Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 14 -- Hollow Earth Geophysics
In 1828, Reynolds approached Navy Secretary Samuel Lewis Southard, who in turn convinced
President John Quincy Adams to mount the "Great American Exploring Expedition" in search of,
among such other things, a hole into the hollow earth. States-rights Democrats delayed the
expedition until 1838, by which time Reynolds was pragmatically no longer promoting on the
basis of subterranean secrets.
Though the venture surveyed nearly 300 islands and more than 1500 miles of Antarctic shoreline,
the entrance was not encountered. The expedition, however, marked a turning point for
American science, and the Smithsonian Institution was established to archive the thousands of
superterranean specimens collected.
From an awed Edgar Alen Poe, reviewing the address in the January 1837 Southern Literary
Messenger,
With mental powers of the highest order, his [Reynolds'] indomitable energy is precisely of that
character which will not admit of defeat.
Poe used some 700 words of Reynolds' address in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, a work
we'll review in Chapter 16, Underground Rivers in English Fiction.
In the October 1882 Harper's Magazine, a Mr. Howgate proposed an expedition to discover
"Symmes' Hole." The team would acclimate to higher and higher latitudes, moving further north
each year, watching for animals that wintered within the earth and emerged to bear young. The
explorers were to follow the animals to where they re-entered.
Franklin Titus Ives, chairman of the Connecticut State Board of
Mediation and Arbitration, was another proponent Symmes' theory.
We'll quote a few passages from his The Hollow Earth (1904).
Arctic Elephants
It has often been a query from whence came the Arctic
elephants, the remains of which are found so plentifully on the
north shores of Siberia, some of which during the last century
have been in such a state of preservation as that their flesh was
eatable by bears and wolves.
Why were they protected by a covering of hair if not originating in
a colder climate than exists south of the Arctic Circle?
Do they not still exist in the interior, or have they passed out with
the great Auk, a former external resident?
The Role of Centrifugal Force
Every lake is but a mammoth spring, or reservoir of numerous springs that feed into its base.
The provision by nature of this inexhaustible reservoir of fresh water is beyond doubt the most
essential of any other bounty bestowed upon every living thing on Earth's surface. The
principle of centrifugal motion and power is here developed to its highest advantage.
DRAFT 1122//66//22001122
Uppddaatteess aatt hhttttpp::////www. .uunnm. .eedduu//~rrhheeggggeenn//UnnddeerrggrroouunnddRi ivveerrss. .hhttml l
143