^{Note 1 in page 513} D. M. McKeithan, “Two Sources of Poe's ‘Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’,” Texas Studies in English, No. 13 (July 8, 1933), 116–137.

^{Note 2 in page 513} Ibid., p. 137.

^{Note 3 in page 513} Robert Lee Rhea, “Some Observations on Poe's Origins,” Texas Studies in English, No. 10 (July 8, 1930), 135–146.

^{Note 4 in page 513} Ibid., p. 135.

^{Note 5 in page 513} Robert F. Almy, “J. N. Reynolds: A Brief Biography with Particular Reference to Poe and Symmes,” The Colophon, New Series, ii, No. 2 (Winter, 1937), 227–245. Symmes's theory made a good deal of noise in the 1820's. In 1818 Captain John Cleves Symmes of Ohio issued a circular to institutions of learning in Europe and America stating that the earth is hollow and open at the poles. In 1823, he petitioned Congress to send an exploring expedition to test his theory, and got twenty-five affirmative votes. With James McBride as collaborator he published in 1826 Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres. In 1827 he lectured at Union College, where he met Jeremiah N. Reynolds and converted him temporarily to the theory.

Symmes believed the earth is composed of five hollow, concentric spheres, with spaces between each, and habitable upon both convex and concave surfaces. At the North Pole, he supposed an opening four thousand miles in diameter; at the South, six thousand. The sea extends through the openings, and seals, whales, and fish pass through. Around each opening is a hoop of ice, but within the hoop the climate is mild and even hot. Ocean currents flow into the openings; volcanoes fringe the openings in some places; the Aurora Borealis appears in the south. Sunlight is refracted into the hollow earth because of the inclination of the poles.

The connection with Poe (says Almy) seems to be through Reynolds and Poe's brother Henry. In 1827, Symmes and Reynolds went out together on a lecture tour. They soon separated, and Reynolds went on to Baltimore and lectured there. Edgar was not there but Henry was. Almy, on the basis of these facts, conjectures that Henry, excited by Reynolds's lectures, probably in turn excited Edgar. Henry may have communicated with Edgar in Boston in 1827 or have talked with him in 1829.

After Symmes died in 1829, Reynolds apparently gave up Symmes's theory, but he continued to be interested in exploration of South Polar regions. In 1834 he addressed Congress. Poe reviewed the address. The address was fifteen hundred words long; Poe used seven hundred of them in Arthur Gordon Pym (see Rhea, op. cit.). Reynolds was often engaged in controversy, and Poe wrote much in defense of Reynolds, especially an article in Graham's Magazine in 1843 not yet collected in Poe's Works; see “A Brief Account of the Discoveries and Results of the United States' Exploring Expedition. New Haven. B. L. Hamlen,” Graham's Magazine, xxiii, No. 3 (Sept., 1843), 164–165. Reynolds practised law in New York after 1841 during the time Poe lived there. Whether they met personally is not known, though a good deal of conjecture has been based upon the fact that Reynolds's name was the last upon Poe's lips as he lay dying. See also John Wells Peck, “Symmes' Theory,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, xviii (1909), 28–42.

^{Note 6 in page 513} Captain Adam Seaborn (pseud.? perhaps Symmes himself), Symzonia; A Voyage of Discovery (New York: J. Seymour), 1820. A relationship between Symzonia and Arthur Gordon Pym was first suggested, though not fully developed, by Professor Theodore Hunt in Le Roman Américain (Paris, 1937), pp. 82–83.

^{Note 7 in page 513} See, for instance, the Library of Congress catalogue card.

^{Note 8 in page 513} Probably the first full-blown American utopia. See Nelson F. Adkins, “An Early American Story of Utopia,” Colophon, New Series, i, No. 1 (Summer, 1935), 123–132. This article says that [Mrs. Mary Griffith's] “Three Hundred Years Hence” in Camperdown; or, News from our Neighbourhood ... (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1836)—is the first American Utopia. Symzonia is sixteen years earlier.

