<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<div class="front">
<div class="div1 cover"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first"></p>
<div class="figure cover-imagewidth"><ANTIMG src="images/new-cover.jpg" alt="Newly Designed Front Cover." width-obs="480" height-obs="720"></div>
</div></div>
<div class="div1 titlepage"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<div class="titlePage">
<div class="docTitle">
<div class="subTitle">A Challenge to the JOHNS HOPKINS University</div>
<div class="mainTitle">ONE HUNDRED PROOFS THAT THE EARTH IS NOT A
GLOBE.</div>
</div>
<div class="byline">Dedicated to RICHARD A. PROCTOR, Esq.<br/>
“The Greatest Astronomer of the Age.”<br/>
By <span class="docAuthor">WM. CARPENTER,</span><br/>
<i>Referee for John Hampden, Esq., in the Celebrated Scientific Wager,
in 1870; Author of ‘Common Sense’ on Astronomy, (London,
1866;) Proctor’s Planet Earth; Wallace’s Wonderful Water;
The Delusion of the Day, &c., &c.</i></div>
<div class="docImprint">“UPRIGHT, DOWNRIGHT,
STRAIGHTFORWARD.”<br/>
BALTIMORE:<br/>
<span class="sc">Printed and Published by the Author</span>,<br/>
No. 71 Chew Street<br/>
<span class="docDate">1885.</span><br/>
TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. <span class="sc">Five Copies</span>, Postage Paid,
for One Dollar.<br/>
5th Edition: 6th Thousand.</div>
</div></div>
<div class="divBody">
<div class="figure titlepage-imagewidth"><ANTIMG src=
"images/titlepage.png" alt="Original Title Page." width="445" height=
"720"></div>
</div></div>
<div id="toc" class="div1 contents"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">INDEX.</h2>
<table class="tocList">
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">1</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof1">The aeronaut sees
for himself.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">2</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof2">Standing water
level.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">3</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof3">Surveyors’
“allowance.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">4</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof4">Flow of
Rivers—the Nile.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">5</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof5">Lighthouses—Cape Hatteras.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">6</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof6">The
sea-shore.—“Coming up.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">7</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof7">A trip down
Chesapeake Bay.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">8</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof8">The model globe
useless.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">9</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof9">The
sailor’s level charts.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">10</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof10">The
mariners’ compass.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">11</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof11">The southern
circumference.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">12</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof12">Circumnavigation
of the Earth.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">13</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof13">Meridians are
straight lines.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">14</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof14">Parallels of
latitude—circles.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">15</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof15">Sailing down and
underneath.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">16</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof16">Distance round
the South.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">17</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof17">Levelness
required by man.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">18</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof18">The
“level” of the astronomers.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">19</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof19">Half the globe
is cut off, now!</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">20</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof20">No
“up” or “down” in nature?</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">21</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof21">The
“spherical <span class="corr" id="xd25e287" title=
"Source: loadstone">lodestone</span>.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">22</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof22">No falsehoods
wanted!</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">23</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof23">No proof of
“rotundity.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">24</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof24">A “most
complete” failure.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">25</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof25">The first
Atlantic Cable.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">26</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof26">Earth’s
“curvature.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">27</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof27">Which end goes
down?</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">28</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof28">A “hill of
water.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">29</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof29">Characteristics
of a globe.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">30</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof30">Horizon—level with the eye.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">31</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof31">Much too small a
globe.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">32</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof32">Vanishing point
of objects.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">33</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof33">We are not
“fastened on.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">34</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof34">Our
“antipodes.”—a delusion.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">35</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof35">Horizon a level
line.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">36</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof36">Chesapeake Bay
by night.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">37</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof37">Six months day
and night.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">38</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof38">The
“Midnight Sun.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">39</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof39">Sun moves round
the Earth.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">40</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof40">Suez
Canal—100 miles—level.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">41</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof41">The “true
level.”—a curve.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">42</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof42">Projectiles—firing east or west.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">43</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof43">Bodies thrown
upwards.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">44</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof44">Firing in
opposite direction.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">45</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof45">Astronomer Royal
of England.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">46</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof46">An utterly
meaningless theory.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">47</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof47">Professor
Proctor’s cylinder.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">48</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof48">Proctor’s
false perspective.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">49</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof49">Motion of the
clouds.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">50</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof50">Scriptural
proof—a plane.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">51</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof51">The
“Standing Order.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">52</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof52">More ice in the
south.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">53</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof53">Sun’s
accelerated pace, south.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">54</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof54">Balloons not
left behind.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">55</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof55">The Moon’s
beams are cold.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">56</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof56">The Sun and
Moon.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">57</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof57">Not
Earth’s shadow at all<span class="corr" id="xd25e510" title=
"Source: ,">.</span></SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">58</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof58">Rotating and
revolving.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">59</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof59">Proctor’s
big mistake.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">60</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof60">Sun’s
distance from Earth.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">61</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof61">No true
“measuring-rod.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">62</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof62">Sailing
“round” a thing.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">63</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof63">Telescopes—“hill of water.<span class="corr" id="xd25e548" title="Not in source">”</span></SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">64</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof64">The laws of
optics—Glaisher.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">65</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof65">“Dwelling” upon error.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">66</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof66">Ptolemy’s
predictions.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">67</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof67">Canal in
China—700 miles.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">68</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof68">Mr.
