Inside the Hollow Earth

Borrowed from fairy lore, the notion of a hollow earth peopled by superior beings became a theme of literary fantasies as early as the 17th century and went on to influence fringe theories of the earth's structure into the 19th century. We begin with a snippet of the medieval Norwegian ballad "Liti Kjersti," telling the fairy story of a young woman abducted into the earth by the Mountain King, and follow this an anecdote from Gerald of Wales' 12th-century Itinerarium Cambriae (Journey through Wales) describing a kidnapping of a young boy by "two tiny men," and the interior world he visits. We then hear from Margaret Cavendish, a 17th-century poet, playwright, and writer on a variety of philosophical, political, and scientific topics. Her poem “The Fairy Queen’s Kingdom”(1653) and prose fantasy The Blazing World (1666) introduce the idea of interior kingdoms accessible only through entrances at the polar ends of the earth. Over the next couple centuries, at least a half dozen novels describing travels into an interior world appeared. We briefly touch on Danish-Norwegian writer Ludvig Holberg’s Niels Klim's Underground Travels (1741), Giacomo Casanova's Icosaméron (1788), American writer Mary Bradley Lane's Mizora: A Prophecy (1880), and Irish-American writer William R. Bradshaw's The Goddess of Atvatabar (1892), the last coming closer to what we would think of today as science fiction. Universal to these hollow earth tales is portrayal of the interior civilization as a utopia, highlighting the failings of our own. We then spend some time examining the particularly weird hollow 1895 earth novel by John Uri Lloyd, Etidorhpa, or, the end of the earth: the strange history of a mysterious being and the account of a remarkable journey, an underground adventure tale larded with odd religious, philosophical and pseudoscientific theories. It describes the education of a character identified only as "I—Am—The—Man—Who—Did—It," guided by an eyeless amphibious humanoid along a subterranean route, with stops for various knowledge-imbuing experiences, i.e., "How to See Your Own Brain," as one chapter is titled. Graphic from Koreshan Unity tract Next we explore a late 19th-century cult founded in upstate New York by Cyrus Tweed, who went by the name "Koresh." Koreshanity, as it was called, regarded Tweed as a second coming of Christ and taught that earth’s inhabitants actually live on the inside of our hollow planet. His teachings began with an 1869 vision experienced during his laboratory pursuit of what he called "electro-alchemy." Mrs. Karswell reads for us his account in which he encounters God in his female aspect. We hear of the cult's heyday in the first years of the 20th century on Estero Island, of the coast of Fort Myers, Florida, and of the uncomfortable situation that attended Tweed's death in 1908. We then hear a bit about the man most widely associated with hollow earth pseudoscience, the American John Cleves Symmes, Jr., who in 1812 declared these beliefs in published his "Circular No. 1," and later lobbied Congress to mount an expedition that would verify his theory. Symmes' bold proposition was so widely known at the times as to be spun into a novel, our next topic, the anonymously penned Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery (1819), a work of utopian fiction with steampunk-style details. Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, written in 1838, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, describes a voyage into the South Polar seas. Passages from the novel's startling ending, which appears to describe entrance into the hollow earth, are read by Mrs. Karswell. Poe is believed to have been introduced to this concept by writer, and explorer J.N. Reynolds, who figures into the mystery of the writer's mysterious death, as we hear. A bizarre culinary experience is next described in passages from William F. Lyon's 1821 book, The Hollow Globe. We hear how meat from the frozen remains of mammoths,

Episode Transcript

(00:13):
Straw
bone
and civil.
Bleeding saints
and forests
witches,
the past,
un buried,
the books,
un
sealed

(00:34):
the old
celebration
return.
Hello, and welcome to my study. Please come
in and have a see, all the books
are surrounding you are those used to research

(00:54):
our show and the individual to my ride
here along with managing domestic duties.
Serves as our reader for any passages that
will be directly quoted from those sources.
Her name is miss is cars. Hello moe.
Alright you hope everyone's been enjoying the very
summary days we've been blessed with. I personally.

(01:16):
Hate them, but that's just me. It's not
that bad if you don't stay out long.
The bee love it at least. And clearly,
the rats love it.
That wouldn't be an issue if we still
had strings around.
You should tear down that old scenario
They've really taken it over.
Monday day.

(01:36):
Anyway, getting the under growth removed should help.
I thought the new grounds was coming last
week. The agency have been sending out candidates,
but none them seem to want the job
once they come out. Maybe
It's the unit uniform. Well, that's part of
what they're paid for, representing the estate to
the public.
They have to look present present

(01:56):
but the leather apron.
Protects their clothing.
Your clothing.
The apron seem
hot. They're optional. They don't have to wear
them if it's 90 degrees
for
what?
80? I don't know. Flexible.
70 degrees. I think people just want to
wear their own clothing. And in healthy when

(02:17):
ice water.
Didn't you want to do your new Patreon
thing? Yes. And I read.
So in our last episode, I announced that
we'd be thanking our new patrons here at
the top of the show, and I read
a little verse I wrote to honor them.
And something I was thinking of as a

(02:37):
a jingle ideally with music.
So then within just a few days or
maybe 48 hours I received a recording from
a very kind listener in the Uk, Bruce
Walker, who
ran something very nice using the voices of
his children. Are they twins?
Well, they sound like twins. It's a boy
and a girl, so not identical twins certainly.

