Some Cranks and their Crotchets 421 



publishing a periodical called " The Truth Seeker's 

 Oracle." Similar views were set forth by one 

 Samuel Rowbotham, who wrote under the name 

 of " Parallax," and by a William Carpenter, whose 

 pamphlet, " One Hundred Proofs that the Earth 

 is not a Globe " (Baltimore, 1885), is quite a curi- 

 osity ; for example, Proof 33 : "If the earth were 

 a globe, people except those on top would cer- 

 tainly have to be fastened to its surface by some 

 means or other ; . . . but as we know that we 

 simply walk on its surface, without any other aid 

 than that which is necessary for locomotion on a 

 plane, it follows that we have herein a conclusive 

 proof that Earth is not a globe." Since Mr. Car- 

 penter understands the matter so thoroughly, can 

 we wonder at the earnestness with which he re- 

 bukes the late Richard Proctor ? " Mr. Proctor, 

 we charge you that, whilst you teach the theory 

 of the earth's rotundity, you KNOW that it is a 

 plane ! " 



More original than Messrs. Hampden and Car- 

 penter are the writers who maintain that the earth 

 is hollow, and supports a teeming population in its 

 interior. Early in the present century this idea 

 came with the force of a revelation to the mind 

 of Captain John Cleves Symmes, a retired army 

 officer engaged in trade at St. Louis. In 1818 