Lockyer’s false logic.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">69</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof69">Beggarly
alternatives.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">70</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof70">Mr.
Lockyer’s suppositions.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">71</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof71">North Star seen
from S. lat.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">72</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof72">“Walls not
parallel!”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">73</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof73">Pendulum
experiments.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">74</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof74">“Delightful uncertainty.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">75</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof75">Outrageous
calculations.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">76</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof76">J. R.
Young’s Navigation.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">77</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof77">“Tumbling
over.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">78</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof78">Circumnavigation—south.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">79</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof79">A disc—not
a sphere.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">80</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof80">Earth’s
“motion” unproven<span class="corr" id="xd25e654" title=
"Not in source">.</span></SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">81</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof81">Moon’s
motion east to west<span class="corr" id="xd25e662" title=
"Not in source">.</span></SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">82</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof82">All on the wrong
track.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">83</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof83">No meridianal
“degrees.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">84</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof84">Depression of
North Star<span class="corr" id="xd25e682" title=
"Not in source">.</span></SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">85</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof85">Rivers flowing
up-hill?</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">86</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof86">100 miles in
five seconds<span class="corr" id="xd25e696" title=
"Not in source">.</span></SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">87</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof87">Miserable
makeshifts.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">88</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof88">What holds the
people on.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">89</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof89">Luminous
objects.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">90</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof90">Practice against
theory.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">91</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof91">Unscientific
classification.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">92</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof92">G. B.
Airy’s “suppositions.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">93</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof93">Astronomers give
up theory.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">94</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof94">School-room
“proofs” false.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">95</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof95">Pictorial
proof—Earth a plane.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">96</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof96">Laws of
perspective ignored.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">97</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof97">“Rational
suppositions.”</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">98</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof98">It is the star
that moves.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">99</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof99">Hair-splitting
calculation.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tocDivNum">100</td>
<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><SPAN href="#proof100">How
“time” is lost or gained.</SPAN></td>
<td class="tocPageNum"></td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb1" href="#pb1" name=
"pb1">1</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="titlePage">
<div class="docTitle">
<div class="mainTitle">ONE HUNDRED PROOFS THAT THE EARTH IS NOT A
GLOBE.</div>
</div>
<div class="byline">Dedicated to R. A. PROCTOR, Esq.<br/>
BY <span class="docAuthor">WM. CARPENTER.</span></div>
<div class="docImprint">“UPRIGHT, DOWNRIGHT,
STRAIGHTFORWARD.”<br/>
[<span class="sc">Copyright Secured.</span>]<br/>
<i>BALTIMORE</i>:<br/>
<span class="sc">Printed and Published by the Author</span>,<br/>
No. 71 Chew Street.<br/>
<span class="docDate">1885</span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb2" href="#pb2" name=
"pb2">2</SPAN>]</span></p>
<div class="div1 introduction"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">INTRODUCTION.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first">“Parallax,” the Founder of the Zetetic
Philosophy, is dead; and it now becomes the duty of those, especially,
who knew him personally and who labored with him in the cause of Truth
against Error, to begin, anew, the work which is left in their hands.
Dr. Samuel B. Rowbotham finished his earthly labours, in England, the
country of his birth, December 23, 1884, at the age of 89. He was,
certainly, one of the most gifted of men: and though his labours as a
public lecturer were confined within the limits of the British Islands
his published work is known all over the world and is destined to live
and be republished when books on the now popular system of philosophy
will be considered in no other light than as bundles of waste paper.
