“Symzonia” and “Symmes’ Theory of Concentric Spheres”
Posted By:
Juan
Mar 02, 2005
Hi! I am a regular visitor of this site, and this is my first post in the
forum. I was wondering if any of you guys knew of somewhere on the net where
I can read this two books... I've searched exhaustively, and so far I have
only found excerpts of "Symzonia" at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA98/silverman/poe/symzonia.html
Cheers!
Juan, those excerpts of Symzonia you found seem like more than enough to give you a sense of the book. Trust me, it's not a great work of literature. But if you really, really want to read the whole thing you're probably going to have to get it from a library... and probably via interlibrary loan.
As for Symmes' Theory of concentric spheres... are you talking about the book written by Americus Symmes? I have a photocopied version of it, but I don't think many libraries will have copies of it. I photocopied it at the Library of Congress. I'm pretty sure you're not going to find it anywhere on the net.
They're out of print in an extreme way. Symzonia was published once, in 1820. The theory of concentric spheres was published once, around 1860 (I think). They were obscure even when they were first published. But they just happen to be something I know about (I wrote an article for a teen science magazine about Symmes' theory of the hollow earth).
There is one bookseller I know of that helps people find out of print books, not sure if they can find one that far out of print though, and it would cost a fortune if they did find it!
Actually, I'm wrong. Symzonia was definitely republished at a later date, with a new introduction.
I'm not sure if a first edition of it would be worth anything. It would probably fetch something as a curiosity. But otherwise I don't think there's much demand for hollow-earth literature.
Damn, don't you hate when you can't remember something? There's a famous book about bad science, etc. that was originally published in, I believe, the 1950's that has some stuff about the "hollow Earth" theory. I just can't remember the name of the book or the author.
My copy had a purple cover and was a softcover. Yeah, this is REAL helpful, huh? Sorry. Hey, Alex, do you know the book I'm talking about? I think it was published by Dover.
Thanks for your help guys, I found a copy at Amazon, it's about u$s 130... mmh well I also asked for it at a lot of local bookshops, but I really doubt I'll ever get one since it's rare in the U.S., let alone in Argentina (where I live)...
Yes I believe "Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres" was written by his son... I'm pretty sure now I won't find any of this on the net...
"Fads and Fallacies of Science by Martin Gardner?"
Bingo! Yeah, Fads And Fallacies In The Name of Science (slight correction in the title there) it is! Thanks, Alex.
Although that book was written in the 50's, there's still a lot of good stuff in it for anyone interested in quack medicine or junk science. It's a fun read.