(03:00):
But I I should mention their names, David
and Julie. Thank you. If you're listening? Yes.
Thank you.
Maybe if you're listening, you could write us.
And tell us a little bit about elves.
Why not?
But let's
go ahead and play this
Thank you to our friends who can listen
to the show.

(03:22):
Sharing in our travels 3 tales of long
ago.
Stories full of folk.
Stories for of color.
If you give us money, we will like
him more.
And our heroes of the day are...
Neil G.

(03:42):
Chris Berger,
Maria Holds,
and
gil it dragon. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you. And and do write to
us, David and Julie.
So at as for our show, I'm bringing
back our sci fight summer tradition. We missed
out last year, but in 20 22, we

(04:03):
had our 14
star slime episode. And in 20 21 our
show
connecting flying sauce with theo and rosa.
Let us No You're okay.
What? David and Julie.
Of course, they are. What is wrong with

(04:23):
you? I have a big heart.
I'm sorry. That's just how I am. It's
just...
Alright.
This is
episode 01:30
inside the hollow.

(04:49):
I am your host, A Ride,
and this show bone and sickle examine the
inter 20 of horror and folk in a
historical context.
I started the show as a way to
further explore this area of intersection after writing
my book, the K is and the old
dark Christmas and will have a related volume

(05:11):
out at the start of next year.
Bone Sickle only exists thanks to the generosity
of our patron donors who choose from a
tantalizing
array of monthly rewards, including shirts sm, dusty
old things from library shelves here and
access to monthly bonus episodes.
And I'll have more on all that. At

(05:32):
the end, of our
show.

(06:09):
You're curing a portion of the medieval Norwegian
ballot,
Sung by Ar
Brexit.
L is the name of a young girl
who 1 day goes riding near the ancient
barrels or mounds associated with no or elves.
There are probably over a hundred variations the

(06:30):
song, but
all of them end with Lit entering the
mound where she is seduced by the Barr
Ko,
the king of the mountain
who gives her a magic drink causing her
to forget her life and the world above.

(06:51):
There are many similar ballots and countless folk
tales the similar plot lines
don't work frequently with the genders reverse that
if a male seduced to linger in a
sub ferry realm, like,
story of the night, Ton house or who
lives for many years in the underground pleasure
gardens, the famous bag or Mountain of Venus,

(07:12):
story
mentioned along with similar tales in our Cave,
which is episode.
Another we've discussed is the Welsh tale of
King Her,
who's invited to a sub wedding by a
dwarf king
and only returns to the surface hundreds of
years later
in the form of a wandering spirit.

(07:37):
1, I've not mentioned was recorded as an
alleged first firsthand account,
by Gerald of Wales in his late twelfth
century
Comb, the itinerary through Wales,
Not explicitly a ferry story. It goes to
some lengths to describe an underground
civilization.

(07:58):
Gerald presents it as a true story related
to him by a priest who as a
boy was wandering along a river bank,
when he encounters
2 tiny men.
Who lead him off.
First,
through a dark
underground tunnel,
and then
into a most attractive

(08:18):
country
where there were lovely rivers
and delightful woodlands and plain.
It was rather dark because the sun did
not shine there.
The days were all overcast as if by
clouds,
and the knights were pitch black.
For there was no moon or stars.

(08:41):
The majority of the tale is to butt
describing the nature of their sub
society
as a sort of un uninterrupted
superior version of our own. They never ate
meat or fish.
They never give their word
for their hated lies more than anything they
could think of.

(09:02):
Whenever they came back from the upper field,
they would speak contempt of our own ambitions
in
and inconsistencies.
They had no wish for public warship,
and what they revered and admired or so
it seemed,
was a plain, un var
truth.

(09:23):
These sorts of details provided by Gerald of
Wales in 11 91,
establish a pattern to be followed over the
next 8 centuries.
Utopian fantasies, imagining, and
ideal Earth within or
below our own.

(09:45):
In the seventeenth century, another key element to
these narratives appeared
a
geographic specificity.
The entrance to this interior world would increasingly
be found at the ends of the earth,
usually
in the far northern regions near the North
Pole or theoretically also antarctica, though, this was

(10:07):
further from the European
imagination. The time.
Margaret Cave, the Duchess of Newcastle upon
offers the first instance of this.
She was a poet, writer and play right
who also wrote on philosophy and scientific theories
for day.
And she discussed with the many influential thinkers

(10:29):
passing through her ari democratic world,
Her 16 53 poem,
the Fairy queen's kingdom
begins.
The Fe queen's large kingdom got by birth.
It's in the circled center of the earth.
Where there are many springs and running streams,

(10:52):
whose waves to listen by the queen's bright
beams.
13 years later, she imagined different interior realm
in her prose fantasy,
the blazing world,
a world populated not by fairies, but peculiar
animal human hybrids.

(11:12):
1 entered to, the north pole.
Her name was Heroin, el with her lover
is at sea in a small boat,
which pie
the violent motion of the wind was carried
a swift as an arrow out of a
bell towards the north pole.
And then Cave offers this as to the

(11:33):
boats peculiar trajectory into the inner world a
course followed into rather than over the Polar
region.
Because the poles of the other world joining
to the poles of this.
If anyone arrives to honor these poles,
he is either forced to return
or to enter another world.

