The Hollow Earth
Chapter 4:
Marshall B. Gardner's Book, " A Journey to the Earth's Interior Or Have the Poles Really Been Discovered?"

By: Dr. R. W. Bernard, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.

Marshall B. Gardner spent twenty years in research, based on the reports of Arctic explorers, supplemented by astronomical evidence, before publishing, in 1920, his great book, "A Journey to the Earth's Interior or Have the Poles Ever Been Discovered?" He did not seem to know about Reed's book and theory, so that both men developed their theories independently. Gardner's great contribution is the theory of a central sun, which is the source of the higher temperature in the region of the polar orifice and the aurora borealis, which Reed attributes to volcanic eruptions. A central sun as a source of heat and light makes possible the existence of plant and animal life in the earth's interior, also human life, in which Reed believed to be a fact, but could not explain according to his theory, which did not include a central sun as a source of light, without which there could be no life.

Gardner also claims, and in his book presents astronomical evidence to prove, that not only the earth, but all planets of the solar system, have hollow interiors and central suns, which he traces to their original formation from a whirling nebula.

As a result of centrifugal force, their rotation during their early formation when yet molten caused their heavier constituents to be thrown toward the outside, forming a solid crust on the outer surface of each planet and leaving the interior hollow, while a portion of the original fire remained in the center to form the central sun. Also the force of their rotation and movements through space caused openings to form at their polar extremities.

Why have Reed's and Gardner's books become so rare that it is practically impossible to obtain copies; and they are not found in most libraries. Because they prove that there exists a large area not recorded on any map, which is not only equal to, but perhaps greater than the entire land area of the earth's surface - this uncharted land area being on the inside of the earth's crust. Naturally any government that learned about this vast territory would have ambitions to be the first to discover it and claim it, for which reason it would make every effort to keep this information secret, so that no other government might learn about it and claim this territory first. Since the United States Government was the first to learn about it as a result of the visit of Admiral Byrd, who flew for 1,700 miles into this "mysterious land beyond the Pole," which is not shown on any map, and saw mountains, forests, green vegetation, rivers, lakes and animals there, we can understand the reason for secrecy and why the books of two American writers Reed and Gardner, were suppressed and forgotten, in order to guard this secret.

EVIDENCE FROM ARCTIC EXPLORATION

Gardner's book is 450 pages in length. With fifty books, chiefly on Arctic exploration, in his bibliography, he was most thorough in his research. Gardner claimed that the earth is a hollow shell approximately 800 miles thick in its crust, with an opening at the polar end approximately 1,400 miles across. He says that the mammoth comes from the interior and is still living there, and the huge tropical animals found frozen in ice in the polar region were not prehistoric but were animals from the interior that came to the surface and were frozen in ice when they did.

In support of his theory of a polar opening and a central sun in the hollow interior of the earth, Gardner points out that birds and animals migrate to the north in winter to find warmer weather. He also notes that when explorers go north of 80 degrees north latitude, they find the water to become warmer due to warm currents coming from the polar region, and the air becomes warmer due to warm winds from the north These cause the open sea, in place of ice, in the extreme north. They also find red pollen on icebergs and glaciers, and find logs and other debris washed ashore by these warm currents from the north. Gardner summarizes the evidence in favor of his theory of a hollow earth with two polar openings and a central sun as follows:

"How do scientists explain the fact that when we go north it becomes colder up to a certain point and then begins to get warm? How do they explain the further fact that the source of this warmth is not any influence from the south but a series of currents of warm water and of warm winds from the north - supposed to be a land of solid ice? Where can these currents come from? How could they come from anything else but an open sea? And why should there be a warm open sea at the very place where scientists expect to find eternal ice? Where could this warm water possibly come from?

"Why also should explorers find the inhospitable ice cliffs of the far north covered in large areas with the red pollen of an unknown plant? And why should they find the seeds of tropical plants floating in these waters - when they are not found in more southern waters? How should logs and branches of trees, sometimes with fresh buds on them be found in these waters, all being borne down by the warm currents from the north?

"Why should the northern parts of Greenland be the world's greatest habitat of the mosquito, an insect which is only found in warm countries ? How could it have gotten to Greenland if it came from the south? Where do all the foxes and hares go which are seen traveling north in Greenland? Where did the bears go? Was it possible that such large creatures as bears could find sustenance on plains of eternal ice?

