The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1866-01-01
Symmes' Hole.

A reader of the Press, who says he some
times notices humorous illusions to "Symmes .
Hole" has requested me to explain to him and
other readers of the paper, what is meant by
such phrase.
Doubtless in these days it may be quite for
gotten; but forty years ago it expressed a ge-
graphical theory that caused no little excite
ment both In this country and in Europe.
recollect the excitement well, but am not at
this moment, able to give from memory so clear
| history of it as could desire, and therefore
must be indebted somewhat to a contempora-
ry for what have to say below.
About forty-two or three years ago, CAPT.
CLEAvEs SYAMEs, (no relation to The rebel
pirate Symmes, trust), who had formerly
been ship master, and had circumnayigated
the globe, but who afterwards retired from the
domains of Old Neptune, and settled in the
then new and wild state of Ohio,-broached
the theory that according to all the laws of
the forces of nature, the earth is and must be
hollow; that it is coated only by compare
lively thin crust or shell, and chat the two poles
are absolutely open. He maintained that
through these openings, ships by water, and
men and animals by land, may enter with no
more consciousness or danger Of being turned
upside down on the voyage than are the REQ
pie who navigate the external surface of the
earth. He furthermore held that, after pass
ing certain degree Of latitude towards
che poles, the atmosphere becomes warm,-a
fact which is not without some verification In
the notes Of the late DIR. Kane in his Arctic
Expedition, ,-and hence he accounted for the
lact that plants and animals of tropical lati-
tudes are sometimes found frozen in the per-
oetual ices of the Arctic and Antarctic oceans,
theseshaving been borne thither by the cur
rents from the open poles.
Capt. Symmes supposed the south pole
opening to be 5000 miles in diameter and
and that its verge commenced, ON one point In
about lat. 46 degrees south, and the other in
lat. IA degrees south. The north orifce is not
20 large, being Also miles in diameter The
verge OF this opening he supposed commenced
in Europe in about lat. So degrees north, and
ON the Pacific ocean in latitude 65 deg. north.
He thus located these verges by inyestigat-
ing the narratives of different navigators.-
Around this verge, rather than by the circum-
stance OF latitude, he traced similarity In
the climates and productions of nature. Thus
ne accounted for the otherwise unaccountable
difference in the climatology of the earth's
surface. The shape of the earth at the verge.
altogether independent of high latitude, he
maintained, is the cause of intense cold-just
as the most elevated situations in any other
parts Of the world are always the coolest,
| quite regardless of their attitudes; consequent
ly, the temperature of the atmosphere in all
quarters OF the earth, equidistant from the
verge, will be the same. Hence the climate
OF England in lat. 81 deg. N. is as mild as in
New York which is 10 degrees nearer the
| equator; and on the Pacific coast, in the lati-
tudes OF Europe, it is nearly as warm as ON
| that continent. We in New England are near
er the southern verge of the irregular circle
around the North pole, and therefore nearer
the point of intense Arctic cold. He denied
that the earth is spheroid; for in this case, the
she heat would be in proportion to the dis
tance from the eqhator, which Us not the fact
Many other phenomena of nature, incxpli-
cable on any other theory, than his, he put
forth in evidence of its truth-such as the
Aurora Borealis which, he said, was a light
shining out of the interior, so bright that,
when nayigators reach certain latitude, they
can read better with their faces towards the
equator than with their backs toward the sun.
The variations and dip of the needle he ac-
counted for on his theory alone. Navigators,
whilst sailing in high northern lat.t ldes, have
frequently found by their log line, and by ce-
lestial observations, a strange curvature of the
earth, which they thought it impossible they
theyshould have passed over. At other times
they sail astonishing distances before they gain
what they supposed must be the natural cur
vature. In the first instance Capt. s. supIos-
ed they were sailing on the verge, in the sec
ond around it. In the same region objects
have been clearly seen distance OF $50 miles,
and the sun has appeared many days before
its astronomical time. These phenomena
have been attempted to be accounted for on
the principal Of mirages or refraction, but
Capt Symmes insisted that this explanation
had no comparison for truth to his own.
BE held that the interior of the earth Is as