^{Note 9 in page 513} P. 13—the opening page of the narrative.

^{Note 10 in page 515} P. 38.

^{Note 11 in page 515} See pp. 83–84, 99, and 217.

^{Note 12 in page 515} James A. Harrison, ed., The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., 1902), iii, 162–164. Hereafter I shall refer to this edition as Works.

^{Note 13 in page 515} Ibid., iii, 165.

^{Note 14 in page 515} P. 76.

^{Note 15 in page 516} Works, iii, 179–180.

^{Note 16 in page 516} In general, except for its one bold imagination of a world inside the earth, Symzonia is bare and matter-of-fact. One may surmise that Poe was struck by the possibilities in the basic idea, but that he had to go elsewhere (see the sources cited supra) for details to create the emotional reality he desired.

^{Note 17 in page 516} P. 69.

^{Note 18 in page 516} Works, iii, 177.

^{Note 19 in page 516} P. 87.

^{Note 20 in page 516} See the many promises of wonders to come, Works, iii, 109, and passim.

^{Note 21 in page 518} The digression describing the penguins takes up pp. 30–34 in Symzonia; it takes up Works, iii, 155–157, in Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe did not follow Seaborn's phrasing and evidently did not rely upon Seaborn for details. The “cities” differ. Seaborn described only penguins, their nests, and their habits; Poe described both penguins and albatrosses, the latter nesting in the same “city” as the penguins. It seems likely that Poe got his idea for the digression and a figure of speech from Symzonia, but got his details elsewhere. In general, Poe's use of Symzonia suggests that he read the book and held its story in mind, but did not consult it for phrasing. The unimaginative flatness of the style, the absence of anything like emotional color in the book may have both stimulated Poe to follow the story and turned him away from its phrasing. The imaginative possibilities in the basic idea may have excited Poe to tell the same story, but to tell it more vividly. His adding of the albatross (of romantic connotation) to the penguin-colony seems typical.

^{Note 22 in page 518} Cf. [Jeremiah N. Reynolds?] “A Review of ‘Symmes's Theory of Concentric Spheres....‘ By a Citizen of the United States,” The American Quarterly Review, i, No. 1 (March, 1827), 235–253 (attributed to Reynolds by Robert F. Almy, op. cit.), and Works, iii, 236.

^{Note 23 in page 518} P. 84.

^{Note 24 in page 518} Works, iii, 169.

^{Note 25 in page 518} Ibid., iii, 177.

^{Note 26 in page 518} Ibid., iii, 236.

^{Note 27 in page 518} Ibid., iii, 238.

^{Note 28 in page 518} Ibid., iii, 240.

^{Note 29 in page 518} Ibid., iii, 241. In both Symmes's theory and Reynolds's address to Congress strong ocean currents are indicated (Rhea, op. cit., p. 137). In Pym, a noticeable current, “setting southwardly at the rate of half a mile per hour” is encountered in latitude eighty-one; it soon increases in rate to three-quarters of a mile per hour (Works, iii, 175). A little later, soundings show it to be a mile per hour (Works, iii, 179). After Pym and Peters leave the island, they are caught in a “very strong current.” (Works, iii, 238.) A little later they find themselves “hurrying on to the southward, under the influence of a powerful current.” (Works, iii, 240).

^{Note 30 in page 519} “Poe's Debt to Voltaire,” Texas Studies in English, No. 15, pp. 68–69.

^{Note 31 in page 519} P. 110; the phrase inside brackets is taken from an earlier position in the paragraph.

^{Note 32 in page 519} P. 160.

^{Note 33 in page 519} As Pym and Peters were drawn southward, they approached a region of white vapor that flared up in “all the wild variations of the Aurora Borealis.” And then we come to the very end of the book:

Here I believe Poe is making use, at least in part, of the Magellanic clouds described in Symmes's theory.

Symmes said that these Magellanic clouds are:

^{Note 34 in page 520} Works, iii, 64.

^{Note 35 in page 521} See footnote 8, supra.