"How do scientists explain the fact that practically every competent explorer from the earlier days down to Nansen has admitted that when he got to the Far North his theories of what he should find failed to work and his methods of finding his positions also failed to work? How do scientists explain these passages from Nansen which we have quoted, showing that he was absolutely lost in the Arctic region?

"How do scientists explain the migrations of those birds which appear in England and other northern countries one part of the year, in the tropics in another part of the year, but disappear entirely in the winter? How do they explain the fact that neither Peary nor Cook was able to prove the claim of reaching the north pole. Even supposing both men to have acted in good faith is it not obvious that both were lost? How else explain the discrepancies in Peary's own narrative?

"Why, says the reader, did Peary not discover that immense orifice at the polar extremity of the earth if it was there?

"The reason is very simple and can best be explained by asking another question.

"Why did not man discover by looking around him, that he was living on the surface of what is, practically speaking, an immense sphere (to be exact spheroid)? And why did man for centuries think that the earth was flat? Simply because the sphere was so large that he could not see the curvature but thought it was a flat surface, and that he should be able to move all over the surface of it appeared so natural that, when scientists first told him it was a sphere he began to wonder why he did not fall off, or at least, if he lived in the Northern Hemisphere, he wondered why the Australians did not fall off - for he had no conception of the law of gravity.

"Now, in the case of the polar explorers the same thing is true. They sail up to the outer edge of the immense polar opening, but that opening is so vast, considering that the crust of the earth over which it curves is eight hundred miles thick, that the downward curvature of its edge is not perceptible to them, and its diameter is so great - about 1,400 miles - that its other side is not visible to them. So, if an explorer went far enough he could sail right over that edge, down over the seas of the inner world and out through the Antarctic orifice, and all that would show him what he had done would be that as soon as he got inside he would see a smaller sun than he was accustomed to - only to him it might look larger owing to its closeness - and he would not be able to take any observations by the stars because there would be neither stars nor even a night in which to see them.

"But, says the reader, would not the force of gravity pull the explorer who got inside the orifice away from the surface into the central sun; for does not gravity pull everything to the center of the earth?

"The answer to this is, that in gravitational pull it is not the geometrical position that counts. Center, in the geometrical sense of the word, does not apply. It is the mass that attracts. And if the great mass of the earth is in its thick shell, it is the mass of that shell that will attract, and not a mere geometrical point which is not in the shell at all, but 2900 miles away from it, as is the approximate distance between the central sun and the inner surface of the earth. As a matter of fact it is the equal distribution of the force of gravity all through the shell that keeps the sun suspended in the spot which is equidistant from every part of the shell. When we are on the outside of the shell it is the mass of the shell that attracts us to its surface. When we go over to the inside of the shell that same force will still keep our feet solidly planted on the inner surface.

"We shall see all that when we explore the Arctic in earnest, as we shall easily be able to do with the aid of airships. And when once we have seen it we shall wonder why it was that for so long we were blind to evidence which, as is shown in this book, has been before men's eyes for practically a whole century and over."

Twenty-seven years after Gardner wrote this, Admiral Byrd did exactly what he hoped would be done. He flew by airplane into the north polar opening for 1700 miles and came to a land of trees, as Gardner believed would exist there, and also a warmer climate, as shown by the rivers, lakes, vegetation and animal life he observed there.

Gardner writes:

"That the musk-ox is not the only animal to be found where we should hardly expect it, is evident from a note in Hayes' diary. When he was in latitude 78 degrees, 17 minutes, early in July, he said: `I secured a yellow-winged butterfly, and - who would believe it - a mosquito. And also ten moths, three spiders, two bees and two flies.'"

Since these insects are not found further south, a land of ice and snow, the only explanation Gardner could offer for their origin is that they came from the interior of the earth through the polar opening.

Hayes' observations of insect life in the extreme north were confirmed by Greely, in his book "Three Years of Arctic Service," describing his observations in the Arctic, begun in 1881. In the preface to his book, Greely tells us that the wonders of the Arctic regions are so great that he was forced to modify his actual notes made at the time, and understated them rather than lay himself open to the suspicion of exaggerating. That the Arctic regions are so full of life and strange evidence of life farther north, that an explorer cannot describe it without being accused of exaggerating is surely a very strange thing if these regions only lead to a barren land of everlasting ice, as according to older geographical theories.

