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is here represented. Nothing can be more singularly contemptible than the system of manoeuvring among mothers and daughters, as exhibited by our author, to obtain establishments, at the price of sacrificing the latter to age and worthlessness. It indicates a state of society, which will make a reflecting American rejoice, that as yet there is here no privileged order of men and women, who can brave not only the decorums, but the moral obligations of society, without at once sinking into contempt and insignificance.

Although there is a lively and piquant vein of conversation and small incident running through the work, it wants interest-in fact it wants heart, both in the dialogue and incidents. The former is often spirited and amusing enough, but as we before observed, by no means equal to the tone of good comedy. The latter consists in little exhibitions of fashionable struggles for notoriety-mortified vanity-flirtations of married women and men-and manoeuvres of young ones to catch husbands, among ruined young rakes, or superannuated gouty gentlemen, whose rank or wealth outweighs their infirmities. We behold married women angling for cicisboes for themselves, and husbands for their daughters-husbands returning the compliment by neglect and infidelity-daughters ridiculing their parents, and anxious to marry, only to follow their examples-guests quizzing their host and hostess, and quizzed or hated by them in turn-honest men called bores, and rouès divine. All the beautiful illusions and anticipations of youth, which, if not virtues themselves, are the parent of virtuous habits and enjoyments, appear among these people, only as objects of ridicule; and the desire of being good, is buried in the determination to be fashionable. Even the author himself partakes of this moral taint; and it is impossible not to perceive, by his mode of expressing himself, that he is far more indig nant at the pretensions of the lady patronesses of Almack's, to the prerogative of the exclusive, than at all their other transgressions. While he amuses sometimes, he often sickens us; and laughter at the follies he portrays, is overpowered by disgust at the vices by which they are accompanied.

ART. XI.-Symmes's Theory of Concentric Spheres; demonstrating that the Earth is hollow, habitable within, and widely open about the Poles. BY A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES. Cincinnati, Ohio: 1826. 12mo. pp. 168.

THE earth is nearly eight thousand miles in diameter, and the deepest excavations that have been made in it by human art, do not extend to half a mile below its surface. We are, therefore, utterly ignorant of the nature and constitution of the interior of this immense mass, and must, perhaps, for ever remain so. The subject is of too much interest, however, not to have excited the particular attention of philosophers, and, in the absence of facts, many of them have not hesitated to resort to speculation and conjecture.

Dr. Burnet, the earliest cosmogonist whose system is worthy of notice, supposed that the earth was originally a fluid, chaotic mass, composed of various substances differing in form and density. In the course of time, the heaviest portions subsided, and formed about the centre a dense and solid nucleus. The waters took their station around this body; on their surface floated an ocean of oil and unctuous matters; and the whole was surrounded by the air and other ethereal fluids. This atmosphere was at first full of impurities, being charged with particles of the earth with which it had been previously blended. By degrees, however, it purified itself, by depositing these particles upon the stratum of oil; and there was thus formed a thick and solid crust of mould, which was the first habitable part of the globe. After many centuries, this crust, having been gradually dried by the heat of the sun, cracked and split asunder, so as to fall into the abyss of waters beneath it; and this great event was the universal deluge. Our present earth is composed of the remains of the first; our continents and islands being portions of the primordial crust, from which the waters have retired.

Dr. Woodward, who immediately followed Burnet in this career of speculation, supposed that the bodies which compose the earth, were all dissolved or suspended in the waters of the general deluge; and that, on the gradual retiring of the waters, these substances subsided, successively, in the order of their specific gravities; so that the earth is now formed of distinct strata, arranged in concentric layers, "like the coats of an onion."

Whiston supposed the original earth to be a comet, having, like other comets, a very eccentric orbit; and, therefore, sub

ject to such extremes of heat and cold, as to be uninhabitable. At the period of the creation described by Moses, the earth was placed in its present orbit, which is nearly circular, and was in consequence subjected to a great variety of important changes. The heavier parts of the chaotic atmosphere, by which the comet was surrounded, fell gradually upon the nucleus, and formed a great liquid abyss, on which the crust of the earth was finally deposited, and now floats. This crust, and the subterraneous fluid, are each fifty or one hundred miles in thickness; and within them lies the solid nucleus or original comet, which contains another rarer fluid, and a central loadstone. Thus, says this philosopher :

"The interior or entire constitution of the earth, is correspondent to that of an egg; where the central solid is answerable to the yolk, which by its fiery colour, great bulk, and innermost situation, exactly represents the same: where the great abyss is analogous to the white, whose density, viscosity, moderate fluidity, and middle position, excellently express the like qualities of the other: where the upper orb, or habitable earth, corresponds to the shell, whose lightness, solidity, little inequalities of surface, and uppermost situation, admirably agree to the same."

The deluge was caused by the near approach of a comet, which, by its strong attraction, caused the waters of the great deep to break through the crust which enclosed them, and which also furnished a vast mass of vapours from its own atmosphere.

