Futility Closet - 350-Symmes' Hole

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 11,000 quirky curiosities from cattle alignment to an actor's shoe fund. This is episode 350. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1818, Army veteran John Cleve Sims declared that the earth was hollow and proposed to lead an expedition to its interior. He promoted the theory in lectures and even won support on Capitol Hill. In today's show, we'll describe Sims' strange project and its surprising consequences.

Starting point is 00:00:44 will describe Sims' strange project and its surprising consequences. We'll also revisit age fraud in sports and puzzle over a curious customer. In April 1818, 500 heads of state, scientific societies, and universities in the United States and Europe received a remarkable message from St. Louis in the Missouri Territory. It read, I declare the earth is hollow, habitable within, containing a number of solid concentric spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the pole 12 or 16 degrees. I pledge my life in support of this truth and am ready to explore the hollow if the world

Starting point is 00:01:26 will support and aid me in the undertaking. It was signed John Cleves Sims of Ohio, late captain of infantry, and it included a certificate of his sanity. He wrote, I ask 100 brave companions, well equipped to start from Siberia in the fall season with reindeer and sledges on the ice of For a man with such a grand vision, Sims had a modest background. He had been born in Sussex County, New Jersey in 1780 to a family of good connections. He'd had some basic schooling, but higher education wasn't available to everyone in colonial America, and he'd had to pursue his love of learning in libraries. He'd left the family farm at 22, joined the army, and served with distinction in the War of 1812. Then he'd gone into business as a

Starting point is 00:02:26 military provisioner and trader on the Upper Mississippi, reading natural history and studying the migration of birds and animals. It was at his trading post, apparently, that he'd formed the idea that the Earth is hollow. The theory said, basically, that the Earth we know is the outermost of five concentric hollow spheres, each of them pressed into shape by the combined action of Sims explained that hollow structures confer both strength and economy. He pointed to examples throughout nature, including bones, plant stems, trees, lava tubes, and insect limbs. Each of the five spheres has openings at the top and the bottom. Each of the five spheres has openings at the top and the bottom. The holes of the outermost sphere are 4,000 miles wide in the Arctic and 6,000 in the Antarctic,

Starting point is 00:03:16 and the scale of the structure is so large that a traveler can cross into the interior without realizing it. Refraction allows sunlight to illuminate the inner world, where it provides warmth and supports life. This explains the disappearance of birds, seals, deer, and other animals each year. They're retreating to the interior to await warmer weather. And it explains the weather patterns and ocean currents that we see in our world. Air and water are disappearing into one opening and reappearing at the other. It appears that Sims believed initially that all celestial bodies, from the sun down to meteors, were made up of concentric spheres, but he gradually gave up that idea and by 1827 contended that Earth was a single hollow sphere. Geographer Dwayne Griffin says that Sims was well

Starting point is 00:03:57 positioned to come up with an unusual theory like this. He was well-read but lacked a comprehensive formal education, and he lived on the frontier, so he didn't know that it was unfashionable in the centers of learning to construct grand theories rather than to gather data. The idea itself of a hollow earth wasn't unprecedented. The Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher had considered it in 1664, as had Edmund Halley in 1692, and Cotton Mather in 1721. But Sims claimed to have come up with it on his own, and he found evidence for it in his own observations and experiments, as well as in idiosyncratic readings of natural history and natural philosophy,

Starting point is 00:04:37 explorers' accounts, encyclopedias, geographies and atlases, and newspapers. Everything he studied, from the distribution of driftwood to the aurora borealis, seemed to him to support the notion of polar openings. When he announced his theory, his son wrote, its reception by the public can easily be imagined. It was overwhelmed with ridicule as the production of a distempered imagination or the result of partial insanity. It was for many years a fruitful source of jest with the newspapers. Between 1820 and 1830, when a person disappeared under suspicious circumstances, it was common to say he's gone down Sims' hole. But the theory wasn't rejected entirely. In his

Starting point is 00:05:17 announcement, Sims had called on three intellectual giants to support him, the chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, the German polymath Alexander von Humboldt, and the naturalist Samuel Mitchell. The first two ignored him, but Mitchell, an enthusiast of popular science, wrote back, giving Sims great credit for the ingenuity and originality of his hypothesis and adding that he should exceedingly rejoice if a polar expedition could prove it correct, a result, he said, that would see Sims recognized as one of the most profound theorists that ever addressed a wandering people. He presented Sims to the scientific men of the day and gave him letters of introduction to friends in New England. The theory also inspired