(11:54):
So that is a doughnut
shaped earth war, this
idea of the polar regions as immense sink
holes forming a sort of tube within the
middle of the globe
will appear again in later stories and books
of speculative science.
The inhabitants of this interior world are just

(12:16):
as strangely imagined, the first encountered are seen
walking upon the ice,
strange creatures in shaped like bears.
Only they were upright his men.
And are soon heard to speak a strange
language, which art narrator eventually learns allowing her
to better describe a kingdom

(12:38):
populated not only by bear men, but also
Say,
human like apes and Foxes
parents, jack,
spiders,
l, fish and worms.
Our narrator is mistaken for visiting Goddess and
made emperor of this blazing world.
Each

(12:58):
species over whom she rules this associated with
a different
profession or area of learning, allowing cave to
use them to sat
politicians, doctors, j and philosophers and so on,
along the way, offering her own theories and
insights on the science and society of our
world above.

(13:22):
Over the next couple centuries, there appeared least
a half dozen novels describing
travels into an interior world.
Typically, these imagine the sub
civilization as
utopia.
Strategically highlighting the faults and fo of our
own.
In 17 41, the Danish Norwegian writer, Ludwig

(13:44):
H, Neil K underground travels, described adventures on
an interior globe lit by a second sun.
Clean visits various lands within and encounters
philosophically inclined tree men is well as monkey
Zig 2 fashion wig similar to his own,

(14:04):
and then aided by gunpowder, which is unknown
in his world K establishes himself as a
king,
but is driven back the surface when his
rule becomes tyra.
While more famous for his memoir documenting his
Am exploits, Ja casa,
also wrote a 5 volume sub fantasy in

(14:27):
17 88 called
casa.
It follows a brother and sister whose ship
is sucked into a mae in the North
Sea,
then deposited in a world
by her
dwarves,
who sustained themselves by
mutual breastfeeding.

(14:47):
And if that weren't bad enough, the brother
and sister who remained their 81 years and
up having children together.
In
18 eighties novel M prophecy,
American feminist writer, Mary Bradley Lane,
described world entered through an arctic portal 1

(15:08):
populated
exclusively by women.
The progressive ideal of the fantasy is. However,
marred by Lane description of their artificial manner
of appropriation, which involves the unique elimination of
traits belonging into the darker races.

(15:29):
In 18 92, Irish American writer, William r
bradshaw in his... The goddess of at Va
barr,
imagine a world also entered through the arctic.
The Goddess ruling in this kingdom with whom
the protagonist pi falls in love is en
ent in a central pant.
Sculpture out of the hill of green marble.

(15:50):
And command troops fine men
wearing metal wings
moved by some powerful horse,
probably
electricity. Others ride on immense began machines resembling
ostrich and there is also something
called the... Sacred
locomotive.

(16:12):
The protagonist affair with a goddess leads to
civil war in which are explorer from our
world is victorious.
Yet not only winds of Throne of,
but establishes highly successful trade relations between the
2 worlds.
To win win.
Perhaps the strangest inner fantasy of the era,

(16:35):
published by an American writer, John Yuri Lloyd
in 18 95,
is the novel called
Ed
or at the end of the earth, the
strange history of a mysterious being and the
account of a remarkable journey.
The book strange is not simply a matter

(16:57):
of the fantastic adventures described, but in how
its construct did in how Lloyd inject philosophical
and pseudo scientific
essays into his adventure tale.
Did Aside from his career as a novel,
Lloyd worked as a pharmacist becoming a leading
advocate of what was called.

(17:18):
Ec medicine.
His
outstanding expertise in herbal and eth bot
at 1 point resulted in a commission by
the smithsonian to conduct a study of licorice
in the ottoman empire.
Emboldened by his successes in these fields,
Lloyd went a bit off leash in at

(17:38):
Do, widely speculating in these long disc discourse
passages on geo physical matters on the origins
of volcanoes, geyser,
gravity, the possibility of
interior sees,
all these physical realities, which were simultaneously
spiritual to his
understanding. And saul illustrated with charts and mechanical

(18:01):
drawings
alongside more traditional figure of art that
anticipates the lure visions of the later pulp
illustrations.
The tale is also presented with 3 narrative
levels.
Lloyd is supposed to only be the editor
of a manuscript left by
1

(18:21):
Dr,
who
records his
conversations with a third person, a mysterious visitor
who is the 1 who relates the actual
tail of sub draining
adventure.
And then jury as a mouthpiece for Lloyd
scientific
speculations interrupts the visitors tale with sort of
tangent

(18:41):
I've described.
And to make things even stranger, the Mysterious,
this who is very mysterious is only identified
as...
I and the man
who did it. In this story within the
story. It's the stranger interest in A
that prompts to visit from a group of
hood members from a secret society

(19:04):
who to punish I
reach of confidence,
sends him to a so
underground.
They bring him to a Cave, Kentucky and
at the entrance turned over
to another very strange figure
He was less than 5 feet in height.
His arms and legs were bare and his

(19:25):
skin, the color of light blue padding.
In the sunlight.
His bull had extended in an unbroken plane
from crowned cheekbone,
and the chu tip of an abort nose
without nostrils,
formed a short projection near the center of
the level witch.
Which represented continents.

(19:45):
There was no sem of an eye
for there were no sockets.
Despite his blindness, this humanoid way sort of
cave fish is able to guide I am
through a series of cavern passages filled with
giant crystals and mushrooms.

