Hollow Earth

A listing of theories, fiction, essays on Pellucidar sources, and internet links

An earlier version of this listing was published in the National Capital Panthans Journal #56, June 2001. It was reprinted in the book, The Gilak's Guide to Pellucidar in 2007.

Last updated 04-03-09

Theories

Astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742), of Halley's comet fame, published a paper in 1692 explaining the reason for the variations in the Earth’s magnetic poles; our world contains three independently turning concentric spheres. The spheres are capable of supporting life and are lit by one of several possible sources.

Captain John Cleves Symmes (1780-1829) of Ohio produced a circular in 1818 announcing his hollow Earth theory. Like Halley, Symmes proposed that the Earth contained concentric spheres nestled inside each other, with the potential for life on both the concave and convex surfaces of each sphere. Symmes advanced Halley’s theory by suggesting the existence of polar openings. He believed the holes (later theorists refer to the holes at the poles as "Symmes Holes") were 4000 miles in diameter, large enough to emit light to the inner world. The descent into one of the holes would be so gradual that an explorer may not realize that he was entering the Earth. Symmes began lecturing first in Cincinnati and Hamilton, Ohio, and then many other places, displaying his customized hollow globe to audiences. In 1822, Symmes, with the backing of a Kentucky senator, unsuccessfully petitioned Congress to fund a polar expedition. He tried again in 1823 and again in 1824; at one point the motion received twenty-three affirmative votes, not enough. Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres, the definitive work of his theories was written by James McBride in 1826. Additionally, a fictional work, the first American hollow Earth novel, Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery by Captain Adam Seaborn is thought by many to be authored by Symmes working under a pseudonym. John Symmes died on May 29, 1829, at age forty-eight. One of his children, Americus, had a hollow globe monument erected on his father’s gravesite in Hamilton, Ohio as a testament to his efforts.

Electrical physician Cyrus Teed (1839-1908) had an “illumination” in 1869. Among the many things revealed to him: he was the Messiah, the Earth is hollow, and various philosophies and “theories” that later became the beliefs of his Koreshan Unity. His hollow Earth theory was unique. He believed we were on the inside, living on the concave surface of the Earth, held in place by centrifugal force. In 1897, Teed built an instrument called the Rectilineator to measure the concavity of the Earth. The results of that experiment satisfied Teed that he was correct.

The Inner World: A New Theory by Frederick Culmer (1886) - This Mormon writer states his ideas concerning the hollow Earth, attractive and repulsive forces, and various facts and conjectures on gravity, centrifugal force, planetary orbits, and molecular bonding. In the nineteenth century, Mormons hoped that Arctic explorations would turn up evidence of the lost tribes of Israel.

The Phantom of the Poles by William Reed (1906) - Reed suggests that outer crust folk colonized the inner Earth. There is no internal sun; the inner world gets its light from our sun shining through the polar openings.

A Journey to the Earth's Interior or Have the Poles Really Been Discovered by Marshall B. Gardner (1913) - This book was revised, enlarged (456 pages), and republished in 1920. It contains facts from explorers along with the author's opinion to support his hollow Earth theory. He denounces the theories of Halley, Symmes, and Teed. According to Gardner, the hollow Earth was formed by a rotating mass of nebulous gas that broke off from its central nucleus and formed a spherical-shaped envelope that solidified, leaving the central nucleus still in the center to form an inner sun. All the planets are thus hollow, in fact, astronomer Percival Lowell reported seeing gleams of light coming out of the polar caps of Mars. Gardner says the Earth's crust is 800 miles thick. He gives irrefutable scientific proof that the inner Earth is mostly tropical.

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science by Martin Gardner (1952) - A discussion on the theories of Halley, Symmes, and Marshall B. Gardner.  

The Hollow Earth by Dr. Raymond Bernard [Walter Siegmeister] (1964), hardback and softcover from Fieldcrest Publishing Company - Bernard claims that 900 miles down live a race of supermen in peace, health, and abundance. This is the true home of the flying saucers. He explains the significance of Admiral Byrd’s flight, allegedly into the north polar opening. Also by Bernard: Flying Saucers from the Earth’s Interior (1966) and Escape to the Inner Earth (1974). No records of Bernard’s death exist, and it is assumed that he met his death searching South America for entrances to underground civilizations or that he is still living among the civilians of an advanced underground world.