Greely reports birds of an unknown species, butterflies, flies and temperatures of 47 to 50 degrees, also plenty of willow to make fires, and much fresh driftwood. He found two flowers different from any that he had ever seen.

In many pages of astronomical evidence, Gardner discusses the bright lights seen shining from the polar caps of Mars, Venus and Mercury, and concludes that these planets all have central suns and polar openings. He claims that the earth has the same and that the aurora borealis results from the projection of the rays of the central sun, passing through the polar opening, on the night sky. Gardner summarizes the evidence in favor of his theory as follows:

"As explorers go north of about 80 degrees north latitude, they find that the water, instead of becoming colder in the same ratio in which it had been getting colder as they left the temperate zone, gradually begins to get warm again, and they find that this warmth is brought down from the so-called frozen north in a warm current flowing from the polar regions. Furthermore they find that birds and animals migrate to the north to feed and breed, instead of to the south. In fact, when they get into really high latitudes, explorers find a greater wealth of animal and vegetable life than they do in the lower latitudes of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions.

"And as they are sailing to these northern regions they find, scattered on the icebergs and glaciers, the red pollen of plants that grow - where? Only in the interior of the earth. And they find logs and other debris of the land washed down in these warm currents just spoken of. And this is not all. In our chapter on the mammoth and mastodon we shall adduce evidence to show that the mammoth still lives in the interior - in fact we shall exhibit case after case where the mammoth has floated out from the interior incased in glaciers and icebergs and has been frozen in crevasses in the interior near the polar openings, and then carried over the lip by glacial movement into Siberia."

In addition to driftwood found in the extreme north, whose origin, according to Gardner, could only be the earth's interior, there is found trees with green buds in the Arctic seas. Seeds of unknown tropical species have also been found drifting down in the northern currents, coming from the north, not the south. Among these was the seed of the entada bean, a tropical seed, which was found by a Swedish expedition near Trurengerg Bay. Gardner comments:

"This seed must have come from the interior of the earth, for it is of a tree that only grows under tropical conditions, and it would have been disintegrated had it been drifting all over the world for many months, as would be the case if it had come up from the tropical regions of the exterior of the planet."

Sverdrup found so many hares around 81 degrees north latitude that one inlet was called Hare Fjord. There was also enough other game to keep the whole exploring party well fed with meat.

Captain Beechey saw so many birds on the west coast of Spitzbergen that the place reverberated with their cries from dawn till dark. The little auk were so numerous and so close together that sometimes a single shot killed thirty of them. With sixteen birds to a cubic yard, there were about four million of them. Rotgers were so numerous as to darken the sky, and their chorus could be heard for four miles. There were also reindeer and ducks. There were four varieties of seagulls over the surrounding ocean, plus fish and amphibious animals, from the huge whale to the minute clio on which it feeds, swallowing perhaps a million with each mouthful.

Franklin saw large numbers of geese migrating to the unknown north, at a high latitude, indicating land there. He notes that no matter how far north the explorer goes, he always finds the polar bear ahead of him. No matter how far north these bears are met, they are always on their way north.

At latitude 82, Kane found butterflies, bees and flies, as well as wolves, foxes, bears, geese, ducks, water-fowls and partridges. A strange fact all explorers observe is that animals do not migrate south to escape the cold Arctic winter, but instead go north.

Commander McClure explored Banks Land and found immense quantities of trees thrown in layers by glacious action, which evidently brought them from the north. In one ravine he found a pile of trees closely packed, to a height of forty feet. While some wood was petrified, much of it was of recent origin. These trees were found far beyond the latitude where trees grow.

Nansen was puzzled by this driftwood which is continually found along the Greenland coast. He said that as far north as latitude 86 degrees he found such driftwood.

Gardner says that it is the unanimous testimony of explorers that "the further north you go, the more animal life there is, a complete proof that there is in the far north a great asylum of refuge where every creature can breed in peace and with plenty of food. And from that region must come also those evidences of vegetable life that explorers have repeatedly seen, the red pollen of plants that drifts out on favorable breezes and colors whole icebergs and glacier sides with a ruddy tinge, those seeds and buds and branches, and most impressive of all, those representatives of races of animals that yet live on in the interior, although they have disappeared from the outside of the earth. (Gardner here refers to mammoths found frozen in ice.)