(20:06):
He also
guides a boat along a sub mediterranean river,
a trip with
stops for various knowledge
viewing experiences, for instance, 1 chapter
entitled.
How to see your own brain?
I am is educated in this process,
1 which involves ruling one's eyes upward, while,

(20:30):
concentrating very intently.
It somehow works and his teacher suggests that
perfection of this technique 1 day.
May it enable men to picture the figures
engraved.
On the convolution
and at last to read the thoughts that
are grave within the brains of others.
And then there's a rather dante

(20:53):
tableau,
presenting something called...
The drunk goods then. Where I am sees
that not only drunk are con confined him
sort of prison men,
but also those who over indulge any appetite,
1 inmate who apparently over ind his love
of olfactory
sensation presents himself with... A no, so not.

(21:17):
That the pun figure to which it was
attached was forced to walk with his nose,
high in the air to prevent the P
rubbing on the floor.
For what it's worth at journeys end, they
encounter after dieting, not a goddess of love,
but I am guardian
angel turns out.
Whose name reversed

(21:38):
happens to spell
and a door book.
It's a very strange book.
Around the same time,
another American healer an advocate of ec medicine
was building a commune in Florida based around
his spiritual notions and a hollow earth cosmology.

(22:03):
Cyrus tee, got a slow start on the
cult business.
It took 25
years after his initial 69 vision for this
healer from upstate New York to start building
his new Jerusalem in Florida.
20 years to get any real traction at
all.
That turn of good fortune Came when he
spoke at the National

(22:24):
Association of mental science in Chicago
and allegedly healed a woman unable to walk.
At that point, he'd taken the name Par.
The hebrew rev version of his own name
cyrus, and that the name comes from the
old person word for son was by no
means lost on ted.

(22:44):
The lean years before Became the astronomical
center of the universe,
and involved his wife leaving him with their
son when he first began to attract members,
exclusively female members.
Citizens of Uti were suspicious and there was
a lawsuit by the children of a Syracuse
woman who'd donated their inheritance to this second

(23:06):
priced.
After the success of the mental science convention,
he moved his newly 1 followers to a
posh mansion in Chicago Washington Heights neighborhood,
eventually establishing additional study groups in Baltimore, Portland
in San Francisco, a couple of towns in
Massachusetts and elsewhere.
So what were they study? What were his

(23:29):
teaching? Well, Of course, the earth was hollow,
that's a given. And instead of living on
the convex
exterior as commonly presumed, we actually live on
the con cave interior and look inward to
a central sun.
This outer sphere was 1 of 17,
a number of later reduced.

(23:50):
And between the spheres were layers of tin
iron, zinc and copper, the rotation of which
created an electric charge powering that sun, which
works as a
great volta pile.
He'd claimed these insights came through his scientific
research of a sword to field that he

(24:11):
dubbed
electro a.
Unsurprisingly,
this also involved visionary experiences.
According to T own
Gibberish
account later published in the group's periodic,
the flaming sword.
This began 1 October night in 18 69,

(24:31):
while he was at work in his laboratory,
so the story goes near midnight, and the
would be A noted a pre
in 1 of his re reports
My new molecules
of gold and dust.
I had succeeded in transforming
matter of 1 kind
to a motto of another kind.

(24:54):
The discovery sent to quite a state, a
gently oscillating
ocean of magnetic and
spiritual
ecstasy.
During which he hears the voice telling him,
He is God inca or God's masculine aspect,
anyway, the other half, the divine mother then

(25:14):
appears to him. Gradually at first as...
Var coloring,
streaming toward a pho
center,
then taking shape a beautiful face defined,
blonde tres and a Gold and purple colored
room.
Her feet rested
upon a sail rec crescent.

(25:37):
In her hand and resting upon this crescent.
Was mercury,
cad.
God's. Feminine aspect assumes an important role in
Tea religion or cor
get it a Christianity.
Fact that's often cited to explain the prep
of women among his following,

(25:57):
husbands or single men might hesitate to join
as ce was strongly encouraged and was mandatory
within the group's upper echelon.
In 18 94,
T was visited by a mystical inclined German
immigrant Gust Dom Ko,

(26:17):
who 10 years earlier had built a solitary
retreat
on Est sterile island near Fort Myers.
For nearly 10 years, he and his family
have been waiting there for the coming of
the Messiah who Don Ko learned after stumbling
on a corruption pamphlet
happened to be Cyrus tee.

(26:38):
The German immigrant was at first so impressed
upon meeting Crash that he donated his house
and the surrounding 320 acres to the cause.
Then a few years, he'd scattered flock had
all relocated to Ast to build what they
called the corruption unity.
A settlement of log cabins and a more

(27:00):
refined house call the planetary court
from which council of women known as the
7 planetary sisters rule
with crush natural as their central sun.
As each arriving member turned over their savings,
roads were cut and more buildings erected, power
plant a bakery,

(27:21):
a general store print shop and a world
college of life in which was displayed a
large model globe or globes 1 within the
other.
On the road to the unity,
an attention getting billboard
illustrated with these globes
declared in bold caps.
We live

(27:41):
on the inside
Eventually, the commune house 250
corrections with particularly robust growth between 19 o
3 and 19 o 8. The year t
died.
Oh, it's never good when a messiah dies,
but T had prepared his followers risk with
teachings about

(28:02):
a different kind of passing,
a theo crisis he called it a word
of his own coin skin, which he described
as
interrupt
dissolution
without decay of the flesh
of a physical body by
electromagnetic
combustion
Meaning what? Well, who knows, but it seemed

(28:23):
as if something
something
unexpected might happen. So
Despite the absence of all traditional signs of
life, the body was not buried.
Kept vigil for nearly a week waiting for
the rejuvenate leader to
s his skin like a snake and rise
anew.

