Light gives light, to light discover – "Ad infinitum." ... To all the world! I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking
- SIGNED 1p. Without the blank leaf for address. Signed by Symmes, “Jno. Cleves Symmes”. 1 vols. 4to
- Saint Louis, Missouri Territory , 1818
Saint Louis, Missouri Territory, 1818. 1p. Without the blank leaf for address. Signed by Symmes, “Jno. Cleves Symmes”. 1 vols. 4to. Usual folds. Docketed on verso, “recd 14th Novr”. 1p. Without the blank leaf for address. Signed by Symmes, “Jno. Cleves Symmes”. 1 vols. 4to. The original signed broadside proposing an expedition to the Hollow Earth led by Capt. John Cleves Symmes.
Symmes (1779-1829) saw distinguished service in the War of 1812 and thereafter devoted himself to popularizing his theory that “the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles . . .” This was rooted in the Mundus Subterraneus (1665) of Athanasius Kircher, and the pseudoscience notions of concentric spheres and polar openings propounded by astronomer Edmund Halley in 1692 in an attempt to account for observed magnetic phenomena. Symmes was a charismatic and persuasive lecturer:
“… I have ready for the press, a Treatise on the principles of Matter, wherein I will show the proofs of the above position … I ask one hundred brave companions, well equipped, to start from Siberia in the fall season, with Reindeer and slays, on the ice of the frozen sea; I will engage to find warm and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals if not men, on reaching one degree northward of latitude 82 …”
Despite his assertion, Symmes published nothing after this broadside. He twice petitioned Congress for funds for the expedition, but it was never undertaken, and he died at a relatively young age. It was a disciple, James McBride (1788-1859, who published Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres; Demonstrating That the Earth is Hollow, Habitable Within, and Widely Open about the Poles (1826). The ideas of Symmes proved remarkably long-lived: his youngest son Americus in 1878 published The Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres. Symmes is cited as a likely influence upon Poe’s Antarctic fantasia, Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), and the theories also inspired a tradition of hollow earth stories in science fiction and fantasy, beginning with Symzonia (1820) and continuing into the twentieth century with Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels At the Earth's Core (1914) and Pellucidar (1915).
Only three locations are noted in OCLC: AAS, Lilly Library, and Univ. of Missouri (St. Louis Mercantile).
EXCEEDINGLY RARE. Shaw 44587; Missouri Imprints 20; American Antiquarian Society, Society's Chief Joys 98
Symmes (1779-1829) saw distinguished service in the War of 1812 and thereafter devoted himself to popularizing his theory that “the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles . . .” This was rooted in the Mundus Subterraneus (1665) of Athanasius Kircher, and the pseudoscience notions of concentric spheres and polar openings propounded by astronomer Edmund Halley in 1692 in an attempt to account for observed magnetic phenomena. Symmes was a charismatic and persuasive lecturer:
“… I have ready for the press, a Treatise on the principles of Matter, wherein I will show the proofs of the above position … I ask one hundred brave companions, well equipped, to start from Siberia in the fall season, with Reindeer and slays, on the ice of the frozen sea; I will engage to find warm and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals if not men, on reaching one degree northward of latitude 82 …”
Despite his assertion, Symmes published nothing after this broadside. He twice petitioned Congress for funds for the expedition, but it was never undertaken, and he died at a relatively young age. It was a disciple, James McBride (1788-1859, who published Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres; Demonstrating That the Earth is Hollow, Habitable Within, and Widely Open about the Poles (1826). The ideas of Symmes proved remarkably long-lived: his youngest son Americus in 1878 published The Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres. Symmes is cited as a likely influence upon Poe’s Antarctic fantasia, Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), and the theories also inspired a tradition of hollow earth stories in science fiction and fantasy, beginning with Symzonia (1820) and continuing into the twentieth century with Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels At the Earth's Core (1914) and Pellucidar (1915).
Only three locations are noted in OCLC: AAS, Lilly Library, and Univ. of Missouri (St. Louis Mercantile).
EXCEEDINGLY RARE. Shaw 44587; Missouri Imprints 20; American Antiquarian Society, Society's Chief Joys 98