John Cleves Symmes, Jr. (nonfiction)

"John Cleves Symmes, Jr and His Hollow Earth" by John J. Audubon, 1820.

John Cleves Symmes, Jr. (November 5, 1780 – May 28, 1829) was an American Army officer, trader, and lecturer.

Symmes is best known for his 1818 variant of the (now-discredited) Hollow Earth Theory, which introduced the concept of openings to the inner world at the poles.

One April 10, 1818, Symmes announced his Hollow Earth theory to the world, publishing his Circular No. 1.

Symmes had sent his declaration (at considerable cost to himself) to "each notable foreign government, reigning prince, legislature, city, college, and philosophical societies, throughout the union, and to individual members of our National Legislature, as far as the five hundred copies would go."

Symmes' son Americus wrote of the reaction to Circular No. 1 in 1878, recounting:

[I]ts reception by the public can easily be imagined; it was overwhelmed with ridicule as the production of a distempered imagination, or the result of partial insanity. It was for many years a fruitful source of jest with the newspapers.

Symmes, though, was not deterred. He began a campaign of circulars, newspaper letters, and lectures aimed at defending and promoting his hypothesis of a Hollow Earth—and to build support for a polar expedition to vindicate his theory.

External links

• John Cleves Symmes, Jr. @ Wikipedia