(28:44):
And as this softening process promised to be
messy the corpse was wisely
placed in a cloth foot tub.
On a 20 24 to public television broadcast,
Bill Grace,
a descendant of the corrections
relayed to family story of those days.
When he died, my grandmother told me that

(29:06):
the they gathered the children up and brought
them into the room where the body was,
and the body was already molding,
and they told the children that that was
the new life coming out and t that
he would soon be resurrected, which, of course,
he wasn't.
No. He wasn't. The coroner was eventually called

(29:26):
and tee berry.
Slow decline began and in 19 61 when
the last member passed, the
Corruption unity property became
Corruption state Park
with many of the old buildings and artifacts,
including the model globe within a globe still
on
display.
Paranormal,

(29:47):
quite naturally, consider the property
haunted.
We've been talking about the hollow Earth as
imagined by fiction writers and cult leading fantasies.
But now I want to step backward in
time a bit to provide a more hard
headed scientific approach to proving the earth hollow.

(30:11):
This was the aspiration at least of John
Cl Sims junior,
the man who, for at least a century
became synonymous with the concept so much so
that the phrase
Sims
became a common tongue in cheek expression used
us we might today use v. That is?
I can't find my watch.
Where could it be? Oh, must have gone

(30:34):
down a Sims hole and unhelpful victoria might
answer.
Sims had been a captain in the War
of 18 12 after which she opened a
trading post on the frontier near Saint Louis
Missouri.
Business wasn't particularly good, so he began brood
on his own eccentric ideas.

(30:54):
In 18 18, he made his thoughts public
in a dramatic
proclamation known as circular number 1.
I declare the earth is hollow,
and habitable within,
containing a number of solid concentric spheres
1 within the other,
and that it is open at the polls,

(31:15):
12 or 16 degrees.
Later, he would simple this to a single
internal sphere,
he goes on.
I pledge my life in support of this
truth,
and I'm ready to explore the hollow
if the world will support and aid me
in the undertaking.
I have ready for the press. A treat

(31:36):
on the principles of matter,
wherein an I show proofs of the above
positions,
account for various phenomena.
I ask 100
brave companions
well equipped to start from Siberia in the
fall season,
with reindeer in slaves on the ice of
the frozen sea.

(31:58):
I believe we will find warm and rich
land,
stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals, if not
men.
We will return in the succeeding spring.
Anticipating public response, Sims attached to his circular
a certificate attest to his sanity.

(32:19):
I won't go into the calculation. So would
she proved the earth hollow, but suffice it
to say he guarded the polar openings
as immense. Large enough so that the gradual
turn inward would not be noticed by those
saline toward the non exist and polls.
Despite his proposal being widely mocked, Sims sold

(32:40):
his trading post, moved to Kentucky and made
have and lecturing on his hollow earth theory
is full time job.
While his were said to be dis disoriented,
dry and poorly delivered there, were listeners,
and surely attended us for the novelty, but
many freedom loving souls on country's Western Frontier

(33:02):
in Kentucky, Ohio,
might have attended not so much for the
truth of his assertion, but out of local
pride, happy to see 1 of their own
thumb his nose at East Coast expertise.
Sims appealed to a Kentucky senator to bring
his proposed La Congress in 18 23

(33:22):
and representative Jt Johnson agreed,
promoting the possibility of
new discoveries in geography,
natural history, geology and astronomy,
but of opening new sources of trade and
commerce.
25 senators voted I, but the motion was
table,
eventually resurrected at 1 4 or another by

(33:44):
representatives from South Carolina,
Pennsylvania and Ohio but
funding never came.
Sims even applied for foreign support through the
American ambassador to Russia,
and count Robin off eager to see what
his Siberian territories might yield,
agree.
But Sims sadly was unable to exploit this

(34:05):
opportunity
as he couldn't scratch together passage to S
saint. Petersburg.
In 18 19, there appeared a novel
Sim,
a voyage of discovery capitalizing in the public's
fascination with Sims theory,

(34:26):
The author is unknown, but given as
Captain Adam Sea bourne,
the mariner who supposedly
undertook this voyage.
Unlike our earlier stories, the story takes place
in antarctica rather than the arctic,
sea borne
descriptions of the voyage 1
undertaken initially to hunt seals is en enlightened

(34:46):
by an
unsuccessful mutiny the discovery of a mysterious giant
skeleton and equally enormous footprints perceived as belonging
to a bully mammoth,
eventually unexpectedly warm temperatures to
sees and unfamiliar stars above
suggests that they are making that gradual turn

(35:07):
inward and entering the polar opening.
And land cited it is burdens.
Like a beautiful and highly cultivated garden
with meat, low buildings
her throughout the scene. Of course, the inner
world S is inhabited and its occupants send
a surveillance mission and air vessel on before

(35:29):
such things existed.
I observed its appearance to be that of
a ship's barge with an inflated wind sale
in the form of a cylinder.
Suspended
longitudinal
over it, leaving a space in which were
people.
It had a runner like a fish his
tail and bins or oa, which appeared to
be moved by the people within.

(35:51):
The S when encountered face to face salute
the crew members
by pulling their noses
and speak, Sea says. In a soft
trill musical voice.
His language was as unintelligible to me as
the notes of a singing bird.
They are of the children's stature with extremely

(36:13):
white, almost translucent
skin and white, clothing,
spun as sea later learns by a certain
oversized spider light creature, living in, mountain caves.
The exquisite beauty of the women
the graceful dignity of the men, the cha
decor ends and sincere politeness of all.