"What a veritable paradise of animal and vegetable life that must be: And perhaps for some sort of human life, also, it is a land of perpetual ease and peace. The Eskimo people who are still living there will have been modified from the type that we see on the outer surface. Their life will be easier, as they will have no cold climates and food scarcities to contend with. Like the inhabitants of some of our tropical islands, they will reflect the ease of their lives in easy-going and lovable temperaments. They will be... eaters of many fruits and other vegetable products unknown to us. When we penetrate their land we shall find growing almost to the inner edge of the polar opening those trees of which we have seen so many drifting trunks and branches.

"We shall find, nesting perhaps in those trees, perhaps in the rocks around the inner polar regions the knots and swans and wild geese and ross-gulls that we have so often seen in the preceding pages, flying to the north to escape the rigors of climate which we in our ignorance have for so long supposed to be worse in the north than elsewhere."

Speaking of Nansen, who reached further north than any other explorer, Ottmar Kaub comments:

"Marshall B. Gardner was right when he wrote his book in 1920. On August 3, 1894, Dr. Fritzjof-Nansen was the first man in history to reach the interior of the earth. Dr. Nansen got lost and admitted it. He was surprised at the warm weather there. When he found a fox track, he knew he was lost.

"How could a fox track be there, he wondered. Had he known that he had entered the opening that leads to the hollow interior of the earth and that this was the reason why, the further north he went, the warmer it became, he would have found not only fox tracks but later tropical birds and other animals, and finally the human inhabitants of this `land beyond the Pole,' into which Admiral Byrd penetrated for 1,700 miles by plane and which completely mystified him."

 

ORIGIN OF THE MAMMOTH

Gardner claims that the mammoth and elephant-like creatures of tropical origin found frozen in the Arctic ice, which is derived from fresh water (not salty water as one would suppose, since this is the only water found there) are really animals from the interior of the Earth that came to the surface and became frozen, and are not prehistoric animals as commonly supposed. Gardner's theory of the subterranean origin of the mammoth found confirmation in Admiral Byrd's observation of a living mammoth during his 1,700 mile flight into the land beyond the North Pole, within the polar opening.

Gardner claims that these strange animals not known on the Earth's surface were carried by rivers from the Earth's interior, freezing within the ice that was then formed. This theory seems very reasonable, in view of the ice being formed from fresh water not found in the Arctic Ocean. Since this ice, like icebergs, could not have been formed by ocean water, the only explanation is that it comes from other water - fresh water rivers flowing out through the polar opening from the earth's interior.

Since these animals are found inside of icebergs, which are composed of fresh water, this water, like the animals frozen in the ice it forms on reaching the surface and exposed to its lower temperature, must come from the earth's interior. Gardner speaks of herds of mammoths, elephants and other tropical animals which, when they venture out to the colder regions near the rim of the polar opening, together with glaciers which form there from water from the interior flowing outward and freezing become frozen in the ice. Or they might fall into crevasses, perhaps concealed by snow, and the moment they fall in, they will be covered by snow and snow-water from above and hermetically sealed in the ice.

This would account for the fresh condition in which these mammoths frozen in the ice are found after these glaciers have gradually worked their way over the rise of the polar opening and out into the Siberian wastes where these frozen animals are found in a perfectly fresh and edible condition.

Robert B. Cook tells of the remains not only of mammoths, but of hairy rhinoceros, reindeer, hippopotamus, lion and hyena, found in northern glacial deposits. He claims that these animals which were unable to endure cold weather were either summer visitors during the severity of the glacial period or permanent residents when the country had a milder climate. But Gardner maintains that these animals came from inside the earth for the following reason:

"Since the reindeer, lion and hyena are present day forms of life and not as old as the mammoth (at least in the form in which we know them today and in which these remains show them to have been when they were alive), it is evident that these animals visited the spots where their remains were found not from southerly climates during early glacial epochs, but that they are remains of visitors from the land of the interior. Otherwise these present day forms would not be found alongside those of the mammoth which we have shown to be a present day inhabitant of the interior of the earth. Not knowing this, Mr. Cook has great difficulty in explaining the occurrence together of these forms which in his view are earlier and later forms of life. But when we shall see that they are really contemporaneous (and both came from the interior of the earth), the difficulty vanishes."