For several years did “Parallax” spread a knowledge of the
facts which form the basis of his system without the slightest
recognition from the newspaper press until, in January, 1849, the
people were informed by the “Wilts Independent” that
lectures had been delivered by “a gentleman adopting the name of
‘Parallax,’ to prove modern astronomy unreasonable and
contradictory,” that “great skill<span class="corr" id="xd25e825" title="Source: ’">”</span> was shown by the
lecturer, and that he proved himself to be “thoroughly acquainted
with the subject in all its bearings.” Such was the
beginning—the end will not be so easily described. The Truth will
always find advocates—men who care not a snap of their fingers
for the mere opinion of the world, whatever form it may take, whilst
they know that they are the masters of the situation and that Reason is
King! In 1867, “Parallax” was described as “a paragon
of courtesy, good temper, and masterly skill in debate.” The
author of the following hastily-gotten-up pages is proud of having
spent many a pleasant hour in the company of Samuel Birley
Rowbotham.</p>
<p>A complete sketch of the “Zetetic Philosophy” is
impossible in a small pamphlet; and many things necessarily remain
unsaid which, perhaps, should have been touched upon, but which would
to some extent have interfered with the plan laid down—the
bringing together, in a concise form, “One Hundred Proofs that
the Earth is not a Globe.” Much may be gathered, indirectly, from
the arguments in these pages, as to the real nature of the Earth on
which we live and of the heavenly bodies which were created
<span class="sc">FOR US</span>. The reader is requested to be patient
in this matter and not expect a whole flood of light to burst in upon
him at once, through the dense clouds of opposition and prejudice which
hang all around. Old ideas have to be gotten rid of, by some people,
before they can entertain the new; and this will especially be the case
in the matter of the Sun, about which we are taught, by Mr. Proctor, as
follows: “The globe of the Sun is so much larger than that of the
Earth that no less than 1,250,000 globes as large as the Earth would be
wanted to make up together a globe as large as the Sun.<span class="corr" id="xd25e833" title="Source: ’">”</span> Whereas, we
know that, as it is demonstrated that the Sun moves round over the
Earth, its size is proportionately less. We can then easily understand
that Day and Night, and the Seasons are brought about by his daily
circuits round in a course concentric with the North, diminishing in
their extent to the end of June, and increasing until the end of
December, the equatorial region being the area covered by the
Sun’s mean motion. If, then, these pages serve but to arouse the
spirit of enquiry, the author will be satisfied. The right hand of
fellowship in this good work is extended, in turn, to Mr. J. Lindgren,
90 South First Street, Brooklyn, E. D., N. Y., Mr. M. C. Flanders,
lecturer, Kendall, Orleans County, N. Y., and to Mr. John Hampden,
editor of “Parallax” (a new journal), Cosmos House, Balham,
Surrey, England. <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb3" href="#pb3" name=
"pb3">3</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div></div>
<div class="body">
<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">ONE HUNDRED PROOFS<br/> THAT<br/> EARTH IS NOT A GLOBE.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first">If man uses the senses which God has given him, he
gains knowledge; if he uses them not, he remains ignorant. Mr. R. A.
Proctor, who has been called “the greatest astronomer of the
age,” says: “The Earth on which we live and move seems to
be flat.” Now, he does not mean that it seems to be flat to the
man who shuts his eyes in the face of nature, or, who is not in the
full possession of his senses: no, but to the average, common sense,
wide-awake, thinking man. He continues: “that is, though there
are hills and valleys on its surface, yet it seems to extend on all
sides in one and the same general level.” Again, he says:
“There seems nothing to prevent us from travelling as far as we
please in any direction towards the circle all round us, called the
<i>horizon</i>, where the sky seems to meet the level of the
Earth.” “The level of the Earth!” Mr. Proctor knows
right well what he is talking about, for the book from which we take
his words, “Lessons in Elementary Astronomy,” was written,
he tells us, “to guard the beginner against the captious
objections which have from time to time been urged against accepted
astronomical theories.” The things which are to be defended,
then, are these “accepted astronomical theories!” It is not
truth that is to be defended against the assaults of error—Oh,
no: simply “theories,” right or wrong, because they have
been “accepted!” Accepted! Why, they have been accepted
because it was not thought to be worth while to look at them. Sir John
Herschel says: “We shall take for granted, from the outset, the
Copernican system of the world.” He did not care whether it was
the right system or a wrong one, or he would not have done that: he
would have looked into it. But, forsooth, the theories are accepted,
and, of course, the men who have accepted them are the men who will
naturally defend them if they can. So, Richard A. Proctor tries his
hand; and we shall see how it fails him. His book was published without
any date to it at all. But there is internal evidence which will fix
that matter closely enough. We read of the carrying out of the
experiments of the celebrated scientist, Alfred R. Wallace, to prove
the “convexity” of the surface of standing water, which
experiments were conducted in March, 1870, for the purpose of winning
Five Hundred Pounds from John Hampden, Esq., of Swindon, England, who
had wagered that sum upon the conviction that the said surface is
always a level one. Mr. Proctor says: “The experiment was lately
tried in a very amusing way.” In or about the year 1870, then,
Mr. Proctor wrote his book; and, instead of being ignorant of the
details of the experiment, he knew all about them. And whether the
“amusing” part of the business was the fact that Mr.