(36:35):
Harmed the mind and delighted the heart.
The enjoyment of this refined people were intellectual
and pure,
not the deb debate
gratification of animal passions and sensual
appetite.
For chapter after chapter the narrative piles on
these sorts of

(36:56):
details, Ci smithsonian don't eat need or drink
intoxicated beverages,
are untouched by diseases are peaceful and possess
snow weapons,
worship God rather than gold treat their women
as equals and
are governed by a council of exceedingly wise
leaders.
They work ind for the common good and
are paid equally for all work

(37:20):
When Sea born and his crew speak of
the ways of the outer world, the
Smithsonian are
filled with disgust.
And pity.
When first encountering the outsiders, they're presumed to
be exiled sim
as This is the punishment needed out to
those not compliant with their laws.

(37:42):
Sea Grim
arises that at some point in the ancient
past, it's this that might
explain the origins of our own corrupt race.
Wishing to avoid the moral contagion present by
the foreigners, Sea crew is banished from Sam.
And when a storm overtake her ship, all
evidence collected during their visit is washed overboard

(38:04):
and even the seal pe bring no real
profit is seem born cheated by a dishonest
middle.
As the story ends, sea born still hopes
to 1 day return and make a fortune
exploiting all those precious,
and resources because we're bad people up here.

(38:31):
There is another novel written in 18 38,
which I've referenced in a previous show, our
ghost chips episode way back went.
I included it there because it contained a
particularly vivid and gruesome passage describing the sighting
of
ship in its crew of dead siemens slowly
eaten away by carrie birds,

(38:53):
that passage was penn by Edgar Allen Poe,
In the only novel he ever produced called
the narrative of arthur Gordon pi of Na.
Oh, had already offered readers a sort of
ghost ship of afloat in a weird south
Polar seed in his

(39:13):
18 31 story, Ms found in a bottle.
Ms for manuscript. And for Pi, poe returns
to the southern Seas around antarctica to create
this novels
strange mix of lu terror,
imp mysteries
and pot
adventure, all inter with
tedious ships log, tight passages, latitude, long,

(39:36):
details of practical maritime
cern and
discussions on map making earth sciences,
natural history
and so forth.
It's rather uneven.
Early in the novel, we have a young
pi fleeing his family to s away on
a w ship hiding within a dark claustrophobic
box with little food,

(39:56):
Soon, there is a mutiny shortage of provisions
resulting in cannibalism
and all this before they cross an ice
barrier air and discover the Balm, Fictitious island
of Sal, home to
unknown fauna, including a ga
species of polar bear and strange fox like
Features with silky white hair and scarlet claws.

(40:17):
The islanders
are
black, not only black skinned, but have black
teeth.
And at this point, post slips into the
sort of uncomfortable nineteenth century tropes you might
expect.
First assumed to be friendly the natives turn
on Pi and his companions attacking them and
burning their ship and forcing them to flee

(40:39):
into the hills where they've discover a series
of strange labyrinth passages,
carved with designs, later said to be
Egyptian hi
and things.
There's another battle with the hostile tribe and
another escape this time on a canoe,
Which seems to be pulled irr remarkably south
word on

(41:00):
mysterious current,
Pi logs the days with a sense of
dread, by the way, before missus Car reads,
the next passage is a little spoiler alert
for the next 2 and a half for
3 minutes as we're nearing the novels
truly surprising end.
March first,
many are... Unusual phenomenon now indicated that we

(41:22):
were entering upon a region of novelty
and wonder.
A high range of light gray vapor appeared
constantly in the southern horizon.
Flaring up occasionally, in
Streak,
now dart from east to west,
now from West to east. And again, oc
presenting a level and uniform summit.

(41:44):
In short, having all the wild
variations of the aurora Bore,
the water begins growing hot and turns the
milky color,
then
fine white powder resembling ashes, but certainly not
such,
fell over the canoe
and over large service of the water

(42:06):
as a flickering died away among the vapor
and the commotion
subsided in the sea.
Such the gigantic cut now ranged along the
whole extent of the southern horizon.
At intervals, they were visible in it while,
yawning, but moment rents.
And out these rents within which was a

(42:28):
chaos of living and
distinct images. There came rushing and mighty, but
sound winds
tearing up the kindle ocean in their core,
and then the final entry.
Many gigantic
imp white birds flew continuously now from the

(42:49):
ups the bail.
And now we rushed into the embraces of
the cataract
where a cousin threw itself open to receive
us on
but there,
a rose in our pathway,
a shrouded human figure, very far a large
in its proportions than any dwell among men,

(43:09):
and the hue of the skin of the
figure,
walls of a bear perfect
what miss
of the snow.
Yes. That's really how it ends. The very
last words,
presumably as they enter a polar other world
or make them what you will.

(43:35):
Despite never actually delivering a description of a
world within our own?
Pose, p is in
linked with hollow mythology.
In part, because of some mysterious words reported
by the attending physician, John Joseph Moran at
the hospital to which poe was brought when
found intoxicated and deli

(43:56):
on the street.
In Moran...
Official memorandum of the death of Edgar A
poe. Published to the Baltimore son, The physician
is quoted.
I found him in a violent deli.
This state continued until Saturday evening when he
commenced.