^{Note 36 in page 521} See Works, x, 81–85, 178–181, and xvi, 63–66.

^{Note 37 in page 521} It is possible to surmise (rather wildly?) that Poe thought for a while of finding the Lost Tribes of Israel in the internal world. The title of the ruler of the islands is Tsalemon (Works, iii, 239). The “Arabic” writing, misleadingly discussed by Poe in his “Note,” contains the Arabic for Zahara (“reddish-white, brown” or “Sahara” Desert), and the “Tekeli-li” may be corrupt Arabic for “Trust to me.” There are other evidences of his interest in the Jews at this time. Using material from Rees's Cyclopaedia, he wrote an essay on Palestine at about the time he may have been writing this part of Pym (Works, xvi, 1–5). In the preparation of this essay, Poe consulted at least fifteen articles in the Cyclopaedia and quoted from them verbatim. (See my article, “Poe's ‘Palaestine,‘” American Literature, xiii [March, 1941], 44–58). He may have read also the article on the “Jews,” which speaks of the Lost Tribes as divided into the Black Jews and the White Jews, who would correspond to Poe's black natives and the white internals suggested by Symzonia. The Cyclopaedia says: “The White Jews look upon the Black Jews as an inferior race, and not as of a pure cast.” See Abraham Rees, The Cyclopaedia (Philadelphia: Bradford, Murray, Fairman, and Co., n. d. [1810–1824]), the article on “Jews,” xix, unpaged. Though not evidence, all these coincidences are suggestive.

^{Note 38 in page 521} Perhaps through exhaustion, confusion, or need of money? Perhaps the present ending is a symbol suggested by Jehovah's interdiction against Edom?

^{Note 39 in page 521} Works, iii, 1.

^{Note 40 in page 521} Works, iii, 109.

^{Note 41 in page 522} Works, iii, 155. Perhaps the white birds flying through the mist at the very end of the book adumbrate some use planned for the albatross.

^{Note 42 in page 522} Works, iii, 53.

^{Note 43 in page 522} See, for instance, Works, iii, 170.

^{Note 44 in page 522} Works, iii, 178.

^{Note 45 in page 522} Works, iii, 187.

^{Note 46 in page 522} See the promise of further adventure, Works, iii, 223.

^{Note 47 in page 522} Killis Campbell, “Poe's Reading,” Texas Studies in English, No. 5 (October 8, 1925), 187.

^{Note 48 in page 522} Meredith Neill Posey, “Notes on Poe's Hans Pfaall,” MLN, xlv, No. 8 (December, 1930), 501–507.

^{Note 49 in page 522} Ibid., p. 507.

^{Note 50 in page 523} New York: Elam Bliss, 1827. The review was written by Professor Robley Dunglison of the University of Virginia (so Dean James Southall Wilson of the University of Virginia informs me by letter), though it was not signed.

^{Note 51 in page 523} Posey, op. cit., p. 501. That Poe did know the contents of the review, at least by 1840, is clear from the fact that his “Note” for the 1840 edition of “Hans Pfaal” discusses books compared, in the review, with Tucker's book.

^{Note 52 in page 523} Poe's “Note” to the 1840 edition refers to the review, but not to the book. Perhaps Poe wished partly to conceal his source by making only this oblique reference to it. He seems insincere in his citation. He was able to cite the volume number of the magazine in which the review appeared, but he says he does not remember the title of the book, which is simply A Voyage to the Moon.

^{Note 53 in page 523} P. 48.

^{Note 54 in page 524} Works, ii, 70–75.

^{Note 55 in page 524} Tucker, op. cit., p. 84.

^{Note 56 in page 524} Works, ii, 93–94.

^{Note 57 in page 524} Tucker, op. cit., p. 93.

^{Note 58 in page 524} Works, ii, 99.

^{Note 59 in page 524} Works, ii, 100.

^{Note 60 in page 524} Tucker, op. cit., p. 107.

^{Note 61 in page 525} Works, ii, 89.