Wallace <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb4" href="#pb4" name=
"pb4">4</SPAN>]</span>wrongfully claimed the five-hundred pounds and got
it, or that Mr. Hampden was the victim of the false claim, it is hard
to say. The “way” in which the experiment was carried out
is, to all intents and purposes, just the way in which Mr. Proctor
states that it “can be tried.” He says, however, that the
distance involved in the experiment “should be three or four
miles.” Now, Mr. Wallace took up six miles in his experiment, and
was unable to prove that there is any “curvature,” though
he claimed the money and got it; surely it would be
“amusing” for anyone to expect to be able to show the
“curvature of the earth” in three or four miles, as Mr.
Proctor suggests! Nay, it is ridiculous. But “the greatest
astronomer of the age” says the thing can be done! And he gives a
diagram: “Showing how the roundness of the Earth can be proved by
means of three boats on a large sheet of water.” (Three or four
miles.) But, though the accepted astronomical theories be scattered to
the winds, we charge Mr. Proctor either that he has never made the
experiment with the three boats, or, that, if he has, the experiment
did <span class="sc">NOT</span> prove what he says it will. Accepted
theories, indeed! Are they to be bolstered up with absurdity and
falsehood? Why, if it were possible to show the two ends of a four-mile
stretch of water to be on a level, with the centre portion of that
water bulged up, the surface of the Earth would be a series of
four-mile curves!</p>
<p>But Mr. Proctor says: “We can set three boats in a line on the
water, as at A, B, and C, (Fig. 7). Then, if equal masts are placed in
these boats, and we place a telescope, as shown, so that when we look
through it we see the tops of the masts of A and C, we find the top of
the mast B is above the line of sight.” Now, here is the point:
Mr. Proctor either knows or he ought to know that we shall <span class="sc">NOT</span> find anything of the sort! If he has ever tried the
experiment, he knows that the three masts will range in a straight
line, just as common sense tells us they will. If he has not tried the
experiment, he should have tried it, or have paid attention to the
details of experiments by those who have tried similar ones a score of
times and again. Mr. Proctor may take either horn of the dilemma he
pleases: he is just as wrong as a man can be, either way. He mentions
no names, but he says: “A person had written a book, in which he
said that he had tried such an experiment as the above, and had found
that the surface of the water was <i>not</i> curved.” That person
was “<span class="sc">Parallax</span>,” the founder of the
Zetetic Philosophy. He continues: “Another person seems to have
believed the first, and became so certain that the Earth is flat as to
wager a large sum of money that if three boats were placed as in Fig.
7, the middle one would not be above the line joining the two
others.” That person was John Hampden. And, says Mr. Proctor,
“Unfortunately for him, some one who had more sense agreed to
take his wager, and, of course, won his money.” Now, the
“some one who had more sense” was Mr. Wallace. And, says
Proctor, in continuation: “He [Hampden?] was rather angry; and it
is a strange thing that he was not angry with himself for being so
foolish, or with the person who said he had tried the experiment (and
so led him astray), but with the person who had won his money!”
Here, then, we see that Mr. Proctor knows better than to say that the
experiments conducted <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb5" href="#pb5"
name="pb5">5</SPAN>]</span>by “<span class="sc">Parallax</span>” were things of the imagination only, or
that a wrong account had been given of them; and it would be well if he
knew better than to try to make his readers believe that either one or
the other of these things is the fact: But, there is the Old Bedford
Canal now; and there are ten thousand places where the experiment may
be tried! Who, then, are the “foolish” people: those who
“believe” the record of experiments made by searchers after
Truth, or those who shut their eyes to them, throw a doubt upon the
record, charge the conductors of the experiments with dishonesty, never
conduct similar experiments themselves, and declare the result of such
experiments to be so and so, when the declaration can be proved to be
false by any man, with a telescope, in twenty-four hours?</p>
<p>Mr. Proctor:—The sphericity of the Earth CANNOT be proved in
the way in which you tell us it “can” be! We tell you to
take back your words and remodel them on the basis of Truth. Such
careless misrepresentations of facts are a disgrace to
science—they are the disgrace of theoretical science to-day! Mr.