Starting point is 00:05:55 a number of works of fiction, the most important of which is a novel, Simzonia, which appeared in 1820. The author's name is given as Adam Seaborn, and it's unclear today whether this was really Sims himself writing in earnest or some other author satirizing his ideas. In the novel, Captain Seaborn sets out in 1817 for the South Pole to prove what he calls the sublime theory of an internal world, published by Captain John Cleve Sims. He and his crew sail over the verge onto the concave inner surface of the earth, where they meet a superior race known as the Internals, who, after six months, kick them out because their leader has translated Seaborn's books and discovered how awful humans

Starting point is 00:06:36 are. Quote, from the evidence before him, it appeared that we were of a race who had either wholly fallen from virtue, or were at least very much under the influence of the worst passions of our nature, that a great proportion of the race were governed by an inveterate selfishness, that canker of the soul, which is wholly incompatible with ingenuous and affectionate goodwill towards our fellow beings, that we were given to the practice of injustice, violence, and oppression, wherefore he, the best man in council, had come to a resolution that the safety and happiness of his people would be endangered by permitting any further intercourse with so corrupt and depraved a race. In a twist, it turns out that it's the internals who have

Starting point is 00:07:15 peopled the outer world rather than the other way around. The people of the interior would exile their degenerates to a remote region near the North Pole, and over the millennia, these had made their way onto the outer surface. We are their descendants. For two years after publishing the theory, Sims promoted it only by publishing circulars and writing letters to newspapers and magazines. But in 1820, he began to publicize it directly, lecturing in cities throughout Ohio and Kentucky with a sectioned wooden globe that displayed the Earth's interior. He was derided at first, but he pressed on and gradually began to make converts, particularly among residents of the frontier whose enthusiasm exceeded their understanding of natural history. As the lecture tours gained favorable press reports, Sims supporters began

Starting point is 00:08:00 to host benefits and even to consider the logistics of a polar expedition. The wave of support got as far as Washington, where in 1822, Senator Richard Johnson of Kentucky asked Congress to send two vessels on a polar expedition to confirm Sims' theory. The measure was ultimately tabled, but it won the support of 25 senators. The following year, eight bills appeared in the House of Representatives, sponsored by representatives from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. All were tabled or struck down. Sims tried again in both houses in late 1823, then moved to Ohio and petitioned that state's General Assembly to pass a bill supporting his theory. They, too, declined.

Starting point is 00:08:40 By all accounts, Sims himself was perfectly reasonable apart from this one odd conviction. The natural historian Thomas Lay, who traveled with him through Ohio in 1823, wrote, The partial insanity of this man is of a singular nature. It has caused him to pervert to the support of an evidently absurd theory, all the facts which, by close study, he has been able to collect from a vast number of authorities. He appears conversant with every work of travels from Hearns to Humboldt's, and there is not a fact to be found in these which he does not manage with considerable ingenuity to bring to the support of his favorite

Starting point is 00:09:14 theory. Upon other subjects he talks sensibly and as a well-informed man. In listening to the expositions of the concavity of our globe, we felt that interest, which is inevitably awakened by the aberration of an unregulated mind, possessed probably of a capacity too great for the narrow sphere in which it was doomed to act. Does anyone know why he was so motivated to believe this? I mean, he put so much effort into it, even to write to 500 people back in this time period to get the addresses and to collect the postage for all of that would have been a real undertaking. Yeah, just in itself. No, from what I was able to learn, no one really knows.

Starting point is 00:09:53 What he called the circular, that first message I read, just came out of the wilderness, practically, after St. Louis in 1818, and that was the first anyone had ever heard of him. So we don't know how he came up with this or why he... Or what was motivating him to push it so strongly. Yeah, which just makes it more interesting, but that's all anybody knows. One influential convert to Sims' ideas was the Ohio newspaper editor Jeremiah Reynolds, who had a gift for publicity and realized that getting funds for a polar expedition would require