(44:16):
Calling for 1 reynolds,
which he did to the night until 3
on Sunday morning.
It's often suggest that this could be the
newspaper editor, writer, explorer, and Hollow earth ent,
j in reynolds.
So his address on the subject of surveying
and exploring expeditions in the Pacific Ocean and
South Seas

(44:37):
had been favorably reviewed by poe,
for the southern literary messenger,
and a similar piece by Reynolds Po reviewed
for the Philadelphia based Grams magazine.
More significantly, Poe had actually borrowed some 700
wars directly from the aforementioned
address s text for Arthur Gordon Pi.

(45:02):
As a s war supporter of the Hollow
Earth concept, reynolds, not only was in communication
was Sims, but joined him for years on
his lecture tour.
However, with time, reynolds modified his perspective, exchanging
the idea of a polar opening,
for that of the warmer open polar c
hidden behind Icy barriers.

(45:25):
This more modern position no doubt aided him
in securing the support that in 18 29
allowed him to organize a private
expedition. Which reached the shores of antarctica.
The trip wasn't exactly as planned, however,
on the return, reynolds and a companion were
abandoned by a mountainous crew on the shores

(45:47):
of chile,
leaving the cast to spend 2 years in
that country as va bonds.
While reynolds may have modified
sins beliefs.
His Hollow earth concept lived on far after
his death in 18 28,
and not only is a motif for fiction.

(46:09):
In 18 71, for instance, William F lion
produced a book based on on scientific theories,
but channel material,
1 with the curious title.
The hollow globe or
the world's ag educator and reconcile.
A treat on the physical of the earth

(46:30):
presented through the organism
of M l Sherman
D. Sherman was the spiritual medium whose channel
content
was said to have been merely edited by
Lion.
18 85 saw the publication of another book
on the topic,
interior world, American manifest destiny by Washington El

(46:50):
tower,
which wrapped an earnest argument for national exploitation
of this final frontier
inside a predictable
adventure story,
In 19 o eight's saw the founding in
New York of the William Reed Hollow Earth
exploring club, an organization inspired by Reed p
reportedly non fiction volume, the phantom of the

(47:12):
polls.
Although I don't believe the club ever pulled
together that expedition.
1 of the more influential books on this
topic appeared even later in 19 13.
A journey to the Earth's interior,
or have the poles really been discovered?

(47:32):
No. Said Marshall b Gardner, owner of a
cor factory in the outskirts of Chicago.
Like Sims, he imagined the inward turning to
the ocean's surface is gradual so that went
unnoticed by sailors.
And like reynolds,
imagined balm lands hidden behind an icy barrier.
Here, through the heat of the interior sun,

(47:53):
Plant life makes seed in size and luxurious.
Any vegetation that ever grew upon the outside
service of the earth.
The frozen bodies of mammoth
discovered with surprising frequency, particularly in Siberia
seemed far too fresh, to gardner be thousands
of years old.

(48:14):
Surely, they had only recently stray from their
home in the inner earth
and the plant life still recognizable in their
stomachs testified to that lush anterior vegetation.
A particularly entertaining chapter, mammoth an finds further
evidence in the relatively normal fresh, I guess,

(48:34):
taste of their meat. The most talked about
mammoth Banquet was that given by professor Hertz
of the imperial academy of science.
Of Sage Petersburg, who had been the leader
of the expedition into Siberia,
which une unearned and transported the mammoth in
question
to the imperial museum,

(48:55):
and asked scientists in other parts of the
world to contribute other ancient foods such as
corn dug up from the ruins of Egyptian
cities. He then cites an account of this
banquet and its main course.
Mammoth stake, which all the learning guests declared
was agreeable to taste
and not much tougher than some of the

(49:16):
solo furnished by butcher up today.
Another mammoth meal was eaten by an American
traveler and author Mister James Oliver C,
who told reporter from the Chicago Tribune.
The flesh was of a deep bread or
mahogany color. And I dine on steak, an
inch and a half thick.

(49:38):
The flavor of the meat was old, not
unpleasant, but simply old and dry.
That it had lost none of its life
sustaining elements was shown by the fact that
the dogs the rover upon it. And finally,
there's a 19 third. Chain banquet organized in
Paris by the Italian poet
military officer, Gabriel,

(50:00):
who declared.
It was the most successful dinner I ever
gave.
The elephant meat exceeded my highest
expectations.
In flavor it was like tortoise flesh. But
it was well a little tough.
I had it bro and served with 6
different kinds of sauce.

(50:21):
Good meat shouldn't really need all those sauces,
but I wouldn't have turned down that invite.
Now, I'm sure there's a particular French novel
that came to mind when we started talking
about adventures and the earth interior.
Of course, I mean Jules 18 64 novel

(50:43):
journey to the center of the Earth, which
you've now learned was far from the first
treatment of this scene.
In fact, it wasn't even the first French
novel called dirt to the center of the
earth.
A, largely forgotten 18 21 book with that
very same title appeared 43 years before Burns,
it was by Jo D.