It will be observed, that all these theories agree in supposing the earth to be composed of successive shells, placed one within the other. The great astronomer, Halley, also adopted the hypothesis of a sphere revolving within the earth, in order to account for the variation of the magnetic needle, and in this opinion he was followed by Euler; so that the theory of "concentric spheres," has been one of the oldest and most prevalent in geology.

The theory of the celebrated Buffon is very generally known. He supposed that the earth was struck off from the sun by a comet, and was, therefore, at first, no more than an irregular mass of melted and inflamed matter. This mass, by the mutual attraction of its parts, assumed a globular figure, which its rotary motion, caused by the obliquity of the first impulse, changed into a spheroid. The interior of the globe is, according to this theory, a vitrified mass, which the author maintains to be homogeneous, and not, as is generally thought, disposed in layers following the order of density.

These are the most remarkable theories that have been

presented, on the subject of the structure of the earth. It is proper to remark, that they were the productions of men of genius and learning; that they were maintained by arguments full of plausibility, and, even now, difficult of refutation; and that they attracted great attention, and made many proselytes. Yet, such is the just destiny reserved for all extravagant and romantic speculations, that, at the present day, they have not a single advocate or believer, and are mentioned only to be condemned.

But these philosophic fancies have all been far outdone by the theory of our countryman captain Symmes, who, for the last nine or ten years, has been using every exertion to convince the world of its past errors, and to inculcate his own new and true theory. The newspapers have teemed with essays; circulars have been addressed to all the learned societies of Europe and America; addresses and petitions have been presented to our national and state legislatures; certificates of conviction and adhesion" have been procured from men in high literary and political stations; the master and his disciples have traversed the whole country, from south to north, and from west to east, so that all men, in all places, might be enlightened in the truth; and, finally, the whole subject has been reduced to a regular body of doctrine, in the work now under review, written by "one of the believers in the theory."

Let us hear, from the author himself, a statement of this famous theory. It is presented as follows, in his second chapter:

"According to Symmes's Theory, the earth, as well as all the celestial orbicular bodies existing in the universe, visible and invisible, which partake in any degree of a planetary nature, from the greatest to the smallest, from the sun, down to the most minute blazing meteor or falling star, are all constituted in a greater or less degree, of a collection of spheres, more or less solid, concentric with each other, and more or less open at their poles; each sphere being separated from its adjoining compeers by space replete with aerial fluids; that every portion of infinite space, except what is occupied by spheres, is filled with an aerial elastic fluid, more subtile than common atmospheric air; and constituted of innumerable small concentric spheres, [open at the poles?] too minute to be visible to the organ of sight assisted by the most perfect microscope, and so elastic that they continually press on each other," &c.

The author here indulges himself in a dream respecting these infinitesimal spherules, but, after some time, returns to the more substantial part of the theory.

"According to captain Symmes, the planet which has been designated the earth, is composed of at least five hollow concentric spheres, with spaces between each, an atmosphere surrounding each; and habitable as well upon the concave as the convex surface. Each of these spheres are widely open at their poles. The north polar opening of the sphere we inhabit, is believed to be about four thousand miles in diameter, and the southern above six thousand. The planes of these polar openings are inclined to the plane of the ecliptic at an angle of about twenty degrees: so that the real axis of the earth being perpendicular to the plane of the equator, will form an angle of twelve degrees with a line passing through the sphere at right angles with the plane of the polar openings; consequently the verge of the polar openings must approach several degrees nearer to the equator on one side than on the other. The highest north point, or where the distance is greatest from the equator to the verge of the opening in the northern hemisphere, will be found either in the northern sea, near the coast of Lapland, on a meridian passing through Spitzbergen, in about latitude sixty-eight degrees, or somewhat more eastwardly in Lapland; and the verge would become apparent, to the navigator proceeding north, in about latitude ninety degrees.

The lowermost point, or the place where the distance is least from the equator to the verge of the northern polar opening, will be found in the Pacific ocean, about latitude fifty degrees, near the north-west coast of America, on or near a meridian running through the mouth of Cook's river, being in about one hundred and sixty degrees west longitude, the real verge being in about latitude fifty degrees, and becoming apparent to a person travelling northward at right angles with the magnetic equator, at the distance of about twelve hundred miles further. The verge varies progressively from the lowest to the highest point, crossing the north-west coast of America between latitude fifty-two and fiftyfour, thence across the continent of North America, passing through Hudson's Bay and Greenland, near cape Farewell; thence by mount Hecla to the highest point; thence tending gradually more to the south, across the northern parts of Asia, at or near the volcanoes of Kamtschatka, and along the extinguished volcanoes of the Fox Islands, to the lowermost point again, near the north-west coast.

In the southern hemisphere, the highest point, or place where the distance is greatest from the equator to the verge of the po. lar opening, will be found in the southern Pacific ocean, in about latitude forty-six degrees south, and perhaps about longitude one hundred and thirty degrees west; and the lowermost point, or place where the distance is least from the equator to the verge of the opening, will be found on a meridian south or south-east of the island of Madagascar, in about latitude thirty-four degrees south, and longitude about fifty degrees east; thence passing near

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