Starting point is 00:10:25 building support in the east, so he, Sims, and Sims' stepson set out on a speaking tour in fall 1825. Their expenses were barely covered by speaking fees and donations from supporters, but during the tour they received word that the Chancellor of Russia was planning a polar expedition of his own and had requested Sims' services. Sims rejected the Russians' terms but told audiences in Philadelphia that he was pledged to that expedition unless his countrymen sent him north on their own account. The resulting wave of nationalist support boosted lecture attendance and brought in enough money to pay for some new globes and charts. The little party passed through some of the nation's largest cities,

Starting point is 00:11:05 including New York and Boston, as well as many smaller towns and villages. But relations between Sims and Reynolds began to fray, and they broke when Reynolds publicly expressed doubt at the idea of a habitable interior, and even at the whole notion of a hollow earth. The two fought, and Reynolds departed with the new globes and diagrams. He and Sims lectured separately for a time and bickered in the New York papers. They reconciled after a few weeks, but the partnership was over. Reynolds stayed in New York, still promoting a polar expedition, and Sims lectured his way through New England and into Canada. The ongoing support of Samuel Mitchell opened doors at colleges and scientific societies in the Northeast,

Starting point is 00:11:45 and the overtures of the Russians led the American public and press to take Sims' ideas more seriously. He gave a series of lectures to the students and faculty of Union College in 1826 and 1827, and the students at Harvard proved so receptive that the faculty had to arrange special lectures to temper their enthusiasm. But by late 1827, a recurring stomach ailment made it impossible for Sims to continue. He returned first to New Jersey and then at length to Ohio, where he died on May 29, 1829, and was buried with military honors. Jeremiah Reynolds continued to press for an expedition, but now in the name of scientific discovery, national glory,

Starting point is 00:12:30 and commercial gain rather than to discover a polar opening. In 1828, he gained the support of President John Quincy Adams and lobbied Congress to fund an expedition to the South Pacific. But Adams lost that year's presidential election and his successor, Andrew Jackson, killed the plan. Reynolds organized his own private expedition, which set sail in three ships in October 1829, but that voyage returned neither profit nor scientific advance. The crew mutinied, put Reynolds ashore in South America, and returned to New York. He wandered Chile for two years, got home in 1834, and pressed Congress yet again for a federal expedition. This won Jackson's support, and in August 1838, the U.S. Exploring Expedition set out, though Reynolds stayed home this time.

Starting point is 00:13:11 In four years at sea, that expedition would survey nearly 300 islands and 1,500 miles of the Antarctic coast. It produced more than 200 charts and returned with thousands of specimens, which contributed to the nucleus of the Smithsonian Institution's collections. With that effort, the United States established its ability to make world-class contributions to science, kick-started American polar exploration, and set a precedent for federal funding of exploration and scientific research. Though Sims had been dead more than 10 years when these advances were made, in an odd way he had earned a share in the credit. He had gathered a wide range of geographical information into what the geographer Griffin calls the first fully developed and wholly American geographic theory ever proposed.

Starting point is 00:13:54 He and his followers had marshaled popular support for polar exploration and the federal funding of science, and through his own ignorance and zeal, Sims had demonstrated the value of a bold theory in an era that favored direct observation. In that sense, the historian William Stanton wrote, the expedition had begun with the fervent foolishness of a single man. In the 1840s, Sims' son Americus erected a monument to his father in Hamilton, Ohio, a five-foot shaft surmounted by a hollow sphere. It stands there still. a five-foot shaft surmounted by a hollow sphere. It stands there still. In 1878, Americus wrote, Time, the great revealer of secrets, will soon determine whether this startling theory is true, in whole or in part, and whether its author was a visionary enthusiast or a profound philosopher whose name will be honored among men like that of Franklin or Newton,

Starting point is 00:14:41 as a benefactor of his race and an honor to the country which gave him birth. By 1941, the scholar William Marion Miller had reached an answer. He called the monument a mute and to all but a few puzzling testimony to a man of upright character and integrity whose ill fortune it was to propose and espouse a theory that had no basis in scientific fact. to all of them. But this week we are rather floored to have three new super patrons to thank. So here's a special Futility Closet shout out to Pat Tom McDonald, Roger Covesi, and Bill Sarah Harrison and Louis Nagel. It's supporters like Pat, Tom, Roger, and the Nagels who are the reason that our show is still here today. If you would like to become one of our wonderful patrons and know that you are one of the reasons that our show is still here,

Starting point is 00:15:48 please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the support us section of our website. And thank you to everyone who helps support the show. We really wouldn't still be here without you. wouldn't still be here without you. In episode 344, I talked about the problems of age fraud in cricket, particularly in India, where players' ages might be falsified so that they can qualify for competitions restricted to younger age groups. To deal with the issue, the Board of Control for cricket in India uses a test based on wrist x-rays to try to determine the player's ages. Unfortunately, this method is not infallible, and use of the test is somewhat controversial.

