I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow
Overwhelmed with ridicule as the product of a distempered imagination, or the result of partial insanity
He was, at very least, following in prestigious footsteps. A Midsummer Night's Dream hinted at the longstanding existence of such a theory. And 100 years later, Edward Halley put forth his own, believing himself to have built upon the studies of close friend and associate, Isaac Newton.
“[T]he Earth is represented by the outward Circle,” Halley wrote in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, “and the three inward Circles are made nearly proportionable to the Magnitudes of the Planets Venus, Mars and Mercury, all which may be included within this Globe of Earth.”
It might have behooved John Cleves Symmes, Jr. to suggested that his own theory — floated 76 years after Halley’s death — was based on the legendary scientist’s research. The Earth, the amateur scientist declared, was made of five concentric circles, our terra firma comprising the fifth and largest. At its poles were two massive holes providing passage to a habitable section inside.
Evidence was found in magnetic variations, the migration of arctic animals and the presence of the atmospheric refractions – the latter of which also served as a key driver in Halley’s theory. But the former Army officer — named for his Revolutionary War hero uncle — determined it more useful to tell the world that he’d independently arrived at the notion.
Symmes printed 500 copies of a circular, aiming to enlist 100 “brave souls” to see his research to its logical end: accessing and entering the large holes on the arctic regions at either end of the globe. From there, he declared, they would discover seemingly endless expanses of untouched wilderness populated with undiscovered flora and fauna.
“I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within,” it read, in part, “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.”
Among the recipients were "each notable foreign government, reigning prince, legislature, city, college, and philosophical societies, throughout the union, and to individual members of our National Legislature,” by Symmes’ own account.
Reaction amongst the global intelligentsia was less enthusiastic.
“Its reception by the public can easily be imagined,” Symmes’ son, Americus, wrote in an 1878 collection of his father’s writing bearing the verbose title, Concentric Spheres Demonstrating That the Earth is Hollow, Habitable Within and Widely Open About the Poles. “It was overwhelmed with ridicule as the product of a distempered imagination, or the result of partial insanity. It was for many years a fruitful source of jest with the newspapers.”
Equally futile were his attempts to align himself with some of the era’s great thinkers. Humphry Davy, Alexander von Humboldt and S.L. Mitchell all failed to heed the call of the man who believed himself their intellectual peer. A subpar lecturer with nasal voice and halting delivery, Symmes persisted, spending his remaining days shopping his theory around the country.
"When he had a poor audience at Hamilton, Ohio, he would think of neglected Columbus and trudge on to Gardiner, Maine,” Harpers wrote, not long after his death, “unnoticed there, he would console himself over the fate of badly used Galileo and tramp away somewhere else."
Describing the travails and travels of the man whose work had mockingly come to be referred to as “Symmes’ Holes,” the magazine paints the portrait of a quixotic character, devoid of scientific acumen, but unwavering in his faith.
"Not a very brilliant hero this round-headed hero of ours," it concludes. "Dusty, human, faulty enough, but still a self-denying, steadfast man -- a man with purpose."
Sources:
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London https://archive.org/details/philosophicaltra03royarich/page/470/mode/2up?view=theater
Concentric Spheres Demonstrating That the Earth is Hollow, Habitable Within and Widely Open About the Poles
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015078575480&view=1up&seq=5&skin=2021
An Open Invitation to Seek Out the Center of the Earth https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/07/john-cleves-symmes-believer-in-hollow-earth-theory-sent-this-open-letter.html
Symmes and his Theory https://archive.org/details/harpersnew65various/page/740/mode/2up?view=theater