, Symmes sought to join a Russian polar expedition, but could not raise
the passage to St. Petersburg.
Capt. Adam Seaborn's Symzonia, Voyage of Discovery (1820) is
an account of how the author sailed over the rim of the world and
into the interior where there appear two suns and two moons,
refractions from the exterior. Seaborn's identity is unknown but
most believe nom to have been Symmes himself. Others identify
the author as Nathanial Ames who wrote other works, including one
that may have served as the inspiration of Moby Dick.
A monument erected over Symmes' grave, a hollow earth model at
its top, stands today in the center of Fourth Street Park, Hamilton,
Ohio, just south of the business district.
Symmes died, but not his advocates, one being newspaper editor Jeremiah Reynolds, whose
hollow-earth lectures were favorably received in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston and New York.
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