Jeremiah N. Reynolds

Jeremiah N. Reynolds (1799–1858), also known as J.N. Reynolds, was an American newspaper editor, lecturer, explorer and author who became an influential advocate for scientific expeditions. His lectures on the possibility of a hollow earth appear to have influenced Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) and his 1839 account of the whale Mocha Dick, "Mocha Dick: Or the White Whale of the Pacific", influenced Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851).

Born into poverty in Pennsylvania, he moved to Ohio as a child. In his teenage years and early 20s, he taught school, saved his money and attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio for three years. He then edited the Spectator newspaper in Wilmington, Ohio, but sold his interest in it in about 1823.

The next year, Reynolds began a lecture tour with John Cleves Symmes, Jr.. Reynolds had become a convert to Symmes' theory that the earth is hollow. Symmes' idea was accepted as possible by some respected scientists of the time. The two presented talks on the subject. When Symmes died, Reynolds continued his lectures, which were given to full houses in Eastern U.S. cities (with a charge of 50 cents for admission).

Over time, Reynolds became willing to accept the possibility that the theory was wrong. In Philadelphia, Reynolds and Symmes parted.

Gaining the support of members of President John Quincy Adams' cabinet, and speaking before Congress, Reynolds succeeded in fitting out a national expedition to the South Pole. But Andrew Jackson opposed the project, and after he became president it was squelched.

Reynolds garnered support from private sources and the expedition sailed from New York City in 1829. With much danger, the expedition reached the Antarctic shore and returned north, but at Valparaíso, Chile, the crew mutinied and set Reynolds and another man on shore.

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