INTERIOR OF THE EARTH

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12022, 27 December 1924, Page 8

INTERIOR OF THE EARTH

PLANS TO EXPLORE. It appears that practical engineers in Great Britain have not received with much enthusiasm the suggestion made by Sir Charles Parsons in New York that the sinking of a great shaft twelve miles deep into the earth might reveal new chemical elements and unknown metals, says a correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.” Their scepticism is based on the difficulty of accomplishing the actual work rather than on the possibilities which Sir Charles propound* ; but there is nothing new about speculations as to the interior of our globe, and there have been many quaint theories. It does seem rather a pity that one enterprising American citizen did not survive into our own times, for he would have been exceedingly interested in Sir Charles Parsons’s theories, even if he would have scouted the necessity for so tremendous a work in order to penetrate the secrets of our “interior.” This was John Cleves Svmmes, “of Ohio, late captain of infantry.” When Symmes’s advertisements began to appear the American press gave him a certificate' not only of respectability but of sanity. “To all the world,” he made proclamation, “I declare _ the eiirth to bs hollow and habitable, within containing a number of concentric spheres, one vVithin the other, and'that their poles are open twelve to sixteen degrees. I pledge myself in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the concave if tho world will support and aid me.” He went on to ask for 100 volunteers, “well equipped, to start from Siberia in autumn with reindeer sledges on the ice of the frozen sea. I engage to And a warm country and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals, if not men, on reaching about sixty-nine miles northward of latitude 52deg. Wc will return in the succeeding spring.” It will be seen that Captain Symmes regarded the enterprise as easier than that suggested by Sir Charles Parsons, but it is feared that if he ever found his habitaMe inferior ho never comeback to tell the world.