Blackie, in his work on “Self Culture,” says: “All
flimsy, shallow, and superficial work, in fact, is a lie, of which a
man ought to be ashamed.”</p>
<p>That the Earth is an extended plane, stretched out in all directions
away from the central North, over which hangs, for ever, the North
Star, is a fact which all the falsehoods that can be brought to bear
upon it with their dead weight will never overthrow: it is God’s
Truth the face of which, however, man has the power to smirch all over
with his unclean hands. Mr. Proctor says: “We learn from
astronomy that all these ideas, natural though they seem, are
mistaken.” Man’s natural ideas and conclusions and
experimental results are, then, to be overthrown by—what! By
“astronomy?” By a thing without a soul—a mere
theoretical abstraction, the outcome of the dreamer? Never! The
greatest astronomer of the age is not the man, even, who can so much as
attempt to manage the business. “We find,” says Mr.
Proctor, “that the Earth is not flat, but a globe; not fixed, but
in very rapid motion; not much larger than the moon, and far smaller
than the Sun and the greater number of the stars.”</p>
<p>First, then, Mr. Proctor, tell us <span class="sc">HOW</span> you
find that the Earth is not flat, but a globe! It does not matter that
“we find” it so put down in that conglomeration of
suppositions which you seek to defend: the question is, What is the
evidence of it?—where can it be obtained? “The Earth on
which we live and move seems to be flat,” you tell us: where,
then, is the mistake? If the Earth seem to be what it is not, how are
we to trust our senses? And if it is said that we cannot do so, are we
to believe it, and consent to be put down lower than the brutes? No,
sir: we challenge you, as we have done many times before, to produce
the slightest evidence of the Earth’s rotundity, from the world
of facts around you. You have given to us the statement we have quoted,
and we have the right to demand a proof; and if this is not
forthcoming, we have before us the duty of denouncing the absurd dogma
as worse than an absurdity—as a <span class="sc">FRAUD</span>—and as a fraud that flies in the face of divine
revelation! Well, then, Mr. Proctor, in demanding a proof of the
Earth’s rotundity (or the frank admission of your errors), we are
tempted to taunt you as we tell you <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb6"
href="#pb6" name="pb6">6</SPAN>]</span>that it is utterly out of your
power to produce one; and we tell you that you do not dare even to lift
up your finger to point us to the so-called proofs in the school-books
of the day, for you know the measure of absurdity of which they are
composed, and how disgraceful it is to allow them to remain as false
guides of the youthful mind!</p>
<p>Mr. Proctor: we charge you that, whilst you teach the theory of the
Earth’s rotundity and mobility, you <span class="sc">KNOW</span>
that it is a plane; and here is the ground of the charge. In page 7, in
your book, you give a diagram of the “surface on which we
live,” and the “supposed globe”—the supposed
“hollow globe”—of the heavens, arched over the said
surface. Now, Mr. Proctor, you picture the surface on which we live in
exact accordance with your verbal description. And what is that
description? We shall scarcely be believed when we say that we give it
just as it stands: “The level of the surface on which we
live.” And, that there may be no mistake about the meaning of the
word “level,” we remind you that your diagram proves that
the level that you mean is the level of the mechanic, a plane surface,
and not the “level” of the astronomer, which is a convex
surface! In short, your description of the Earth is exactly what you
say it “seems to be,” and, yet, what you say it is not: the
very aim of your book being to say so! And we call this the
prostitution of the printing press. And it is all the evidence that is
necessary to bring the charge home to you, since the words and the
diagram are in page 7 of your own book. You know, then, that Earth is a
Plane—and so do we.</p>
<p>Now for the evidence of this grand fact, that other people may know
it as well as you: remembering, from first to last, that you have not
dared to bring forward a single item from the mass of evidence which is
to be found in the “Zetetic Philosophy,” by
“Parallax,” a work the influence of which it was the avowed
object of your own book to crush!—except that of the three boats,
an experiment which you have never tried, and the result of which has
never been known, by anyone who has tried it, to be as you say it
is!</p>
<p id="proof1">1. The aeronaut can see for himself that Earth is a
Plane. The appearance presented to him, even at the highest elevation
he has ever attained, is that of a concave surface—this being
exactly what is to be expected of a surface that is truly level, since
it is the nature of level surfaces to appear to rise to a level with
the eye of the observer. This is ocular demonstration and proof that
Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof2">2. Whenever experiments have been tried on the surface
of standing water, this surface has always been found to be level. If
the Earth were a globe, the surface of all standing water would be
convex. This is an experimental proof that Earth is not a globe,</p>
<p id="proof3">3. Surveyors’ operations in the construction of
railroads, tunnels, or canals are conducted without the slightest
“allowance” being made for “curvature,”
although it is taught that this so-called allowance is absolutely
necessary! This is a cutting proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof4">4. There are rivers that flow for hundreds of miles
towards the level of the sea without falling more than a few
feet—notably, the Nile, which, in a thousand miles, falls but a
foot. A level expanse <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb7" href="#pb7"
name="pb7">7</SPAN>]</span>of this extent is quite incompatible with the
idea of the Earth’s “convexity.” It is, therefore, a
reasonable proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof5">5. The lights which are exhibited in lighthouses are
seen by navigators at distances at which, according to the scale of the
supposed “curvature” given by astronomers, they ought to be
many hundreds of feet, in some cases, down below the line of sight! For
instance: the light at Cape Hatteras is seen at such a distance (40
miles) that, according to theory, it ought to be nine-hundred feet
higher above the level of the sea than it absolutely is, in order to be
visible! This is a conclusive proof that there is no
“curvature,” on the surface of the sea—“the
level of the sea,”—ridiculous though it is to be under the
necessity of proving it at all: but it is, nevertheless, a conclusive
proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof6">6. If we stand on the sands of the sea-shore and watch a
ship approach us, we shall find that she will apparently
“rise”—to the extent of her own height, nothing more.
