The world is hollow, you say? An absurd idea! But at one time many believed this to be the case. Some still do.

Edmund Halley is most famous for the comet named after him. He also thought the earth was hollow, a theory he proposed in 1692. The biggest push for the idea, though, came from John Cleves Symmes, who published a pamphlet in 1818 describing how access to the interior could be achieved by traveling through openings at both the north and south poles. Symmes even petitioned the U.S. Congress to fund an expedition to "Symmes Hole"! Alas, Congress wasn't interested.

By 1913 scientists were pretty much in agreement that "the earth is neither hollow nor stuffed with sawdust" (as one of them wrote) but the idea of another world beneath our feet was too good to let die, so in that year Burroughs resurrected the hollow earth in At the Earth's Core. David Innes and Abner Perry build a giant mechanical prospector with which they hope to uncover vast mineral deposits far beneath the surface. On the "Iron Mole's" first trip, however, they discover that their vehicle can't be steered! Death seems certain, for doesn't everyone know that the center of the earth is a molten mass of white-hot magma?

Instead what Innes and Perry discover is that the earth's crust in only 500 miles thick and that the inner surface is inhabited. This is the land of Pellucidar, a place where dinosaurs roam through the jungles, and where saber-toothed tigers hunt the mastodon and mammoth. A tiny sun, the molten core of the earth, hangs in the center of the heavens, shedding perpetual daylight upon Pellucidar. Because the sun never sets, because it is always* now*, there is no such thing as time in Pellucidar! Stranger still, because Pellucidar rests on the inner side of the earth's crust, there is no horizon. The land curves* upwards*, as if you were standing on the inside of a gigantic bowl.

Humans dwell in Pellucidar as well, stone-age men and women who must fight to survive in this savage world. Even worse, these people have been made slaves of the Mahars, a race of intelligent but sinister reptiles who look upon humans as nothing more than beast of burden ~ or as tasty snacks in one of their ghoulish ceremonies!

The struggle of David Innes and Abner Perry to free humanity from the Mahar tyranny is only the beginning of their adventures in Pellucidar. There are a total of seven books in this exciting series, in which Edgar Rice Burroughs takes you on journeys across savage seas infested with plesiosaurs and other hungry creatures, to mountains where pterodactyls roost, and to lands where every waking moment is a struggle to survive. Even Tarzan visits Pellucidar, taking a ride on a dirigible through "Symmes Hole" at the North Pole! So take a journey, via Iron Mole or dirigible, and discover for yourself the wonders, the terrors, and the excitement of Pellucidar!

The complete Pellucidar series!

At the Earth's Core
Pellucidar
Tanar of Pellucidar
Tarzan at the Earth's Core
Back to the Stone Age
Land of Terror 
Savage Pellucidar