Fiction  (Prior to At the Earth's Core in 1913)

Relation d’un voyage du Pôle Arctique au Pôle Antarctique par le centre du monde, avec la description de ce périlleux passage, et des choses merveilleuses et étonnantes qu’on a découvertes sous le Pôle Antarctique by Anonymous (1721) – In the first fictional “holes in the poles” story, a whaling ship is drawn into a northern vortex and travels through the Earth, emerging at an island under Antarctica. This short, 70-page novel is usually listed with the hollow Earth fiction, however the author does not describe the voyage through the Earth at all. Most of the book takes place at the South Pole.

Lamékis, ou Les voyages extraodinaires d’un Egyptien dans la terre intérieure; avec la découverte de l’Isle des Sylphides by Charles de Fieux, the chevalier de Mouhy (1734) – This book should probably not be classified as a subterranean novel either. There are three episodes in this 650-page novel that take us underground. In the most interesting one, the protagonist and his mother are lowered into a bottomless pit to die. There they encounter a race of giant worms and are taken to their kingdom. Later, they meet toad-beings riding worms.

The Journey of Niels Klim To the World Underground by Baron Ludvig Holberg (1741) – In this, the first true hollow Earth novel, Klim falls through a shaft in Norway and tumbles onto a world at the center of the Earth called Nazar; a planet that moves about a subterranean sun. In the land of Potu (utop), the intelligent life forms are walking, talking trees. Klim also visits the underside of the Earth’s crust where he encounters a race of intelligent apes. After twelve years below, Klim falls back up the same hole he fell down in the beginning.  The book was first published in Latin in 1741. Bison Books reprinted it in English in 2004 with a preface by Peter Fitting, author of Subterranean Worlds: A Critical Anthology.

The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins by Robert Paltock (1751) – This book is often listed with the subterranean novels but in fact is not one. Part of the book’s full title states, “…his wonderful Passage thro’ a subterraneous Cavern into a kind of new World.” Wilkins is sucked down a cataract and emerges in a lake in the middle of an island, but this is in the open air. The story is about a utopia in a hidden land near the South Pole, above ground.

A Voyage to the World in the Center of the Earth giving an Account of the Manners, Customs, Laws, Government and Religion of the Inhabitants, Their Persons and Habits Described with Several Other Particulars; In which Is Introduced the History of an Inhabitant of the Air, Written by Himself, with Some Account of the Planetary Worlds by Anonymous (1755) – The protagonist narrates an adventure that begins with a fall into Mount Vesuvius and a lucky landing on a pile of hay on an inner planet at the center of the Earth. The inhabitants of the subterranean world are well aware of the upper Earth people, in fact, so many have fallen in that there is an “earthly quarter” where they all live. There is no inner sun; the world is lit by its own brilliance reflected off the jewel-encrusted concave inner surface of the outer world. The inner world folk believe that all creatures possess a soul and so they live at peace with all the animals

L’Icosaméron, ou Histoire d'Edouard et d'Elisabeth qui passèrent quatre vingts ans chez les Mégamicres habitans aborigènes du Protocosme dans l'intérieur de notre globe or, shortened and in English, The Icosameron by Giacomo Casanova (1788) – The author is the same Casanova whose womanizing earned him the title of “the world’s greatest lover.” This five-volume, 1,700-page story is about shipwrecked siblings who, inside of a lead chest, are dragged by currents down through layers of water and gas, finally emerging in Protocosmos, an immense land on the inner crust of our land. It has a sun that gives out pale pink light and is full of kingdoms and cities. The people are called Megamicres (big-littles) and live in underground houses. They are hermaphrodites and oviparous, and primarily nourish themselves by sucking on each other’s breasts. The fauna of Protocosmo is similar to Europe’s except for flying horses. Casanova proposes that this land is the location of the Garden of Eden and that the Megamicres are descendants of the first couple. Edouard and Elisabeth leave the utopia eighty-one years later after producing millions of offspring and introducing gunpowder. 

 Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery by Captain Adam Seaborn, real author unknown (1820) – Thought by some to be written by John Cleves Symmes himself, this 230-page book is the first American hollow Earth novel. Captain Seaborn narrates his adventures as his crew sails his ship through the southern polar opening to find a utopia they call Symzonia, named for Symmes. The inhabitants of Symzonia illuminate their world by refracting the light coming through the polar openings using a system of mirrors. Seaborn refers to the inhabitants as Internals, and his own people as Externals. Although smaller than the Externals, the Internals are quite strong and able to leap three times higher. They have gas filled flying ships. Seaborn learns that his people are descendants of degenerates that were exiled from Symzonia and banished to a remote area at the North Pole. Seaborn tells the people of Symzonia about his race. The ways of the Externals are disgusting to them, and the council orders Seaborn and his crew to leave the inner world.

