We would like to call special attention to the open-minded manner in which one American thinker has received our theory. As he is the leader of a religious denomination, and as such men are usually supposed to be more interested in the progress of their own work--and quite naturally--than in the advance of other people's ideas, it is with peculiar gratification that we record the open-mindedness and fairness with which Mr. Thomas Shelton of Denver, Colorado, has endorsed our effort to bring about a more reasonable view of the earth's formation. Mr. Shelton is the editor ofChristian, a monthly magazine which is in the order of an advanced branch of religion, and he devoted two long leading articles to our theory when it was first brought to his attention.
In the first of them he says in part:
"Here comes another scientist saying that the earth is hollow."
He says "another" because, as he explains later, a Dr. Teed once taught that the earth was a hollow sphere and that we live in its interior. But Teed's theory, of course, is nothing like ours, and does not have the same sort of a basis. It is more a religious cult than a scientific theory, and we hope that we shall never be confused with Teed.
Mr. Shelton goes on:
"It sounds sensible to me. This scientist, Marshall B. Gardner, Aurora, Illinois, making the earth an
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almost living creature, breathing the breath of life in its interior, like all other living beings, and a sun at its heart always and forever shining with vibrations like radium.
"Why haven't we found the North and South Poles while searching for the poles? Because they are protected by ice caps which explorers have never been able to cross. If Peary had gone a little farther he would have been going South and would have gone through the earth and come out at the South pole or hole. If Scott could have gone on he would have come out at the North pole or hole.
"These holes or openings are fourteen hundred miles across; so these explorers could have gradually entered the openings and have gone through the earth without ever knowing that they had left the outside of the earth. The central sun of the earth is so situated that when approached it would have looked like a rising sun; and when left behind, like a setting sun;
and yet it never rises or sets, but remains forever fixed in the center of the earth, surrounded by a corona of ample depth.
"Of course there is no night in the center of the earth and the temperature is kept in an equable condition. The great ice-caps at the North and South openings keep the air purified as it flows through the interior of the earth. The central sun is light and life, and the anchor of the planet.
Keeping it forever in its orbit as it sails around the great central
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sun on the outside. Nature is uniform in all of her laws, creates everything for the use and joy of living. The universe is alive and a light as a unit of units. . .
"The Bible and the ancients made the underworld hell. Maybe they had the whole thing reversed. . ."
Mr. Shelton then goes on to develop the suggestion that there may be a race of superior people in the underworld, and he also goes so far as to say that the people on the outside of the earth have some characteristics of a race .of outcasts. But we do not wish to appear as claiming to know more than we do know, and we hope no reader who may have first heard about us through Mr. Shelton's kindly notice will fail to discriminate between what we really do claim and any further suggestions which Mr. Shelton may make on his own responsibility.
Of course there is some evidence--see our chapter on finding men in the Antarctic and also our chapter on the Eskimo traditions of ancestors in the far away north--that there are men in the interior. And it may be that owing to the equable and warm climate and the abundance of food, that they are a superior race. But on the other hand they may simply be a different race with altogether different ways and living and thinking and so not to be compared to us. So we must leave the question open, especially as it will not have to be left open for long.
Exploration will soon settle the matter one way or another.
Mr. Shelton then goes on to say that the author is
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one of the three men whose works have helped him most in his own thought during the year in which he writes, and he ends his article with these pregnant words:
"If you laugh at Gardner, don't laugh too loud, for since writing the above, Russian ships report the discovery of a new continent, and, beloved, there are other continents undiscovered.
Some of these may be inside the earth. Sit tight, but don't be too cocksure that you are right."
In a later issue Mr. Shelton tells of the great interest his first article aroused--of people writing in to him about it--and says again that the author of this book has given "a new thought, and it is good to think new thoughts about new things."
He adds that we have written scientifically:
"Gardner declares that all worlds are the same hollow spheres with a sun on the inside of each world. He speaks in scientific terms and gives his arguments as a scientist, and not as a mere speculation."
On another page of this same number ofChristian a correspondent writes to the editor saying that the clipping from which Mr. Shelton first heard of our theory was sent by him, being clipped from theSan Francisco Chronicle, and he adds that he agrees with the theory.
Some weeks after that correspondence in the columns of Mr. Shelton's paper, we received a letter from an old lady, for many years known throughout
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the northwest as a student and advance thinker, telling us that she had read of our theory as outlined by Dr. Shelton and that she would be glad to examine our views. We sent her a copy of the first outline which we had prepared of our work, and asked her to criticise it frankly.
In her reply, this lady, Mrs. Sarah Gifford of Ferry County, Washington, says that it is quite evident that our theory is not merely a variation of some other idea such as the Koreshan cosmogony by Dr. Teed, and continues: "The Gardner theory is not something to be laughed at it is a theory presented on scientific principles."
And she ends her letter by stating her belief that. the theory may very shortly be "proven to the world as a fact."
Will other readers of our theory do as so many of these friends have done--send accounts of it to editors of the papers which they read, and which they know are likely to give us a fair hearing? In that way the news of our theory will be disseminated much more quickly than if the reader simply says to himself that he agrees with us and then settles back to watch our progress in converting the rest of the world. If every reader did that our progress would be slow indeed. But let every reader remember that this book propounds a practical question as well as a theoretical one. If we had written a book which applied only to the planet Mars, it would be all right
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to read it and simply add the new knowledge to one's memory and then let the matter drop.
Only the professional astronomers would really be enough interested in the matter to discuss it at length and too incorporate it in their teaching. But the reader should remember that this book concerns his own life because it tells of a land, a whole new world, which his own country may explore, and which may render vast supplies of all natural products to the people
who explore it. It is for this reason that we ask the active support of every reader, that no time may be lost in disseminating our information and discussing it. It will be the big subject of discussion when plans really get started for exploring parties, and every reader who wishes to be abreast of the times, who likes to be "in on" whatever is uppermost in contemporary interest, will do what this reader of Mr. Shelton's magazine did--write to his favorite paper about our theory. And will not every reader not only do that but think about it and communicate to us any ideas which he may have on the subject? If there is some fact that is not made clear, or if you see a further argument either for or against our theory, let us know.
We already have letters from the foremost scientists of Europe and some in America, and we have letters from people who are not scientists but who know how to bring their common sense to bear on a problem. Let us add you to the list. We have letters and cards from every quarter of the globe,
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hundreds of them, in fact, coming even from far-off China and Japan.