"Arctic explorers have observed in the long night of the polar regions that the north star rises to the zenith at a certain latitude, and then declines over the stern of their vessels as they advance further northward, which is directly in contradiction to what it should do, had they not already reached the verge and begun to pass inward toward the interior. This in itself should be a convincing fact. The Aurora Borealis has never been explained satisfactorily, but you and I know its meaning. Strange plants and birds unknown to our world have from time to time been found upon our most northern shores. As I have already told you, the reindeer of Spitzbergen are marked by the hand of man, but what man no one knows, as the island is uninhabited, and as they could not have come from the south, they must have crossed the ice from some undiscovered country to the north.
"Almost all of the civilized nations have from time to time expended large sums of money in determining the figure of the earth. Arcs of the meridian have been measured again and again; and observations of the pendulum, as well as weight experiments, have been made to determine the force of terrestrial gravity in different localities. The result of these experiments has been to prove that the bulk of the earth, as determined by gravity, differs greatly from the result reached by measurement. This discrepancy has never been satisfactorily accounted for, nor can it ever be, with the present view of the earth's interior, but with Symmes' theory of a hollow globe, as we know it, could be easily explained. But I am coming to still more extraordinary data.
"In the early part of this century two human corpses were found incased in on iceberg, which had presumably floated down from the eastern coast of Greenland. The bodies were perfectly preserved, and clothed in garments entirely different, both in design and material, from those worn by the Esquimaux, or any known race of people. Beyond this, neither the form, shape of skull, or color of skin resembled that of any nationality with which we are familiar. Their discovery created quite a sensation at the time, but as no clew was ever established to their identity, the circumstance was gradually forgotten. Might not these men have been daring explorers, dwellers of the inner earth, and wandering beyond the possibility of return, been lost in the ice and so preserved, perhaps, for centuries?
"About twenty years ago, one Niack Dolê, a Norwegian whaler, discovered in a block of field ice, after a northerly gale of many days' duration, an extraordinary animal, differing from any which he or any of his companions had ever seen before. The little creature was carried home at the end of the voyage, and although thousands of men of experience, and travelers from many parts of the world, saw and examined it, it was impossible to class it with any known species.
"In the year 1855 four wild men were found by some sailors on the ice to the north of Cape Tchelyieskin, in the Tamyr Peninsula, Siberia. They could give no account of themselves, as no one could understand their language. They were cared for, and visited by many people and afterward sent to St. Petersburg where strangers from all parts of the world saw them; but not a single individual was ever able to communicate with them except through the language of signs. They all died within two years of their discovery, and the only established fact concerning them seemed to be that they came from somewhere across the frozen sea to the north, where they had always lived. In appearance these men were unlike any we know. They understood each other perfectly, had a racial resemblance, were fairly intelligent, and would doubtless have mastered the language spoken around them had they lived long enough.
"You may say that this is all very well to show that there is an unknown continent somewhere about the pole, but that it has no bearing on the hollow globe. But the arguments in favor of that I have already shown you from an astronomical, geographical, meteorological and scientific point of view, and yet there is one more I wish to present, which in my opinion is profound and unanswerable.
"In the transit of Venus observations are taken at various points upon the earth's surface. The path which Venus describes across the disk of the sun varies with the position of the observer, so also does the angle of her axis vary with that position. The projection of Venus against the sun occurs when she is at her inferior conjunction, and approaching either node. The node is one of the points where the orbit of a planet intercepts the ecliptic, or the orbit of its primary. In this condition the body of Venus will appear as a dark spot crossing the disk of the sun. Now, in the last transit of Venus, two gentlemen of great ability—Herr Von Pultzner, and an American by the name of Breslyne observed it from a point quite remote from all others. I will give you the exact locality of their observation later, and the reason of their choosing it. I am not going to bother you with scientific terms, but will merely say that when the dark body of Venus was interposed between the earth and the sun, an extraordinary phenomenon presented itself to these men—a phenomenon entirely different from that seen by any other observer. In the center of the planet was a brilliant point of light, around which the opaque substance of the star was visible. Von Pultzner and Breslyne examined this light carefully, and identified it with sunlight. To be concise, they perceived that they were looking directly through Venus at the sun. There was no disputing the fact—the light was analyzed and proved identical with sunlight, the same as that beyond the dark circumference of the planet. These men—both of whom I know to be intelligent and truthful—looked at each other in amazement.
"'We have made a most astounding discovery,' said one.
"'It is nothing less than that Venus has a hole through her center, from pole to pole,' answered the other.
"'Yes, and a thousand times more,' continued the first, 'for if Venus is a hollow sphere, all the planets are hollow.'