If we stand upon an eminence, the same law operates still; and it is
but the law of perspective, which causes objects, as they approach us,
to appear to increase in size until we see them, close to us, the size
they are in fact. That there is no other “rise” than the
one spoken of is plain from the fact that, no matter how high we ascend
above the level of the sea, the horizon rises on and still on as we
rise, so that it is always on a level with the eye, though it be
two-hundred miles away, as seen by Mr. J. Glaisher, of England, from
Mr. Coxwell’s balloon. So that a ship five miles away may be
imagined to be “coming up” the imaginary downward curve of
the Earth’s surface, but if we merely ascend a hill such as
Federal Hill, Baltimore, we may see twenty-five miles away, on a level
with the eye—that is, twenty miles level distance beyond the ship
that we vainly imagined to be “rounding the curve,” and
“coming up!” This is a plain proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof7">7. If we take a trip down the Chesapeake Bay, in the
day-time, we may see for ourselves the utter fallacy of the idea that
when a vessel appears “hull down,” as it is called, it is
because the hull is “behind the water:” for, vessels have
been seen, and may often be seen again, presenting the appearance
spoken of, and away—far away—beyond those vessels, and, at
the same moment, the level shore line, with its accompanying complement
of tall trees, towering up, in perspective, over the heads of the
“hull-down” ships! Since, then, the idea will not stand its
ground when the facts rise up against it, and it is a piece of the
popular theory, the theory is a contemptible piece of business, and we
may easily wring from it a proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof8">8. If the Earth were a globe, a small model globe would
be the very best—because the truest—thing for the navigator
to take to sea with him. But such a thing as that is not known: with
such a toy as a guide, the mariner would wreck his ship, of a
certainty! This is a proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof9">9. As mariners take to sea with them charts constructed
as though the sea were a level surface, however these charts may err as
to the true form of this level surface taken as a whole, it is clear,
as they find them answer their purpose tolerably well—and only
tolerably well, for many ships are wrecked owing to the error of which
we <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb8" href="#pb8" name=
"pb8">8</SPAN>]</span>speak—that the surface of the sea is as it is
taken to be, whether the captain of the ship “supposes” the
Earth to be a globe or anything else. Thus, then, we draw, from the
common system of “plane sailing,” a practical proof that
Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof10">10. That the mariners’ compass points north and
south at the same time is a fact as indisputable as that two and two
makes four; but that this would be impossible if the thing were placed
on a globe with “north” and “south” at the
centre of opposite hemispheres is a fact that does not figure in the
school-books, though very easily seen: and it requires no lengthy train
of reasoning to bring out of it a pointed proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof11">11. As the mariners’ compass points north and
south at one time, and as the North, to which it is attracted, is that
part of the Earth situate where the North Star is in the zenith, it
follows that there is no south “point” or
“pole” but that, while the centre is North, a vast
circumference must be South in its whole extent. This is a proof that
the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof12">12. As we have seen that there is, really, no south
point (or pole) but an infinity of points forming, together, a vast
circumference—the boundary of the known world, with its
battlements of icebergs which bid defiance to man’s onward course
in a southerly direction—so there can be no east or west
“points,” just as there is no “yesterday,” and
no “to-morrow.” In fact, as there is one point that is
fixed (the North), it is impossible for any other point to be fixed
likewise. East and west are, therefore, merely directions at right
angles with a north and south line: and as the south point of the
compass shifts round to all parts of the circular boundary, (as it may
be carried round the central North), so the directions east and west,
crossing this line, continued, form a circle, at any latitude. A
westerly circumnavigation, therefore, is a going round with the North
Star continually on the right hand, and an easterly circumnavigation is
performed only when the reverse condition of things is maintained, the
North Star being on the left hand as the journey is made. These facts,
taken together, form a beautiful proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof13">13. As the mariners’ compass points north and
south at one and the same time, and a meridian is a north and south
line, it follows that meridians can be no other than straight lines.