Starting point is 00:16:35 Safiya Fleury from the University of Hull, the UK, wrote, Hello again, Greg and Sharon. In episode 344, Greg asked whether there are accurate tests for determining the age of living people. In fact, many countries do use physical age determination tests to calculate the age of refugees and asylum seekers. The reason for this is to try to determine whether a refugee is under the age of 18 and therefore entitled to additional support and temporary protection while their asylum application is processed. Often the authorities are suspicious that refugees without documentation may give a false age in order to be treated more humanely, although of course governments also have an interest in demonstrating that somebody is over 18 in order to reduce their obligations towards that person. in order to reduce their obligations towards that person.

Starting point is 00:17:30 The most common techniques used by European countries are x-rays of the teeth, collarbone, hand, and wrist. However, these tests have been heavily criticized as inaccurate by the medical and legal community since the rate at which these body parts develop is heavily dependent on factors such as nutrition, genetics, and access to medical care. You only have to look at a class of teenagers to see the differences in physical development between individuals. The reference data against which these measurements are calculated was collected in the 1930s from middle-class white American adolescents. In other ethnic groups, the rate at which these bones develop may vary by as much as four years. This could potentially result in a

Starting point is 00:18:05 14-year-old refugee child being inaccurately assessed as being 18 years old and therefore not entitled to any protection as a minor. There are also questions of medical ethics and whether it is acceptable to submit a child to medically unnecessary x-rays and invasive examinations. Ironically, many child refugees actually claim to be over the age of 18, for example, so that they can legally find work in their country of refuge. Children may do this without realizing the damaging consequences this might have for them. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that age assessments should not be based on physical features alone, and that

Starting point is 00:18:45 young persons should have the benefit of the doubt and be treated with respect for their dignity and physical integrity while such assessments are being conducted. Apologies for the long email. I conduct research into refugee studies, and this topic was right up my street. Loving the podcast each Monday. Thank you for reading out my lateral thinking puzzle a few weeks ago. And I hadn't realized that these kinds of tests were being used in this way. I imagine that it must be challenging to try to come up with a fair and accurate way to determine a person's age if they don't have appropriate documentation, as possibly many refugees don't. Yeah, and this is obviously a problem around the world. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:26 refugees don't. Yeah. And this is obviously a problem around the world. Yeah. And Stephen Jones wrote, in your most recent podcast, you discussed using bone age tests as a mean of age verification. I happen to know from experience that this is not necessarily an accurate means of doing so. As a child, I was on human growth hormone to remedy a hormone deficiency. This began when HGH was still experimental. I underwent regular bone age scans as part of my treatment. The doctors knew how old I was. They wanted to determine how far my bone age lagged behind my actual age. This apparently helped them see how well the treatment was working. I also noticed that in your discussion of age fraud in youth sports, you omitted to mention the infamous case of Danny Almonte.

Starting point is 00:20:06 Here is a link. And from what I saw, it does seem that bone age tests do have various appropriate clinical uses in medicine, whatever the controversies are for their use in other applications. Though, as Stephen notes, his case is a good example of how someone's bone age might not match their actual age. is a good example of how someone's bone age might not match their actual age. As for Danny Almonte, I discovered that he was a rather famous case of age fraud in Little League baseball. Almonte was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to New York City in 2000, where he began pitching in Little League. He was considered a real phenomenon, as he could throw pitches up to 79 miles per hour, and he helped his Bronx team earn

Starting point is 00:20:45 a spot and then a third place finish in the Little League World Series in 2001. Unfortunately, at that time, he was actually two years too old to play in Little League as he was 14 and the age limit was 12, although this discrepancy wasn't confirmed until a few weeks after the series. According to Wikipedia, despite there having been other investigations into Almonte's age, it was apparently reporters from Sports Illustrated that first found evidence that his birth date had been altered. And I want to point out that Almonte, who didn't speak English at the time, was cleared of any wrongdoing himself. It seems that the scheme was carried out by his family. I guess there's no telling how many kids have got away with that in the past.