In the stomach of the mammoth was found undigested food consisting of young shoots of pine and fir and young fir cones. In others are found fern and tropical vegetation. How could an Arctic animal have tropical food in its stomach? One explanation is that the Arctic region once had a tropical climate, and that a shift of the earth on its axis suddenly brought on the Ice Age and changed the climate to a frigid one.

This theory has been offered to explain both the tropical vegetation in the stomach of frozen Arctic animals and the fact that many of these huge animals were of tropical species, related to elephants. Great deposits of elephant tusks were found in Siberia as evidence of the then northern habitat of tropical animals. But there is another theory to explain these facts: that these tropical animals came from the interior of the earth, which has a tropical climate, coming out through the North Polar opening. On reaching the cold exterior with its Arctic climate they froze, since they were unaccustomed to such cold climate.

This is the theory held by Ray Palmer, who does not accept the idea that these animals died in prehistoric times as a result of a shifting of the earth on its axis. He says:

"True the death must have been sudden, but it was not because the Arctic was previously tropical and suddenly changed to a frigid climate. The sudden Coming of the Ice Age was not the cause of death. The cause of death was Arctic in nature, and could have occurred any time, even recently. Since the Ice Age there were no mammoths in the known world, unless they exist in the mysterious land beyond the Pole, where one of them was actually seen alive by members of the Byrd expedition."

"We have taken the mammoth as a rather sensational modern evidence of Byrd's mysterious land, but there are many lesser proofs that an unknown originating point exists somewhere in the northern regions. We will merely list a few, suggestions that the reader, in examining the records of polar explorers for the past two centuries, will find it impossible to reconcile with the known areas of food mentioned early in this presentation of facts, those areas surrounding the polar area on your present-day maps."

 

ASTRONOMICAL EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF GARDNER'S THEORY OF A HOLLOW EARTH

Gardner devotes a considerable portion of his book to a discussion of astronomical evidence in support of his theory of a hollow earth with polar openings and a central sun by referring the original formation of planets from nebulae and the polar lights observed from Mars, Venus and Mercury.

In reference to nebulae, Gardner points out that planetary nebulae show a shell structure, generally with a central star, as observed by H.D. Curtis of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in an article in "Scientific American" on October 14, 1916. He reports:

"Fifty of these nebulae have been studied photographically with the Crosly reflector, using different lengths of exposure in order to bring out the structural details of the bright central portions as well as of the fainter, outlying parts. Most planetary nebulae show a more or less regular ring or shell structure, generally with a central star. "

On the basis of the above and other astronomical evidence, Gardner claims that the shape of the nebulae, as seen through the telescope, confirms his theory by showing that in the original formation of planets from nebulae, they acquire a hollow interior, polar openings and a central sun, as is indicated by the shape of the ring nebula shown on the accompanying photograph. Gardner writes:

"Why have scientists never really considered the problem of the shape of the planetary nebula? They know from actual observation and photographs that the planetary nebula takes the form of a hollow shell open at the poles and having a bright central nucleus or central sun at its center. Why have they never thought what that must imply? It is evidently one stage in the evolution of the nebula.

"Why have scientists never asked themselves what that conformation must logically lead to? Why do they ignore it altogether? Is it not because they cannot explain it without too great a disturbance of their own theories? But our theory shows how that stage in the evolution of a nebula is reached and how it is passed, we show what precedes it in the history of the nebula and what follows it.

"We show a continuous evolution passing through that stage to further stages in which those polar openings are fixed, the shell solidified, the nebula reduced to a planet. And it must be remembered that while the original nebula was incomparably greater than a planet in size, measuring even millions of miles across perhaps, at the same time that nebula is composed of gases so attenuated and so expanded by their immense heat that when they solidify they only make one planet."

Gardner points out that just as, in the formation of the solar system, some of the original fire remains at the center in the form of the sun, so, in the case of each individual planet, by the same process by which the solar system as a whole is formed, and by a continuation of the same general movement of rotation and the centrifugal throwing out of the heavier masses to the periphery (as shown by the fact that the most outermost planets, as Uranus and Neptune, are larger than those nearer the sun, as Mercury and Venus), in the case of each of the planets, in their formation, some of the original fire remains in the center of each, to form the central sun, while their heavier constituents are thrown to their surface to form the solid crust, leaving the interior hollow.

