Some Cranks and their Crotchets 423 



sented the precious document to the Academy of 

 Sciences, by which it was mirthfully laid upon the 

 table. Nowhere did learned men take it seriously ; 

 it was generally set down as a rather stupid hoax. 

 But, nothing daunted by such treatment, the 

 worthy Symmes began giving lectures on the sub- 

 ject, and succeeded in making some impression 

 upon an uninstructed public. In 1824 his audi- 

 ence at Hamilton, Ohio, at the close of a lecture, 

 " resolved, that we esteem Symmes' Theory of the 

 Earth deserving of serious examination and worthy 

 of the attention of the American people." At a 

 theatre in Cincinnati, a benefit was given for the 

 proposed polar expedition, and verses were recited 

 suitable to the occasion : 



" Has not Columbia one aspiring son 

 By whom the unfading laurel may be won ? 

 Yes ! history's pen may yet inscribe the name 

 Of SYMMES to grace her future scroll of fame." 



The captain's petitions to Congress, however, pray- 

 ing for ships and men, were heartlessly laid on the 

 table, and nothing was left him but to keep on cry- 

 ing in the wilderness, which he did until his death 

 in 1829. In the cemetery at Hamilton, the free- 

 stone monument over his grave, placed there by 

 his son, Americus Symmes, is surmounted with a 

 hollow globe, open at the poles. 