Starting point is 00:21:26 Yeah, there wouldn't be a way to know unless people came clean about it later. I mean, even if they come out with some foolproof test today, we'll never know quite how prevalent that was. Historically, yeah. Eric A. Cohen wrote, I'm sure I won't be the only listener writing in on your follow-up in episode 344 on age fraud in cricket. It's a thing in American baseball as well, particularly for players from less well-documented nations, i.e. for baseball, Latin America. Both falsifying one's age and taking on the identity of some younger player are known to occur.

Starting point is 00:22:00 This is not so much so players can play in lower age leagues, although that's definitely a thing, and Eric links to the case of Danny Almonte, but more because if you're trying to get noticed by a major league scout, the same level of play is more impressive at 16 than at 18. When even a small signing bonus and even a little time in the big leagues can make a big difference back home in, say, the Dominican Republic, and when the player, family, and coaches share in the success, the incentive is clear. This was in the news again recently when Albert Pujols, one of the very best players ever, whatever his true age, was in the news again, as he is widely believed to have shaved a few years off his age when starting out. Thanks again to you and Greg for running the best podcast ever.

Starting point is 00:22:46 And Eric sent a link to an article from March in The Guardian about how common age fraud used to be in baseball. The article uses the example of Albert Pujols, a supposedly 41-year-old player with the Los Angeles Angels who was born in the Dominican Republic. The article quotes former Miami Marlins president David Sampson as saying of Pujols' birthdate that not one person in baseball actually believes that it's correct. And I believe, we all believe in baseball, that he was one of scores of players who falsified their age in order to better their ability to join Major League Baseball with the highest signing bonus possible.

Starting point is 00:23:24 better their ability to join Major League Baseball with the highest signing bonus possible. Apparently, both age and identity fraud have been quite an issue in baseball and was particularly common with players from the Dominican Republic. The Guardian lists examples such as a 16-year-old Dominican phenom named Esmilan Smiley Gonzalez, who signed up with the Washington Nationals in 2006, who signed up with the Washington Nationals in 2006, only to be discovered to actually be a Carlos Lugo, who was 20. Or Fausto Carmona, who made his debut with the Cleveland Indians in the same year, but was discovered six years later to be Roberto Hernandez, and three years older than he had claimed. Apparently, this issue with identity fraud has been so common that the MLB has turned to requesting DNA tests of potential players from the Dominican Republic when there are significant doubts about a player's identity. It seems that some of the issues with age and identity fraud stem from the system used in the Dominican Republic for finding talent for the MLB, which relies a lot on buscones, or talent scouts who find and train promising players. With baseball teams tending to offer much greater signing bonuses for younger

Starting point is 00:24:32 players, and with the incentive of getting a substantial cut of a player's signing bonus, the buscones have had a major role in misrepresenting the players. The Guardian states that after the attacks on September 11, 2001, as the U.S. government began looking more closely into people's visa papers, they found that more than 300 baseball players in major and minor league teams had falsified their birthdates. The article reports, though, that between the post-9-11 security reforms and efforts by the MLB implemented about a decade ago, age fraud has now been largely eradicated in baseball. The article concludes with, for Pujols, the age dispute is nothing more than an innocuous footnote on a storied career that

Starting point is 00:25:17 will land him in the Baseball Hall of Fame. There, his plaque will be on display alongside the likes of Phil Rizzuto and Pee Wee Reese, both of whom were a year older than they claimed they were. That's a surprising effect of 9-11. I wouldn't have thought. I mean, there are probably all kinds of unexpected changes that came about because of the security reforms. Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't have thought, wow, it's going to turn up age fraud in sports.

Starting point is 00:25:41 Yeah. Age fraud has been a problem in other sports too. An internet search brought me almost immediately to a Wikipedia article on the issues of age fraud in association football, for example. It seems that the problem was so prevalent in this sport that starting in 2009, FIFA, the international governing body for association football, introduced the use of MRI tests to determine players eligibility for youth competitions. And from what I was seeing, the use of such tests is somewhat controversial, as they have the same issues that Sophia mentioned for the x-ray tests,

Starting point is 00:26:15 that there can be too much variability between individuals to guarantee the accuracy of the test for any given individual. So while there may be various situations in which determining somebody's age will be important, I guess the answer is that I don't know if there are any completely accurate tests for that. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We always appreciate your comments and follow-ups. So if you have anything that you'd like to add, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I am going to give him an odd sounding situation and he's going to try to work out what's going on by asking yes or no questions.