^{Note 62 in page 525} Works, ii, 99.

^{Note 63 in page 525} Whether Poe saw Tucker's manuscript while at the University of Virginia or came across the book while visiting Elam Bliss, the publisher of both Tucker's book and Poe's Poems of 1831, or found it in a bookstall or library is a matter for conjecture.

^{Note 64 in page 525} Op. cit., pp. 227–245.

^{Note 65 in page 525} Works, ii, 52.

^{Note 66 in page 525} Op. cit., p. 501. Posey says: “But the most significant detail which the two possess in common is that of the employment, as a means of overcoming resistance to aerial travel, of a metal, spoken of in the earlier story as lunarium and described by Poe as a particular metallic substance or semi-metal. Poe's metal is one of the materials for making the gas in the balloon, whereas lunarium, being lighter than air, itself had lifting power.”

^{Note 67 in page 525} Op. cit., p. 114.

^{Note 68 in page 526} Works, xvi, 354.

^{Note 69 in page 526} Op. cit., p. 507.

^{Note 70 in page 526} University of Iowa Humanistic Studies, ii, No. 3 (Iowa City, 1925), pp. 134–138.

^{Note 71 in page 526} Works, xvi, 349–350.

^{Note 72 in page 526} Works, ii, 96.

^{Note 73 in page 526} Cf. Works, xvi, 351–352, and Works, ii, 96–97. This comparison will indicate that “Hans Pfaal” has maculae and Cassini where the “Notes,” as Harrison edits them, have macula and Cossini. Rees's Cyclopaedia (discussed below) has maculae and Cassini. The discrepancy may be due to Harrison's misreading of Poe's handwriting.

^{Note 74 in page 527} Works, xvi, 353.

^{Note 75 in page 527} I do not have the 1840 edition at hand. This version is what I make out from Harrison's collation, Works, ii, 344. But the Latin, as Harrison reprints it from the Griswold edition, reads: “Emicantet trabes quas docos vocant.” (Works, ii, 64.) Here is a curious puzzle, for the original in Rees's Cyclopaedia (discussed below), under “Zodiacal Light,” reads: “Some have supposed, that this phenomenon is the same with that which the ancients called trabes ... thus Pliny (lib. ii) says, emicant trabes, quos docos vocant.'” The “Notes” apparently follow the Cyclopaedia, but how did Poe get the “p. 26”? The “p. 26” is correct. Perhaps Poe found the whole passage, with the “p. 26” included, elsewhere in the Cyclopaedia. (Over and over, articles in Rees quote and paraphrase one another.) The versions differ from one another, but all differ from Pliny, who has: “Emicant et trabes simili modo, quas vocant; ...” C. Plinii Secundi, Naturalis Historiae, Lib. ii, 26 (London, 1826), i, 398–399.

^{Note 76 in page 527} In an article on Richard Adams Locke, Works, xv, 135. In the closing pages of “Hans Pfaal” Poe indicates this intention, though the “promise” here is in a piece of fiction.

^{Note 77 in page 527} The “Notes” discuss the appearance of the moon to indicate the presence of an atmosphere, and a method for computing its height; the altitude of the tides on the moon; the fact that the same face of the moon is always toward the earth; a scientist's statement that the asteroid Juno has a variable atmosphere; the size of spot on the moon visible through a telescope magnifying 1000 times; a citation that an astronomer discovered a lunar edifice resembling a fortification and roads; a scientist's conjecture about a great city on the moon, canals, and fields of vegetation, with a remark that another scientist disputes this conjecture; the construction of instruments to see whether the moon is inhabited, with a discussion of what was wrong with Herschel's telescope; the relative gravity of the earth and the moon; the area of the moon and the eccentricity of its orbit; transition from light to darkness on the moon as it looks to lunar inhabitants; and phosphorescent substances on the moon that afford a twilight. There is the note: “Make the invisible half of the moon our hell.” (Works, xvi, 349–350.) The “Notes” go on to discuss how the Lunarians, inhabitants of the moon, measure time by the earth's rotation into days of twenty-four hours; the point of bouleversement between the earth and the moon; a peculiar phenomenon that makes the moon sometimes invisible when stars are visible; whether there is an inconstant, dense matter around the moon; the height of the mountains on the moon; the appearance of the heavens to a Lunarian; a scientist's attempt to establish the existence of an atmosphere on the moon; the discovery of volcanic eruptions on the dark part of the moon, and the appearance of the volcanoes; and the force of gravity on the moon with reference to bodies projected from the moon.

