page_title: John Cleves Symmes Jr.
section_title: Circulars, lectures, and Symzonia
hierarchical_section_title: John Cleves Symmes Jr. / Hollow Earth Theory / Circulars, lectures, and Symzonia
caption_attribution_description: English: Redraw/retouch of the frontispiece to Symzonia (based on the image at Google Books)
context_page_description: John Cleves Symmes Jr. was an American Army officer, trader, and lecturer. Symmes is best known for his 1818 variant of the Hollow Earth Theory, which introduced the concept of openings to the inner world at the poles.
context_section_description: For the first two years after the publication of his theory, Symmes confined his promotional efforts to circulars and letters published in newspapers and magazines. In all, he issued seven additional circulars from 1818 to 1819, including Light Between the Spheres, which gained a national audience via its publication in the National Intelligencer. But though Symmes made converts, his theory continued to be greeted with general ridicule.
  In 1819, Symmes moved his family from St. Louis to Newport, KY. And in 1820, Symmes began to promote his theory directly, lecturing on it in Cincinnati and other towns and cities in the region, making use of a wooden globe with the polar sections removed to reveal the inner Earth and the spheres within. (Symmes' modified globe can now be found in the collection of Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.) Symmes was not a commanding lecturer; he was uncomfortable as a public speaker, hesitant in speaking, and possessed of an unfortunate nasal voice. Still, he persevered.
  Symmes began to make converts and his ideas began to filter into the public consciousness, and popular support for his proposed Arctic expedition started to build. In 1820, he sat for a never-completed portrait by artist John J. Audubon for Cincinnati's Western Museum. Audubon wrote on the back of the sketch, "John, Cleeves Simms—The man with the hole at the Pole—Drawn and a good likeness it is".
  Some have claimed he was the real author of: Symzonia; Voyage of Discovery, which was attributed to "Captain Adam Seaborn".  A recent reprint gives him as the author.  Other researchers argue against this idea.  Some think it was written as a satire of Symmes' ideas, and believe they identified the author as early American writer Nathaniel Ames.
caption: Frontispiece to Symzonia.
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