(51:05):
And author best known for his 18 18
infer dictionary,
a volume particularly familiar from its 18 63
edition with
Illustrations of demons, which you've definitely seen probably
in horror movies in which a character flips
through and ancient occult toe.
Dump c center of the earth is another

(51:26):
work of utopian fiction, catalog the virtue of
the dim dominion inhabitants of roughly a half
a dozen lands on Earth's interior.
I also wasn't aware of this book until
listener just Moe and expert on historical science
fiction pointed it out to me. I'd asked
him about the first instance of the sub

(51:47):
dinosaur
probe, Something familiar from turns novel.
D diplomacy c does have some sort of
seed monster popping up behind a boat and
fought off by the explorer poor, but it's
described as
a monster of enormous size we mis mistook
for a sea horse.
And then they're were flying dragons,

(52:08):
rather classically folk glory Dragons own up, really
matching up with any kind of terra sword
really?
So it seems that Jules Verne journey to
the center of the earth is the real
sub
dinosaur
choke maker. But I'm getting a bit ahead
of myself.
Ver story begins with the discovery of a

(52:31):
run manuscript by the German professor, Otto von
Linden,
1 containing a note describing a journey deep
below the Earth, undertaking in medieval Iceland northern
starting point as is traditional for these stories.
Following the clues in the manuscript Linden Broken
his nephew traveled to that country, and with

(52:51):
the local guide began their interior journey with
a descent through the mouth of dormant volcano.
Burns scientific
orientation doesn't allow for the traditional hollow earth's
sphere within a sphere nonsense sentenced study simply
describes it is sent through cavern albeit including
some rather,
enormous chambers 1 large enough to accommodate a

(53:14):
vast underground ocean he dubbed central sea.
There is no inner sun of course, the
explorers bring their own lights, which should only
reach so far, so to reveal the vast
of that sieve or deposits it some
mysterious
electromagnetic phenomenon and associated with the
chambers vault
and also provides a luminous gas to light

(53:37):
another chamber
As seen already in at Do, there's an
underground river and forests of colossal mushrooms,
Along with other giant flo, representing a Vast
and mysterious hot house of ante il plants.
Be explicitly structures his story after the paleo

(53:58):
logical process of digging for fall that is
a descent into lower strata being a descent
into the past.
So naturally, a herd of living mastodon are
encountered.
Strangely, these are accompanied by a sort of
shepherd of 12 foot primitive man,
something recalling the biblical notion of Anti d

(54:19):
il China
and so strange that even leaves the outspoken
professor Lin brought more or less speechless.
Hence and of course, there's that signature scene
illustrated on the covers of many additions, the
battle between
2 prehistoric monsters who swim the central sea,
Ver had his professor pinned them with specific

(54:39):
names.
The first of these hideous monsters.
Has a sn of a poor miss, the
head of a lizard, the teeth of a
crocodile,
and it is this that has deceived us,
it is the most fearful of all angelo
d
reptile. The world renowned, ic

(55:00):
us or great fish lizard.
The other is a monstrous serpent.
See under the hard baltic shell of the
turtle,
the terrible enemy of its fearful rival,
the p
or sea K island. Will
Listener, Justin also pointed me to an early

(55:22):
work of paleo art, actually the earliest and
18 30 water color by English geo Henry
D, which might have inspired Ver battle.
The painting, which was widely circulated in lit
form shows precisely these 2 species fighting.
With the ic
crunching in its jaws, they s neck p

(55:45):
seemingly the in the encounter as it is
in the novels battle.
This prehistoric combat scene was so popular that
in 18 71 English edition of the novel,
1 notorious for its audacious liberties with the
text,
fabricated an entire chapter dedicated to staging another

(56:05):
battle between something called a Shark crocodile.
And a 14 foot cave only 08:14
Don't unthinkable of but my be true a
man took some tools and went by no

(56:26):
human. Being at foot
alone
went into the interiors earth. Ladies and gentlemen,
this is James Mason.
Being come along with Pat boone and me,
Ali,
Diane Baker
and k the duck.
And discover sights and sounds and wonders, no
living man has ever witnessed before. Speaking of

(56:47):
prehistoric creatures.
Hope you'll indulge me with this final personal
complaint about the 19 59 film adaptation.
Essay sa, lifelong stop motion fan. I remember
being bitterly disappointed as a kid with what
must have been intended to substitute for the
aforementioned battle scene.
It's no longer in the sea itself, but

(57:08):
on the shore
and anti anticlimactic cameo by a handful of
t, not visualize through stop motion, but by
gluing fins to the backs of actual lizards.
Rhino now Ig who flop about in that
dis way, not battling each other, but really
cannibal 1 of their own after it's killed

(57:29):
by a single spear
thrown by 1 of the explorers.
Another brief dinosaur scene uses, another lizard actor
something like a monitor liz day t lizard
airbrush red for some reason and
moving through a miniature set representing And ruins,
not here something in the novel, but I

(57:50):
suppose after Disney's, 20000 leaks under the sea,
audiences
just demanded at lan and ruins their
jules verne movies.
And
then there's the casting of pat Boone as
the professors nephew, which
might have worked at the time at least
for box office as he was a fairly
big star in 19 59, but in music,

(58:12):
not as an actor.
He does sing 1 song in the film
and little snippet of the Robert Burns spell
that's appropriate to the nineteenth century Scottish setting,
but
there were 2 more song sequences,
shot, but thankfully discarded,
including this with a naked pat boom discreet

(58:33):
shot, of course, seen as he showers in
crystal.
I suddenly feel like singing
Yeah, a bit cringe as the kids say.
And there is 1 other song I pray
to God. They never considered using this in

(58:54):
the film, but I guess it was released
as a sort of cross promotion.
I'll just close out with this, but we'll
be back next month with part 2.
Exploring our hollow earth
much more deeply, so to speak. For love
true love
for love

(59:28):
I hope everyone's been enjoying our show, and
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(59:50):
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(01:00:10):
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(01:00:32):
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(01:00:53):
Thanks so much
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