Voyage au Centre de la Terre by Jacques Collin de Plancy (1821) – In this book, the crew of a shipwrecked fishing boat gets drawn down into the inner world by a whirlwind. They land on another, smaller planet within our planet, lit by our sun shining through the polar openings and reflecting off the underside of the Earth. It contains little people and various countries. After seven years, the protagonists return home by putting on magnetic helmets, and on top of a mountain, being drawn upward to the ore-laden polar region of our world.

Voyage au Centre de la Terre by Jules Verne (1864) – Plancy’s novel of the same name (see above) is essentially forgotten, but this one is the best-known subterranean novel. It’s a deep cave system story not a hollow Earth story, and perhaps the first to introduce prehistoric animals and men, well, just one man. It also contains the first dinosaur fight in literature. Three travelers follow the path of an ancient explorer into an extinct volcano in Iceland. Forty-five days of journeying finds them about 105 miles down, still within the Earth’s crust, in an immense cavern, and on the shore of an underground sea. They try to blast open a blocked tunnel but this causes them to be shot upward out of a volcano in Italy. Read it...

The Coming Race by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1871) – The author is known for his novel, The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), but perhaps better known for the opening line of Paul Clifford, “It was a dark and stormy night…” Like the Verne novel, The Coming Race is a deep cave system story that takes place within the Earth’s crust. The protagonist falls into a deep chasm and discovers a utopia inhabited by an ancient, highly evolved race. Their ancestors once lived on the surface, before the time of Noah, and fled below to escape a global catastrophe. Now, through the use of “vril power,” they are able to influence the weather and the minds of people, plants, and animals. They plan on taking over the surface world, hence the name of the story.

A Trip to the Center of the Earth by Howard De Vere [pseudonym of Howard Van Orden] (1875) - The setting is Mammoth Caves. This story was serialized in New York Boys' Weekly from June 8 through August 5, 1878. It was reprinted in the Five Cent Wide Awake Library #1195, on March 17, 1894.

Pantaletta: A Romance of Sheheland by Mrs. J. Wood (1882) – Here, women wear men’s clothing and are called Shehes (men are called Heshes).

The Third World - A Tale of Love and Strange Adventure by Henry Clay Fairman (1885) - An opening at the North Pole leads to an inner world.

Interior World, A Romance Illustrating a New Hypothesis of Terrestrial Organization by Washington L. Tower (1885)

A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder by Anonymous [James de Mille] (1888) - A small craft in a southern ocean gets sucked down into a world within. Here, the people are death-lovers and can see in the dark. The book is considered the first Canadian science fiction novel.  

Under the Auroras by William J. Shaw (1888)

Phosphor: an Ischian Mystery by Sherry J. Filmore (1888) - An Australian story about a man buried alive who escapes into an underground kingdom of prehistoric beasts and Latin-speaking phosphorescent anthropoids. The queen falls in love with the protagonist and intends to use him as breeding stock to improve the gene pool. He manages to kill the queen and escape through a volcano.

Al Modad by M. Louise Moore (1892)

The Goddess of Atvatabar by William R. Bradshaw (1892) - Commander Lexington White and his crew blast through polar ice to an open sea. They sail through the polar opening to a world lit by an interior sun and to the continent of Atvatabar. The people there worship the soul. Their inventions include mechanical wings for individual flight and mechanical ostriches that serve as mounts for the cavalry. Commander White falls in love with the chaste goddess of Atvatabar causing civil war.

Baron Trump's Marvelous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood and illustrated by Charles Howard Johnson (1893) - An opening in arctic Russia conveys Trump into the interior world. He passes through the strange countries of the Transparent Folk, the Rattlebrains, and others. This lost race story is satirical and intended for adults as well as children.