But, since all meridians on a globe are semicircles, it is an
incontrovertible proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof14">14. “Parallels of latitude” only—of
all imaginary lines on the surface of the Earth—are circles,
which increase, progressively, from the northern centre to the southern
circumference. The mariner’s course in the direction of any one
of these concentric circles is his longitude, the degrees of which
<span class="sc">INCREASE</span> to such an extent beyond the equator
(going southwards) that hundreds of vessels have been wrecked because
of the false idea created by the untruthfulness of the charts and the
globular theory together, causing the sailor to be continually getting
out of his reckoning. With a map of the Earth in its true form all
difficulty is done away with, and ships may be conducted anywhere with
perfect safety. This, then, is a very important practical proof that
the Earth is not a globe. <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb9" href="#pb9" name="pb9">9</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p id="proof15">15. The idea that, instead of sailing horizontally
round the Earth, ships are taken down one side of a globe, then
underneath, and are brought up on the other side to get home again, is,
except as a mere dream, impossible and absurd! And, since there are
neither impossibilities nor absurdities in the simple matter of
circumnavigation, it stands, without argument, a proof that the Earth
is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof16">16. If the Earth were a globe, the distance round its
surface at, say, 45 “degrees” south latitude, could not
possibly be any greater than it is at the same latitude north; but,
since it is found by navigators to be twice the distance—to say
the least of it—or, double the distance it ought to be according
to the globular theory, it is a proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof17">17. Human beings require a surface on which to live
that, in its general character, shall be <span class="sc">LEVEL</span>;
and since the Omniscient Creator must have been perfectly acquainted
with the requirements of His creatures, it follows that, being an
All-wise Creator, He has met them thoroughly. This is a theological
proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof18">18. The best possessions of man are his senses; and,
when he uses them all, he will not be deceived in his survey of nature.
It is only when some one faculty or other is neglected or abused that
he is deluded. Every man in full command of his senses knows that a
level surface is a flat or horizontal one; but astronomers tell us that
the true level is the curved surface of a globe! They know that man
requires a level surface on which to live, so they give him one in name
which is not one in fact! Since this is the best that astronomers, with
their theoretical science, can do for their fellow
creatures—deceive them—it is clear that things are not as
they say they are; and, in short, it is a proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof19">19. Every man in his senses goes the most reasonable
way to work to do a thing. Now, astronomers (one after
another—following a leader), while they are telling us that Earth
is a globe, are cutting off the upper half of this supposititious globe
in their books, and, in this way, forming the level surface on which
they describe man as living and moving! Now, if the Earth were really a
globe, this would be just the most unreasonable and suicidal mode of
endeavoring to show it. So that, unless theoretical astronomers are all
out of their senses together, it is, clearly, a proof that the Earth is
not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof20">20. The common sense of man tells him—if nothing
else told him—that there is an “up” and a
“down” in nature, even as regards the heavens and the
earth; but the theory of modern astronomers necessitates the conclusion
that there is not: therefore, the theory of the astronomers is opposed
to common sense—yes, and to inspiration—and this is a
common sense proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof21">21. Man’s experience tells him that he is not
constructed like the flies that can live and move upon the ceiling of a
room with as much safety as on the floor: and since the modern theory
of a planetary earth necessitates a crowd of theories to keep company
with it, and one of them is that men are really bound to the earth by a
force which fastens them to it “like needles round a spherical
<span class="corr" id="xd25e947" title=
"Source: loadstone">lodestone</span>,” a <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb10" href="#pb10" name="pb10">10</SPAN>]</span>theory
perfectly outrageous and opposed to all human experience, it follows
that, unless we can trample upon common sense and ignore the teachings
of experience, we have an evident proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof22">22. God’s Truth never—no,
never—requires a falsehood to help it along. Mr. Proctor, in his
“Lessons,” says: Men “have been able to go round and
round the Earth in several directions.” Now, in this case, the
word “several” will imply more than two, unquestionably:
whereas, it is utterly impossible to circumnavigate the Earth in any
other than an easterly or a westerly direction; and the fact is
perfectly consistent and clear in its relation to Earth as a Plane.
