Captain John Cleves Symmes Jr. (November 5, 1780 – May 28, 1829) 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.
Early life John Cleves Symmes Jr. was born in Sussex County, New Jersey, son of Thomas and Mercy (née Harker) Symmes. He was named for his uncle John Cleves Symmes, a delegate to the Continental Congress, a Colonel in the Revolutionary War, Chief Justice of New Jersey, father-in-law of US President William Henry Harrison and pioneer in the settlement and development of the Northwest Territory. Though Justice Symmes had no male children, the younger John Cleves Symmes was often referred to by his later military rank, or with the suffix of "Jr.", so as to distinguish him from his uncle. Symmes "received a good common English education" and on March 26, 1802, at the age of twenty-two, obtained a commission as an Ensign in the US Army (with the assistance of his uncle). He was commissioned into the 1st Infantry Regiment and was promoted to Second Lieutenant on May 1, 1804, to First Lieutenant on July 29, 1807, and to Captain on January 20, 1813. In 1807, Symmes fought a pistol duel with Lieutenant Marshall. Symmes suffered a wound in his wrist; Marshall one in his thigh. Afterwards, the two men became friends. On December 25, 1808, Symmes married Mary Anne Lockwood (nee. Pelletier), a widow with six children, all of whom he was to raise alongside his own children by Mary. During the War of 1812, Symmes was initially stationed in Missouri Territory until 1814 when his 1st Infantry Regiment was sent to Canada, arriving just in time to provide relief to American forces at the Battle of Lundy's Lane. Symmes also served during the Siege of Fort Erie, and continued in his Army career until being honorably discharged on June 15, 1815. After leaving the Army, Symmes moved to St. Louis (then a frontier settlement) and went into business as a trader. He sold supplies to Army, and obtained a license to trade with the Fox Indians. However, his business venture was unsuccessful and in 1819, Symmes moved his family to Newport, KY. But while failing as a trader, Symmes was contemplating the rings of Saturn and developing his theory of the Hollow Earth—a theory which he would spend the remainder of his life promoting.
Hollow Earth theory
I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking.
Declaration and reaction On April 10, 1818, Symmes announced his Hollow Earth hypothesis to the world, publishing his Circular No. 1. While a few enthusiastic supporters would ultimately lionize Symmes as the "Newton of the West", in general the world was not impressed. Symmes had sent his declaration (at considerable cost to himself) to "each notable foreign government, reigning prince, legislature, city, college, and philosophical societies, throughout the union, and to individual members of our National Legislature, as far as the five hundred copies would go." Symmes's son Americus wrote of the reaction to Circular No. 1 in 1878, recounting "[i]ts reception by the public can easily be imagined; it was overwhelmed with ridicule as the production of a distempered imagination, or the result of partial insanity. It was for many years a fruitful source of jest with the newspapers." Symmes, though, was not deterred. He began a campaign of circulars, newspaper letters, and lectures aimed at defending and promoting his hypothesis of a Hollow Earth—and to build support for a polar expedition to vindicate his theory.
Symmes's theory In its original form, Symmes's Hollow Earth theory described the world as consisting of five concentric spheres, with our outer earth and its atmosphere as the largest. He visualized the Earth's crust as being approximately 1,000 miles (1,610 km) thick, with an Arctic opening about 4,000 miles (6,450 km) wide, and an Antarctic opening around 6,000 miles (9,650 km) wide. Symmes proposed that the curvature of the rim of these polar openings was gradual enough that it would be possible to actually enter the inner earth without being aware of the transition. He argued that due to the centrifugal force of Earth's rotation, the Earth would be flattened at the poles, leading to a vast passage into the inner Earth. Symmes's concept of polar openings connecting the Earth's surface to the inner Earth was to be his unique contribution to Hollow Earth lore. Such polar openings would come to be known as "Symmes Holes" in literary Hollow Earths. Symmes held that the inner surfaces of the concentric spheres in his Hollow Earth would be illuminated by sunlight reflected off of the outer surface of the next sphere down and would be habitable, being a "warm and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals if not men". He also believed that the spheres revolved at different rates and upon different axes, and that the apparent instability of magnetic North in the Arctic could be explained by travelers moving unawares across and along the verge between the inner and outer earths. Symmes generalized his theory beyond just the Earth, claiming that "the Earth as well as all the celestial orbicular bodies existing in the inverse, visible and invisible, which partake in any degree of a planetary nature, from the greatest to the smallest, from the sun down to the most minute blazing meteor or falling star, are all constituted, in a greater or less degree, of a collection of spheres". Ultimately, Symmes was to simplify his theory, abandoning the series of concentric inner spheres, and teaching "only one concentric sphere (a hollow earth), not five" by the time he embarked on his lecture tour of the East Coast.
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