Hollow Earth theorist. Symmes saw Earth as made up of five concentric spheres with openings at each of the poles, several thou\u00ac sand miles in diameter. Water from the oceans flowed through these openings and plants and animal life lived on both the convex and the concave sides of the spheres. He thought this construction, like that of the human body with all its organs inside, would be a very economical way for the Creator to have used materials.<\/p>\n
Symmes became obsessed with his ideas, and from 1818 onwards he traveled throughout the various states giving lectures, trying to raise funds, and petitioning Congress to finance a polar expedition. At one point, he actually called for a hundred brave men to accompany him to explore the northern opening, which by then had been dubbed \u201cSymmes\u2019s Hole.\u201d Despite his fervent lecturing and fund-raising activities, his expedition was never mounted. He fell ill during the winter of 1828 and returned to his home in Hamilton, Ohio, where he died on May 29, 1829.<\/p>\n
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Hollow Earth theorist. Symmes saw Earth as made up of five concentric spheres with openings at each of the poles, several thou\u00ac sand miles in diameter. Water from the oceans flowed through these openings and plants and animal life lived on both the convex and the concave sides of the spheres. He thought this construction, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-j"],"yoast_head":"\n