^{Note 78 in page 528} Op. cit., pp. 135–138.

^{Note 79 in page 528} Op. cit., p. 507.

^{Note 80 in page 529} Works, xvi, 350.

^{Note 81 in page 529} These items are from the article “Moon” and its sub-articles, such as “Moon, Phenomena of the,” Rees, op. cit., xxv, unpaged. The items taken for the “Notes” are not consecutive in the order of the Cyclopaedia. But I have been able to find the sentences of the “Notes” in the Cyclopaedia as follows: Sentences 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 (a citation) under “Moon”; 8 not found; 9 under “Moon”; 10 not found; 11 under “Moon”; 12 and 13 not found; 14 and 15 under “Planet”; 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 not found; 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 (not verbatim), 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, and 34 under “Moon”; 35 (“Make the invisible half of the moon our hell.”) not found; 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41 under “Moon”; 42 not found; 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, and 67 under “Moon”; 68 and part of 69 under “Volcano”—the last part of 69, a long sentence, not found; 70, 71, 72, 73, and 74 not found; 75, 76 (a Latin quotation), and 77 (citation of Pliny) under “Zodiacal Light”; 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, and 88 not found; 84–88 are citations of titles of books, charts, or articles in the Cyclopaedia.

Margaret Alterton finds Sentence 14 in Dr. Dick's “The Celestial Scenery.” The complete sentence is not in Rees's article “Planet.” As various articles in Rees contain identical, verbatim, or paraphrased material, the complete sentence may be in some other article in the Cyclopaedia—or it may not. Poe's source may, indeed, be a first-hand consultation of Dick. Miss Alterton finds sentences 68, 69, 70, and 71 in Vol. xvi of the Philosophical Transactions. Sentence 68 (not quite verbatim) and a part of 69 are in the article “Volcano” in Rees; I have not found sentences 70 and 71 in Rees. Miss Alterton finds sentences 72, 73, and 74 in Vol. xvii of the Philosophical Transactions; I have not found these sentences in Rees. Perhaps Poe did consult the Transactions at this point. Miss Alterton finds sentence 79 in Dick's “The Celestial Scenery”; I have not found sentence 79 in Rees.

^{Note 82 in page 530} The prospectus was dated May 1, 1834; see David K. Jackson, Poe and the Southern Literary Messenger (Richmond: Dietz Co., 1934), p. 16.

^{Note 83 in page 530} Hervey Allen, Israfel The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1927), i, 350–351.

^{Note 84 in page 531} Letter of July 20, 1835, in Works, xvii, 12.

^{Note 85 in page 531} I call to mind Poe's frequent, incorrigible “mystifications.”

^{Note 86 in page 531} See discussion below, and Poe's statement, Works, xv, 128.

^{Note 87 in page 531} Works, xv, 128.

^{Note 88 in page 531} Works, xvii, 19.

^{Note 89 in page 532} Works, xvii, 28.

^{Note 90 in page 532} Compare Poe's reaction to criticism of a story written while at the University of Virginia, Allen, op. cit., i, 174–175.

^{Note 91 in page 532} John H. Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe His Life, Letters, and Opinions (London: John Hogg, 1880), i, 128. In this connection, it would seem that Poe looked upon Kennedy somewhat as a father and felt awe of him. When Poe was a boy, Allan had crushed his extravagancies. He even had “peculiar notions of what Edgar should read.” J. H. Whitty, The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917), “Memoir,” pp. xxiii–xxiv. Poe still felt awe for “Dear Pa,” a man of common sense, authority, worldly wisdom. In 1835 he had no “Pa” except Kennedy.

