The Hollow Earth

by F. T. Ives

For a diversion, we will for a while consider the effect of centrifugal force on the Earth. The Earth gives many manifestations of said force in the shape of the continents, courses of rivers, outlets of bays and ranges of mountains. North America gradually swings to the east as it approaches the Equator; South America, at the Equator, bulges most to the east. The mountain ranges, the Rocky, Sierra Nevada and Cordilleras, in North America, the Andes, in South America, forming a barrier against the further encroachment of the Pacific Ocean. The West Coast of Africa is protected from the Atlantic largely by the mountains of Morocco, including the Black and White, running south, somewhat protecting Senegambia, and then the Kong, with other mountain ranges in upper and lower Guinea, stop the encroachment on line of Gulf of Guinea. In Asia, Hindustan has the Ghant Mountains for a barrier, while another range of mountains holds the Peninsula of Malacca in place. It will be plainly seen that all these points of countries lean toward the Equatorial center of motion. The islands of Oceanica, strung out on the line of the Equator, also show the effect of the Earth’s revolution.

The Island of Australia is apparently a new production in embryo of a new continent in future connection with some of the large adjacent islands, and ultimately of most of the island groups of Oceanica. The same result is likely to follow with the Greater and Lesser Antilles.

The rivers are marked evidence of centrifugal force on both continents. The largest, the Amazon, running nearly on line of the Equator and emptying there. All the rivers, almost without exception, north of the equator to the Arctic circle run southeast when they can, and at their mouths tend that way. Those south tend northeast where the face of the country will admit. The Nile, a freak river, is about the only marked exception. On the north outflows like the Yukon, McKenzie, and Great Fish in North America; the Yenisei and Lena, and many smaller streams of Europe and Asia flow to the Arctic Ocean.

These last named streams so far from the great center of motion and on account of the marked incline to the country toward the polar centers head that way and no doubt contribute largely to the great inflow of water to the internal ocean. The west coasts of both continents are marked for their dearth of great streams. The open sea that some Arctic explorers have presumed to be about the poles is no doubt the beginning of the fresh water ocean.

The open sea problem introduces the importance of this disquisition. If there is an open sea, which is in all probability true, it must be the open door to an inside world as truly as the coming back from those high latitudes and entering open sea is the evidence of our habitable outside world.

With all deference to the reports of Arctic explorers, it is very doubtful if they really know their actual positions or latitudes with freaky compasses and unfavorable conditions about them, so that their stories and adventures while honestly told need to be taken with a grain of salt. They tell us of witnessing the breaking off of icebergs of mammoth size from glaciers, which, no doubt, is true. It would be true if one was seen big as the Capitol at Washington, or as large as the largest Egyptian pyramid, but doubtful if they ever saw one one-tenth as large as the latter or as large as the former.

III.
ICEBERGS.

The venture will be taken here to consider and explain the character and formation of a big true iceberg which it is supposable change their location to both inside and outside waters.

As already said, the ice belt is the dividing line between salt and fresh waters.

This being the case, large expanses of the ocean in the Arctic region must be frozen over. As water is an exception to most everything else by growing lighter as it grows colder, it rises above its water level. Without this provision of Nature, our lakes would become solid masses of ice, and rivers would become mountains, thus extinguishing fish and producing a mass so deep and solid that a summer season would hardly melt away. This can be evidenced in any tub of water standing out in a cold night. Water does not congeal entirely on the surface, but rises in frozen particles from below like cream on milk. This is shown by its rising and swelling up in the center and pressing the outside of the vessel to bursting.