Morning journal and courier., 1884-02-07
Symmes' Theory.

low and Inhabited.
 | From the Louisville Courier -Journall A cultured audience gathered last evening In the lecture room of the Trinity Methodist church to hear MT. Americus Symmes ex- pound his fRther's theory. The lecturer. gray-haired gentleman, came on the little platform without any introduction and said: Ladies and Gentlemen: I presume few of you know that there lived in Kentucky as 1 far back es 1819 philosopher, John Gloves Symmss, who devoted the last thirty years of his life to working out a true theory of the earth's formation. He contendsd that l the earth Wns hollow and inhabited. When my father WAS dying he charged me to watch l the polar explorations for proofs of his theo- ry. I was young when my father died, aged hfty-nine, poor man. He had owned four thousand acres of land, but had borrowed money at high rates of interest and kept at his desk writing with children playing around him. The estate only paid eighty-two cents on the dollar. thought that theory which left man so poor was not very valuable, and had little time or money to bother with 1t. Twenty years ago man called atsmy house to get me to subscribe to Dr. Kane's Explorations My fathers charge flashed across my mind I was now tolerably well l
 
 inform myself about my fathers theory be- l fore Dr. Ksne's book arrived. My father lived the last three years of his life featuring and travelling in the East. He wore himself | out, took sick in New York, and after paying | his landlord ali he could for board was put | in jail for d6bt, where he remained two days | till his friends took him out. He then went | over to New Jersey, where he originally came from there he remained ten months kefore | VIC at home were able to get money to bring | bim back. We were living on the six hun dred and forty acres of land at that time, | and l brought him home from Cincinnati on rnattrass in wagon, he WAS so feeble. This was In February and he died in May. | His book, which was published in 1926, and l which we gladly sold for one dollar, Robert Clarke X Co.,, of Cincinnati, now sell for twelve dollars, and they can't supply the de- mRnd for the original issue 1 read that | book carefully. It says the eatths shell is one hundred thousand miles thick, and the edges four thousand miles in converging. Parry, Kane, MoCliotock, Hall, Nordensk- joId, and all, as I shall slow you, confirm | this. The summit of this verge is the cold est place in creation. The only way they tell when they pass it is the difference in the | expansion of the horizon that is the diff | ference In how far you can sec. Before Cap tain Hall passed it he could only see g few | miles after he reached it he could see sew enty miles. At the eighty third degree my
  from ice. Sir Isaac Newton says it is vast solitude of ice. I shall show you which is correct. Whom Dr. Kane went on his second l trip, after quitting the vessel the dog sleds went forty miles day; men gave out, and the doctor went no further, but William Morton, who had been there before, got per mission to go on with the sleds. After four days he reached the awful icy ridge running east and west, caused by the current from the north and the current from the south just as the Symmes theory first claimed. Look in Kane's book, and you will see where they used the sled for a ladder to go over that icy ridge. Altar four days more travel the snow began to soften, ice crusts to get thin, and in short time the current was warmer. They had to help the dogs pull the sled, as their feet cut through the thin ics crust. At last they reached the open Polar Sea, filled with fish, seals, shrimps, &c. There were fowls of every kind Morton gathered twelve hundred eggs in one day. I fairly shouted when I read this. A big sea and no ice right where Newton said all was solid ice. | The grass was ankle high. Henry Clay says he brought home the biggest tree he could anxious all these explorers are to go back Out of two hundred and fifty explorations only three were lost. Parry made three trips, Ross three, Kane two and Kennedy two. I came to the public library and got from MT. Toune the reports. Parry prom
  the North pole. He went in Lapland sled, 1 which has boat bottom. and goes through water. till the north star was behind him. At 910 the ice was four feet thick, ct S20 it was three feet thick, At S240 the ice would not bear the boat the sun melted the tar on the boat and flies swarmed around them. Symmss said it would take steam to reach tho North Pole and 1t will Ross, who went very near, said 'I stand on the bank of an open sea-" Smith, who went to find Franklin, said he found the north end of Iceland covered with trees he brought one tree with the mark of an axe-cut back to London, also vegetables and flowers that he found in the drift. When Captain Hall, of Cincinnati, was getting ready to go went to gee him. He hooted It my fathers theo- ry, and yet he found that warm country. He took Captain Buddington and Captain Tyson along to advise. They drank his whiskey, and he started to put them of at polar sta t1on; they begged on their knees and he re- tented. Hall surveyed his track and sent back reports of every part. They named the open sea Polaris bay, after their ship and the straits they called Robesons, after the Secretary Of the Navy. After passing 820 16' Buddington SEW the north star behind them and would go no further All could see the cloud iR front, which proclaimed ab sence of ice. Hall was poisoned and they returned. Meyers, the scientific man of that exp0ditieh, with his instruments calculated the distance to that warm locality and made It 83o. There was Symmes' theory proved by actual measurement. Hall left June 29th, lost four months on the route, and yet reached that warm region August 29th, less than sixty days. The doctor who went away with Hall brought back flies, butterflies, squirrels, &c. In Sweden, Nordenskjold heard of all this and followed Halls track. He sailed clear around the northwestern pas sage just as Symmes said could be done ] From Dundee, Scotland, Mir. Seabaum went along Halls route; he found the sea. and sailing into it found race of Roman-nozed, people, They are the lost tribes of Israel. They have gold mines, iron I mines and mica mines there. MT Seab9un1 | read his report at the Art society of Eng land Captain Wiggins was present ana ne confirmed it, saying the half had not been told. They have enormous wheat crops; ' there is where China gets her food. Hum- 4