From Earth's Centre by S. Bryon Welcome (1894)

Swallowed by an Earthquake by Edward Douglas Fawcett (1894)

The Land of Changing Sun by Will N. Harben (1894)

Dreams of Earth and Sky by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1895)

Forty Years with the Damned; or, Life Inside the Earth by Charles Aikin (1895)

The Third World, A Tale of Love & Strange Adventure by Henry Clay Fairman (1895)

Beyond the Paleocrystic Sea by A. S. Morton (1895)

Etidorhpa by John Uri Lloyd and illustrated by J. Augustus Knapp (1895) – This book describes a weird and hallucinatory journey to Etidorhpa (Aphrodite spelled backwards).

Among the Gnomes by Franz Hartmann (1896) – An Irishman visits the underworld inhabited by fairies, dragons, and goblins.

In the World Below by Fred Thorpe (1897)

Through the Earth by Clement Fezandie (1898) - A transportation tube is bored from New York City to Australia.

Under Pike’s Peak; or Mahalma, Child of the Fire Father by Charles McKesson (1898)

The Sovereign Guide: A Tale of Eden by William Amos Miller (1898)

The Last Lemurian: A Westralian Romance by G. Firth Scott (1898)  

The Secret of the Earth by Charles Willing Beale (1899) - Perhaps the first to use aircraft to enter the polar opening. Surface folks are descendants of exiles from below.

Nequa: or, The Problem of the Ages by Jack Adams [pseudonym of Alcanoan O. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe] (1900)

Beyond the Great South Wall: The Secret of the Antarctic by Frank Savile with illustrations by Robert L. Mason (1901) - An expedition to the Antarctic searches for lost treasures of the Mayans. The explorers encounter Cay, a dinosaur worshipped by the Mayans.

Thyra, A Romance of the Polar Pit by Robert Ames Bennet (1901) - Arctic explorers find a subsurface land inhabited by prehistoric beasts and descendants of the Vikings.

Intermere by William Alexander Taylor (1901-1902) - An advanced civilization at the Earth’s core has eliminated all the problems of the surface world.

The Land of the Central Sun by Park Winthrop (1902)

The Daughter of the Dawn by William Reginald Hodder (1903) - The Maroi are a prehistoric race in an inner world below New Zealand.

Mr Oseba's Last Discovery by George W. Bell (1904) - The story of an inner world inhabitant discovering the outer world. The cover illustration is a globe with a sailing ship coming from the polar opening.

My Bride From Another World by Rev. E. C. Atkins (1904) - Nudism and vegetarianism

Underground Man by Gabriel de Tarde [pseudonym of Jean Gabriel de Tarde] (1904) - with introduction by H. G. Wells, when the sun burns out, our future society flees underground. A new utopia is established with no plant or animal life except humans.  

A Criminal Croesus by George Griffith [real name George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones] (1904) - Gnome-like creatures living below in a sub-ocean cavern of the Atlantic.

The Wolf-Men by Frank Powell (1906)

Under the World by John DeMorgan (1906)

The Land of Nison by C. Regnus [pseudonym of Charels Sanger] (1906)

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum (1908) – In the fourth of the thirteen-book Oz series, Dorothy falls through a crack in the ground and finds strange lands at the interior.

Five Thousand Miles Underground or The Mystery of the Centre of the Earth by Roy Rockwood [pseudonym of Howard Garis] (1908) – In this story for juveniles, a special dirigible/boat is constructed and flown through the southern polar opening to a land of giants.

The Smoky God or A Voyage to the Inner World by Willis George Emerson (1908) - Norse fishermen are driven north by a storm and enter the interior world to discover an advanced race of giants called the Chosen. They are taken to the capital city called Eden. The Earth's core is lit by a red, interior sun, the smoky god of the title. The protagonists leave the inner world after two years, sailing out the southern polar opening. Read it...

Under the Andes by Rex Stout - This story appeared in the February, 1914 All-Story magazine just two months before At the Earth’s Core. Later published as a book, it remains in print. Two brothers and Desiree Le Mire, the most desirable woman in the world, enter a cave system that takes them deep below the Andes. There they discover the descendents of the ancient Incas, who disappeared 400 years before. Desiree seems destined to become the queen of the Incas, bewitching them as easily as she bewitches all men. Escaping from the Incas, the trio encounters a reptilian creature that mesmerizes its prey with its unblinking eye and commands the protagonists to join it in the water (very Mahar-like). The story is enjoyable and fast moving. Read it...  

At the Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1914) – This book is only listed here as a place-keeper because I have already written plenty about it. It’s interesting to note, however, that it’s the first hollow Earth novel to introduce a new way of penetrating Mother Earth: the mechanical mole.

Essays on Pellucidar Sources