Symmes' Hollow Earth (Circular No. 1, 1818)
text
In 1818 a US Army veteran mailed 500 letters declaring the Earth is hollow and you can walk in through holes at the poles.
Who they are
John Cleves Symmes Jr. and his 1818 pamphlet 'Circular No. 1.'
What they do
It's the founding document of the modern 'hollow Earth' idea, claiming the planet is a set of nested spheres open at the poles and habitable inside.
How it works
Symmes mailed roughly 500 copies declaring the Earth 'hollow and habitable within,' with polar openings of '12 or 16 degrees,' building on Halley's 1692 shell theory; Congress rejected his petitions, but his follower Jeremiah Reynolds pushed a polar expedition forward after dropping the hollow-Earth claim, which fed into the 1838 Wilkes Expedition.
Why it matters
The engine flatly marks the literal claim as false, while noting how the idea still helped spark real polar exploration.
The engine's record — word for word
[Report #115 — Inner-World] [web-checked Jun 18 2026] John Cleves Symmes Jr. mailed ~500 copies of 'Circular No. 1' (Apr 10 1818) declaring Earth 'hollow, and habitable within' — 'a number of' concentric spheres (NOT specifically five), open at the poles '12 or 16 degrees'. Rooted in Halley's 1692 shell model (halley_1692_shell). The U.S. Exploring Expedition link is INDIRECT: Symmes himself failed (Congress rejected his 1822-23 petitions); his disciple Jeremiah Reynolds carried a polar-expedition campaign forward while DROPPING the hollow-earth framing -> the Wilkes Expedition (1838). DISPOSITION: literal-falsified (#147).
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