or world?" I
inquired of Sir John Forbes.

"I need not say that the English geographers, in common with the
entire nation, were greatly excited at the news. The Royal
Geographical Society have already made you an honorary member, and it
was actually proposed at one of the meetings that the government
should proclaim a special holiday as a day of rejoicing for so great a
discovery. This would certainly have been done but for the fact that
the story rested entirely on the testimony of two sailors, and that
any public rejoicing should be postponed until the story of the
sailors would be verified by a special expedition sent from England.
Of course, many people think that Dunbar's story is a fable or a
hallucination that he himself believes in. On the other hand, hundreds
of professional and amateur astronomers and geographers are proving by
mathematics that the earth must be a hollow sphere, and the story of
the open poles an entirely physical possibility."

"The people of the United States," said Captain Adams, "are almost
unanimous in the belief that the interior world is a veritable
reality, and it only requires a return of my ship to convince every
one that Dunbar's story falls very short of the glorious reality."

"There is no man more famous to-day than Lexington White, Admiral of
Atvatabar!" said Sir John Forbes.

"I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind words," said I; "and now for
Dunbar's story."

"I think, admiral," said Captain Adams, "that if I were to read you
the article containing Dunbar's story written by a special
commissioner of the New York _Western Hemisphere_, who was the first
to interview Dunbar at Sitka, on learning of his arrival there, it
would be perhaps the best narration of his perilous adventures." As
the captain spoke he drew a copy of the _Western Hemisphere_ from his
pocket.

"By all means," I replied, "let us hear what the press said about
Dunbar and his adventures."

Thereupon Captain Adams read the New York _Western Hemisphere's_
account of Dunbar's adventures, as follows:

"AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY!

"THE NORTH POLE FOUND TO BE AN ENORMOUS CAVERN,
LEADING TO A SUBTERRANEAN WORLD!

"THE EARTH PROVES TO BE A HOLLOW SHELL ONE THOUSAND
MILES IN THICKNESS, LIT BY AN INTERIOR SUN!

"OCEANS AND CONTINENTS, ISLANDS AND CITIES SPREAD UPON
THE ROOF OF THE INTERIOR SPHERE!

"BOATSWAIN DUNBAR AND SEAM