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 08-25-08

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.

Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface by David Standish (2006) – This book is just what the title promises. If you’re at all interested in this stuff, buy it now. There’s a whole chapter devoted to Pellucidar.

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

Relation d’un voyage du pole arctique au pole antarctique (1721) - A whaling ship is drawn into a northern vortex and travels through the Earth, emerging at an island under Antarctica.

Lamekis, ou les voyages extraodinaires d’un egyptien dans la terre interieure (1734) - A world beneath Egypt

The Journey of Niels Klim To the World Underground by Baron Ludvig Holberg (1741) - Klim falls through a hole to an inner world. Bison Books reprinted it in 2004.

The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins by Robert Paltock (1751) - Wilkins enters a new world in a cavern beneath the Antarctic. This is from the title page blurb, “His wonderful passage through a subterraneous cavern into a kind of new world; his there meeting with a…flying woman, whose life he preserved, and afterwards married her…”

Icosameron by Giacomo Casanova (1788) - This five-volume, 1,800-page story is about shipwrecked siblings who are dragged by currents to an underwater crevice and through layers of water and gas until they emerge in an unknown land. Protocosmo is a gigantic island floating on a muddy substance at the center of the Earth. It has a sun that gives out pale pink light. It is full of kingdoms and cities. The people are called Megamicroes and live in underground houses. They are hermaphrodites and oviparous. The fauna of Protocosmo is similar to Europe except for the flying horses. The siblings introduce gunpowder to this world below.

Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery by Captain Adam Seaborn [thought to be a pseudonym of John Cleves Symmes] (1820) - A ship enters Symzonia through a polar opening, the second in the series of "Chinese boxes.” The people here illuminate their world by refracting the light coming through the polar openings using a system of mirrors. Their cities are similar to ours except there is no color; everything is white. The people communicate through a musical language.  Reactors propel their ships. People of the surface are descendants of exiles from Symzonia.

Le Voyage au Centre de la Terre by Jacques Collin de Plancy (1821) - The inner world contains little people and various countries. The protagonists return home through the southern polar opening.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864) – This is actually a deep cave system story but perhaps the first to introduce prehistoric animals and men. It contains the first dinosaur fight in literature. Read it...

The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1871) – This is another deep cave system story. It describes a utopia inhabited by a highly evolved race that plans on taking over the surface, hence the name of the story.

Mizora by Mary Bradley Lane (~1880) - In this all-female utopia, males have been eliminated. Lane writes of Mizora’s upward curving horizon.

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).

Underground Man by Gabriel de Tarde (1896) - In the future, our descendents are driven underground when the sun burns out. A new utopia is established with no plant or animal life except humans.

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

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. The Earth's core is lit by a red, interior sun (the smoky god). 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...  

Essays on Pellucidar Sources