Also, due to their rotation on their axis, centrifugal force causes the mass throughout to collect more at right angles to the axis of rotation, causing a bulge at the Equator, with a corresponding compensation at the poles in form of polar depressions which open to the hollow interior, rather than being perfectly round.

It is Gardner's theory, in support of which he presents astronomical evidence in his book, that all planets are hollow and have central suns, this being the basic pattern according to which solar systems are formed from the primordial nebulae from which they originate. Also our universe must have a central sun too, around which the stars circulate.

Gardner quotes the famous astronomer, Professor Lowell, that he has seen gleams of light from the polar cap of Mars. According to Gardner, this is due to the central sun of Mars passing through the polar opening. Similar bright lights have been observed coming from the polar region of Venus. During a transit of Mercury across the sun, the planet, while black on the side toward us, was observed to emit a bright light, comparable to the light of our sun, coming from its black disc.

Gardner concludes that these three planets are all hollow and have large polar openings misnamed polar caps of ice and snow, but in reality are white due to the large amount of fog and clouds in these regions, and that openings in the fog or clouds permit the central sun to shine through. Such bright lights have repeatedly been observed by astronomers who, not understanding the reason, could not offer any satisfactory explanation. Gardner notes that at times these polar caps disappear suddenly, due to a change of weather and that ice and snow could not melt so rapidly. Professor Newcomb says:

"There is no evidence that snow like ours ever formed around the poles of Mars. It does not seem possible that any considerable fall of such snow could take place, nor is there any necessity of supposing actual snow or ice to account for the white caps. "

In support of his claim concerning the existence of lights seen at the pole of Mars, Gardner quoted Professor Lowell who notes that on June 7, 1894, he was watching Mars and suddenly saw two points of light flash out from the middle of the polar cap. They were dazzling bright. The lights shone for a few minutes and then disappeared. Green, some years earlier, in 1846, also saw two spots of light at the pole of Mars.

Lowell tried to explain the lights he saw as reflections of sunlight by polar ice, but Gardner denies this, quoting Professor Pickering who saw a vast area of white form at the pole of Mars within twenty-four hours, visible as a white cap, and then gradually disappeared. Also Lowell saw a band of dark blue, which he took to be water from the melting ice or snow cap. Gardner believes that the so-called Martian ice cap was really fog and clouds, which also could appear and disappear so rapidly. He writes:

"What Lowell really did see was a direct beam - two direct beams at the same moment - flashing from the central sun of Mars out through the aperture of the Martian pole. Does not the blue rim around that area to which Lowell referred indicate the optical appearance of the reflecting surface of the planet gradually curving over to the interior so that at a certain part of the curve it begins to cease reflecting the light? And the fact that it is not seen often simply shows that it is only visible when Mars is in a certain position with relation to the earth, when we are able to penetrate the mouth of the polar opening and catch the direct beam.

"Why have scientists never compared the facts of the light cap of Mars with the light that plays over our own polar regions? Do they forget that the auroral display has been observed to take place without any reference to the changing of the magnetic needle? And if the aurora is shown to be independent of magnetic conditions, what else can it be due to than a source of light? Is not the reflection of the aurora light from the higher reaches of the atmosphere comparable to the projection of the light of the Martian caps into the higher reaches of the Martian atmosphere? And how do scientists explain the fact that the aurora is only seen distinctly in the very far north and only seen in a fragmentary way when we get further south?"

In support of his view that the polar caps of Mars are not formed of ice and snow but represent the light of its central sun shining through the polar opening, Gardner says:

"Why does the hot planet Venus have polar caps like those of Mars if the Martian caps are really composed either of ice, snow or frozen carbon dioxide? Also, why do the polar caps of Venus and Mercury not wax and wane as those of Mars are said to do? And why are the polar caps of Mars seen to throw a mass of light many miles above the surface of the planet when they are seen in a side view if they are really of ice? How could they be so luminous in the first place - more luminous than snow is when seen under similar circumstances? And how could Lowell see direct gleams of light from the caps if there were not beams from a direct light source?

