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"We have taken the mammoth as a rather sensational modern evidence of Byrd's mysterious land, but there are many lesser proofs that an unknown originating point exists somewhere in the northern regions. We will merely list a few, suggestions that the reader, in examining the records of polar explorers for the past two centuries, will find it impossible to reconcile with the known areas of food mentioned early in this presentation of facts, those areas surrounding the polar area on your present-day maps." EARTH Gardner devotes a considerable portion of his book to a discussion of astronomical evidence in support of his theory of a hollow earth with polar openings and a central sun by referring the original formation of planets from nebulae and the polar lights observed from Mars, Venus and Mercury. In reference to nebulae, Gardner points out that planetary nebulae show a shell structure, generally with a central star, as observed by H.D. Curtis of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in an article in "Scientific American" on October 14, 1916. He reports: "Fifty of these nebulae have been studied photographically with the Crosly reflector, using different lengths of exposure in order to bring out the structural details of the bright central portions as well as of the fainter, outlying parts. Most planetary nebulae show a more or less regular ring or shell structure, generally with a central star. " On the basis of the above and other astronomical evidence, Gardner claims that the shape of the nebulae, as seen through the telescope, confirms his theory by showing that in the original formation of planets from nebulae, they acquire a hollow interior, polar openings and a central sun, as is indicated by the shape of the ring nebula shown on the accompanying photograph. Gardner writes: "Why have scientists never really considered the problem of the shape of the planetary nebula? They know from actual observation and photographs that the planetary nebula takes the form of a hollow shell open at the poles and having a bright central nucleus or central sun at its center. Why have they never thought what that must imply? It is evidently one stage in the evolution of the nebula. "Why have scientists never asked themselves what that conformation must logically lead to? Why do they ignore it altogether? Is it not because they cannot explain it without too great a disturbance of their own theories? But our theory shows how that stage in the evolution of a nebula is reached and how it is passed, we show what precedes it in the history of the nebula and what follows it. "We show a continuous evolution passing through that stage to further stages in which those polar openings are fixed, the shell solidified, the nebula reduced to a planet. And it must be remembered that while the original nebula was ASTRONOMICAL EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF GARDNER'S THEORY OF A HOLLOW