4. The Newton of the West
The Hollow Earth Theory was concocted by a charlatan named John Cleves Symmes, Jr., a veteran of the War of 1812. He moved to the frontier, where he reinvented himself as a scientist and became known as the “Newton of the West”. In 1818 he published Symmes Circular No. 1, in which he wrote: “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“.
Each concentric circle supposedly contained a subterranean world, all of them heated and illuminated by a sun-like object at the Earth’s center. Symmes then hit the lecture circuit, and lobbied the government for an expedition to the poles, where he claimed the openings to the hollow earth’s interior were located. Educated people scoffed, but many, including John Quincy Adams, took it seriously. Indeed, he promised to back an expedition to explore the hollow earth during his successful 1824 presidential campaign.