"Furthermore, how do scientists account for the fact, noticed also by Professor Lowell, whose observations on Mars all seem to support our theory, that when the planet is viewed through a telescope at night, that its polar light is yellow and now white, as the light from snow caps would be? The central sun is an incandescent mass, and just as the glowing of an incandescent electric light looks yellow when seen from a distance through darkness, so the direct light of the Martian sun would appear yellow - but if this light were reflected from a solid white surface it would certainly appear white. But it does not, and so it is up to the scientists to tell us just why it does not. But so far as we know they have not succeeded in doing this."

Mitchell saw two bright flashes of light at the polar cap of Mars which gradually came together. Gardner explains this as due to clouds which passed over the face of the interior sun, causing variations in the light emitted through the polar opening.

An English astronomer, W E. Denning, writing in the scientific periodical, "Nature," concerning his observations in 1886, wrote:

"During the past few months the north polar cap of Mars has been very bright, sometimes offering a startling contrast to those regions of the surface more feebly reflective. These luminous regions of Mars require at least as much careful investigation as the darker parts. In many previous drawings and descriptions of Mars, sufficient weight has not been accorded to these white spots."

The English astronomer, J. Norman Lockyer, in 1892, wrote about Mars:

"The snow zone was at times so bright that, like the crescent of the young moon, it appeared to project beyond the planet. This effect of irradiation was frequently visible. On one occasion the snow spot was observed to shine like a nebulous star when the planet itself was obscured by clouds, a phenomenon noticed by Beer and Madler, and recorded in their work, `Fragments Sur les Corps Celestes.' The brightness seemed to vary considerably, and at times, especially when the snow zone was near its minimum, it was by no means the prominent object it generally is upon the planet's disc."

Gardner comments on the above observations:

"No one who reads the above in the light of our theory can fail to see how it fits in. Only direct beams of light from a central sun could give that luminous effect above the surface of the planet and varying as the atmosphere in the interior or above it was clouded or clear. Had it been a mere ice cap, there would not have been this luminosity when the planet was covered with clouds, as Lockyer says it was. Furthermore, that luminosity is precisely what our aurora borealis would look like if our planet was viewed from a great distance. And the light is the same in both cases. By turning to the planet Venus we shall demonstrate absolutely that the polar circles are not snow, or ice, or even hoar-frost caps, but simply apertures leading to the inner and illumined surface of the planet."

On Venus the extensive water vapor tends to equalize the temperature, so that its polar caps are not composed of ice and snow, as supposed in the case of Mars, but which Gardner doubts. Speaking of the polar caps of Venus, MacPherson, in his "Romance of Modern Astronomy," says:

"Polar caps have been observed, supposed by some to be similar to those on our own planet and Mars. Some astronomers, however, do not regard them as snow."

The French astronomer Trouvelet, in 1878, observed at the pole of Venus a confused mass of luminous points, which Gardner attributes to light from the central sun struggling through the clouds. Since the polar cap is not made of ice, these lights cannot be a reflection of the sun. He believes this is the same case with Mars.

Similar lights are seen coming from Mercury. Richard Proctor, one of the best known astronomers of the nineteenth century, wrote:

"One phenomenon of Mercury, if real, might fairly be regarded as indicating Vulcanian energies compared with which those of our own earth would be as the puny forces of a child compared with the energies of a giant. It has been supposed that a certain bright spot seen in the black disc of Mercury when the planet is in transit indicates some source of illumination either of the surface of the planet or in its atmosphere. In its atmosphere it could hardly be; nor could any auroral streamers on Mercury be supposed to possess the necessary intensity of lustre. If the surface of Mercury were glowing with the light thus supposed to have been seen, then it can readily be shown that over hundreds of thousands of square miles of that surface must glow with an intensity of lustre compared with which the brightness of the lime light would be as darkness. In fact, the lime light is absolute darkness compared with the intrinsic lustre of the sun's surface; and the bright spot supposed to belong to Mercury has been seen when the strongest darkening-glasses have been employed. But there can be no doubt that the bright spot is an optical phenomenon only."

Commenting on Proctor's statement, Gardner writes:

"Again we agree with the observation but not with the inference. Here is a spot of light on Mercury, plainly seen through a telescope, so bright that the observer compares it to the incandescence of a sun. It is a much brighter light than any reflection could possibly give. To Proctor such an appearance must have been shocking to the extreme. He was not expecting it and was utterly unprepared to see such a phenomenon. So he is utterly unable to explain it. So Proctor calls this light `an optical phenomenon only.' But we cannot believe that Proctor's eyes have played him a trick. He was a trained astronomical observer. So what he saw must have had some explanation or cause behind it.