^{Note 92 in page 532} All the sources so far found have concerned the central narrative; none has been suggested for the facetious envelope. It is possible to surmise, where evidence is lacking, that Poe may have written this envelope as disguised autobiographical allegory. Poe used Tucker's Voyage as his inspiring source. Tucker must have been writing his book in 1826, for he published it in 1827. There is no evidence whether Poe heard of Tucker's book in manuscript, though Hervey Allen conjectures: “Poe not infrequently visited the faculty at home and such things as lunar voyages may have been discussed. It was a topic upon which Edgar would love to enlarge.” (Op. cit., i, 175.) Poe makes no reference to Tucker by name, and Tucker none to Poe. But in discussing Locke's moon hoax, Poe later said: “A grave professor of mathematics in a Virginia college told me seriously that he had no doubt of the truth of the whole affair!” (Works, xv, 134). Tucker did not teach mathematics, and any remark that anybody made about the “moon Hoax” had to be made after “Hans Pfaal” was published; but the fifty-one-year-old chairman (and oldest member) of the faculty may have seemed very grave to Poe (once “questioned” by the faculty), and the “no doubt of” the “grave professor of mathematics” may be an oblique reference to Tucker's having written a voyage to the moon.

Latrobe said Poe told his tale in the first person. The years 1831–35 were Poe's starving years, following the failure of the Poems of 1831 to attract attention. Perhaps Poe's hero (who is “I” in the central narrative) may be pronounced “Hans Fail” in sardonic reference to himself. Hans writes that, in despair at the failure of his business of bellows-mender and pursued by creditors, he meditated suicide. Poe was pursued by creditors and arrested for debt. But Hans took a new interest in life when, at a bookstall, he came across a treatise on speculative astronomy written by a foreign professor. This treatise “in conjunction with a discovery in pneumatics, lately communicated to me as an important secret by a cousin from Nantz” (Works, ii, 50) gave him an object of unceasing pursuit. Perhaps Hans's occupation of bellows-mender is facetious for Poe's work as hack-writer and critic. Perhaps the treatise in a bookstall is Tucker's book. Perhaps the discovery in pneumatics communicated by a cousin from Nantz is Symzonia (containing the formula for the gas) communicated to Edgar by brother Henry from Baltimore (while Edgar was in Boston). Tucker's Voyage had used a machine for condensing air to make it breathable on the way to the moon. Hans used the same device, invented by a man named Grimm. Perhaps Grimm is a reference to Tucker, chairman of the Virginia faculty and (perhaps) the “grave professor of mathematics.”

These surmises are only hypothetical, but Poe's tendency to write autobiographical allegory has been noticed in Pym, “Usher,” “William Wilson,” and “The Literary Life of Thingum Bob.”

^{Note 93 in page 533} Woodberry, op. cit., i, 140.

^{Note 94 in page 533} Works, xv, 127–128.

^{Note 95 in page 533} Works, xvi, 348–349. This fact would suggest that the “Notes” were prepared for the 1835 edition, though not quoted until the 1840 edition. It may also be noted, though it is ex post facto, that inhabitants of the future in “Mellonta Tauta” view doings on the moon through a telescope.

^{Note 96 in page 534} Works, ii, cf. pp. 59 and 335.

^{Note 97 in page 534} Works, ii, 333.

^{Note 98 in page 534} Works, ii, cf. pp. 68 and 336.

^{Note 99 in page 534} No reasons are explained in the latter part of the published story.

^{Note 100 in page 534} Works, ii, 99.

^{Note 101 in page 534} Works, xv, 135.

^{Note 102 in page 534} Works, ii, 14–15.

^{Note 103 in page 535} P. 34.

^{Note 104 in page 535} Peck, op. cit., p. 32.

^{Note 105 in page 535} Works, xvi, 213–214.