Starting point is 00:27:05 This is another puzzle from the book How Come, a book of riddles by Agnes Rogers from 1953 that we discussed in episode 306 for anyone who missed the explanation of this delightful book. Here's the puzzle. A man went into Brown's barber shop one day and asked the barber how long he'd have to wait for a haircut. When Brown pointed to the three customers waiting their turn who would have to be attended to first, the newcomer departed. A few days later, he returned and asked the same question. This time there were four men ahead of him. Again, he departed without waiting. When this performance had been repeated several times, always a few customers ahead of him and always the man walking out, the barber's curiosity was

Starting point is 00:27:39 aroused and he instructed his shoeshine boy to follow the eccentric stranger should he come again and try to find out what he could about the fellow. Sure enough, the man did come again, and when he left, the shoeshine boy obediently followed him. On his return, the boy said to the barber, Mr. Brown, that man doesn't want a haircut. How come? Oh, nobody died. Nobody died. Well, they might still. I'm not going to give anything away. Okay. By learning the number of waiting customers,

Starting point is 00:28:09 was he timing something? I don't even know quite what I'm asking. It's going to take the barber X number of minutes per cut, let's say. And if there's three customers waiting, that tells me the barber won't be free for three cuts worth of time. Yes. Is that what the man is trying to find out?

Starting point is 00:28:27 Yes. All right. Very good. Is the man victimizing the barber in some way? I don't think you'd quite say that. Okay. But the man's trying to avoid the consequence of that. Like if he didn't do this and the barber came out unexpectedly from the shop uh-huh because he wasn't occupied right he might is it that he might catch this

Starting point is 00:28:50 man doing something yes that the man doesn't want the barber to know about yes all right that's progress that is progress um is okay then let's say that happens let's say that happens okay would the barber see this as soon as he stepped outside his shop? No. Would you say the man is a criminal? No. Okay. All right. So the barber steps outside his shop and doesn't see the man at all? Correct. But is the barber like a competing, is the man a competing barber anything like that is his occupation important no and he's not a criminal all right so what's the problem then why do you care if the barber's not going to catch you sort of randomly um so he doesn't own like a a enterprise or something? Nope. Some neighboring store or something like that? Nope.

Starting point is 00:29:46 Why do you care? Does it matter that the barber is a barber? Is the whole setup basically that he's a man whose whereabouts need to be inferred? Correct. So it doesn't, beyond that though, it doesn't matter. It could be a different occupation that you could imagine. Okay. Okay.

Starting point is 00:30:10 So why do you want to know that someone's going to be out of your hair while you're doing something? Right. Yep. If you don't care that he's a barber. Yeah, it doesn't matter that he's a barber specifically. And he's not competing in some way. Correct. And the other men, the actual customers, barber customers, aren't otherwise involved? They're just a measure of time?

Starting point is 00:30:28 They are not otherwise involved. Is there anyone else involved? Yes. Ah. And not the boy? And not the boy. Someone else is involved. Okay. Is he having an affair with the barber's wife?

Starting point is 00:30:42 Really? Yes, that's it. Roger says, the mysterious stranger was Mrs. Brown's lover. The boy followed him to the barber's own house and saw him affectionately greeted by Mrs. Brown, the barber's wife, whereupon the quick-witted boy correctly guessed that the man's apparent impatience was actually a device for discovering how long the barber would be engaged and thus how long he could safely visit Mrs. Brown. That's pretty bold.

Starting point is 00:31:06 So, an unusually non-fatal puzzle from Roger's book, though I thought it was a little risque for 1953. That's true. Thanks so much to everyone who sends puzzles to us. And if you have one that you'd like to have us try, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet really relies on the support of our listeners. If you'd like to become one of the awesome supporters of our show, please check out the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can find a donate button and a link

Starting point is 00:31:38 to our Patreon page. At our website, you can also graze through Greg's's collection of over 11 000 rarecho squillicoms browse the futility closet store learn about the futility closet books and see the show notes for the episode with the links and references for the topics we've covered if you have any comments or feedback for us please email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com our music was written and performed by the magnolias Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 350-Symmes' Hole

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