"It is obvious to us that what he saw was the central sun of Mercury beaming directly through the polar aperture, and as Mercury is a small planet, the interior sun would be rather near the aperture, and there would be no aqueous atmosphere with clouds to darken its beams, with the result that this sun would shine with extraordinary brightness. It may be noticed that its beams put Proctor in mind of the beams from the sun that shines upon all the planets.

"What more could be wanted than this to show that Mercury, as well as the other planets, has a central sun, and that such a sun is to be met with universally? Is it not significant that beginning with observations on Mars, we are able to go on to Venus and Mercury, apply the same tests and get the same results? The tests are direct observation or photographic observation. The results are the invariable appearance of a central sun."

In addition to the above astronomical evidence in favor of his theory, Gardner refers to the structure of the heads of comets, showing a hollow center, outer crust and central sun. In his book he presents a drawing of Donati's comet, detected from a Florence observatory in 1858. As can be seen it had a central nucleus or sun, which "shone with a brilliance equal to that of the Polar Star" and was 630 miles in diameter. Gardner believes that a comet is a planet which, came into the orbit of some other larger body, like our sun, which tore it from its own orbit, and possibly collided with another planet and the resulting heat transformed most of it into a gaseous tail that trails after it. Gardner claims that the fiery nucleus of the comet was once the central sun of the planet from which it was formed after it broke into fragments.

ORIGIN OF THE AURORA BOREALIS

Just as there are polar lights from Mars, Venus and Mercury, coming from their central suns shining through their polar openings, so Gardner claims, the same occurs in the case of our own planet, the polar lights which it gives off being the aurora borealis, which is not due to magnetism but to the earth's central sun.

Gardner presents the following theory of the origin of the Aurora Borealis:

"Why have scientists never compared the facts of the light cap of Mars with the light that plays over our own polar regions? Do they forget that the auroral display has been observed to take place without any reference to the changing of the magnetic needle ? And if the aurora is shown to be independent of&127 magnetic conditions, what else can it be due to than a source of light? Is not the reflection of the aurora light from the higher reaches of the atmosphere comparable to the projection of the light of the Martian caps into the higher reaches of the Martian atmosphere? And how do scientists explain the fact that the aurora is only distinctly seen in the very far north and only seen in a fragmentary way when we get further south?"

Gardner concludes that the aurora borealis is due to the central sun shining through the polar orifice on the night sky; and the variations in the streamers of light are due to passing clouds in the interior, which, in their movements, cut off the light of the central sun and cause the reflection on the sky to keep changing. That the aurora is not due to magnetism or electrical discharges is proven by many observations of Arctic explorers showing there is no disturbance of the compass nor crackling sounds that accompany electrical discharges, when the aurora is most intense.

Gardner says:

"There are some other considerations which show that the aurora is really due to the interior sun. Dr. Kane, in his account of his explorations, tells us that the aurora is brightest when it is white. That shows that when the reflection of the sun is so clear that the total white light is reflected, we get a much brighter effect than when the light is cut up into prismatic colors. In the latter case the atmosphere is damp and dense (in the interior of the earth) - that being the cause of the rainbow effect - and through such an atmosphere one cannot see so much. Hence the display is not so bright as it is when the atmosphere is clear and the light not broken up.

"Again, if the aurora is the reflection of the central sun, we should expect to see it fully only near the polar orifice, and see only faint glimpses of its outer edges as we went further south. And that is precisely what is the actual fact of the matter.

Says Dr. Nicholas Senn in his book, "In the Heart of the Arctics:"

"`The aurora, which only occasionally is seen in our latitudes, is but the shadow of what it is to be seen in the polar region.'

"The aurora is not a magnetic or electrical disturbance but simply a dazzling reflection from the rays of the central sun. For if it warms continents and waters in the interior of the earth, if, as we have seen, birds have their feeding and breeding grounds there, if an occasional log or seed or pollen-like dust is seen in the Arctic that came from some such unknown place as we have described, it ought to be possible to obtain enough evidence of such life."

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