Now, since astronomers would not be so foolish as to damage a good
cause by misrepresentation, it is presumptive evidence that their cause
is a bad one, and—a proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof23">23. If astronomical works be searched through and
through, there will not be found a single instance of a bold,
unhesitating, or manly statement respecting a proof of the
Earth’s “rotundity.” Proctor speaks of “proofs
which serve to show … that the Earth is not flat,” and
says that man “finds reason to think that the Earth is not
flat,” and speaks of certain matters being “explained by
supposing” that the Earth is a globe; and says that people have
“assured themselves that it is a globe;” but he says, also,
that there is a “most complete proof that the Earth is a
globe:” just as though anything in the world could possibly be
wanted but a proof—a proof that proves and settles the whole
question. This, however, all the money in the United States Treasury
would not buy; and, unless the astronomers are all so rich that they
don’t want the cash, it is a sterling proof that the Earth is not
a globe.</p>
<p id="proof24">24. When a man speaks of a “most complete”
thing amongst several other things which claim to be what that thing
is, it is evident that they must fall short of something which the
“most complete” thing possesses. And when it is known that
the “most complete” thing is an entire failure, it is plain
that the others, all and sundry, are worthless. Proctor’s
“most complete proof that the Earth is a globe” lies in
what he calls “the fact” that distances from place to place
agree with calculation. But, since the distance round the Earth at 45
“degrees” south of the equator is twice the distance it
would be on a globe, it follows that what the greatest astronomer of
the age calls “a fact” is <span class="sc">NOT</span> a
fact; that his “most complete proof” is a most complete
failure; and that he might as well have told us, at once, that he has
<span class="sc">NO <span class="corr" id="xd25e963" title=
"Source: PROQF">PROOF</span></span> to give us at all. Now, since, if
the Earth be a globe, there would, necessarily, be piles of proofs of
it all round us, it follows that when astronomers, with all their
ingenuity, are utterly unable to point one out—to say nothing
about picking one up—that they give us a proof that Earth is not
a globe.</p>
<p id="proof25">25. The surveyor’s plans in relation to the
laying of the first Atlantic Telegraph cable, show that in 1665
miles—from Valentia, Ireland, to St. John’s,
Newfoundland—the surface of the Atlantic Ocean is a <span class="sc">LEVEL</span> surface—not the astronomers’
“level,” either! The authoritative drawings, published at
the time, are a standing evidence of the fact, and form a practical
proof that Earth is not a globe. <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb11"
href="#pb11" name="pb11">11</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p id="proof26">26. If the Earth were a globe, it would, if we take
Valentia to be the place of departure, curvate downwards, in the 1665
miles across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, according to the
astronomers’ own tables, more than three-hundred miles; but, as
the surface of the Atlantic does not do so—the fact of its
levelness having been clearly demonstrated by Telegraph Cable
surveyors,—it follows that we have a grand proof that Earth is
not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof27">27. Astronomers, in their consideration of the supposed
“curvature” of the Earth, have carefully avoided the taking
of that view of the question which—if anything were needed to do
so—would show its utter absurdity. It is this:—If, instead
of taking our ideal point of departure to be at Valentia, we consider
ourselves at St. John’s, the 1665 miles of water between us and
Valentia would just as well “curvate” downwards as it did
in the other case! Now, since the direction in which the Earth is said
to “curvate” is interchangeable—depending, indeed,
upon the position occupied by a man upon its surface—the thing is
utterly absurd; and it follows that the theory is an outrage, and that
the Earth does not “curvate” at all:—an evident proof
that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof28">28. Astronomers are in the habit of considering two
points on the Earth’s surface, without, it seems, any limit as to
the distance that lies between them, as being on a level, and the
intervening section, even though it be an ocean, as a vast
“hill”—of water! The Atlantic ocean, in taking this
view of the matter, would form a “hill of water” more than
a hundred miles high! The idea is simply monstrous, and could only be
entertained by scientists whose whole business is made up of materials
of the same description: and it certainly requires no argument to
deduce, from such “science” as this, a satisfactory proof
that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof29">29. If the Earth were a globe, it would,
unquestionably, have the same general characteristics—no matter
its size—as a small globe that may be stood upon the table. As
the small globe has top, bottom, and sides, so must also the large
one—no matter how large it be. But, as the Earth, which is
“supposed” to be a large globe, has no sides or bottom as
the small globe has, the conclusion is irresistible that it is a proof
that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof30">30. If the Earth were a globe, an observer who should
ascend above its surface would have to look downwards at the horizon
(if it be possible to conceive of a horizon at all under such
circumstances) even as astronomical diagrams indicate—at angles
varying from ten to nearly fifty degrees below the
“horizontal” line of sight! (It is just as absurd as it
would be to be taught that when we look at a man full in the face we
are looking down at his feet!) But, as no observer in the clouds, or
upon any eminence on the earth, has ever had to do so, it follows that
the diagrams spoken of are imaginary and false; that the theory which
requires such things to prop it up is equally airy and untrue; and that
we have a substantial proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof31">31. If the Earth were a globe, it would certainly have
to be as large as it is said to be—twenty-five thousand miles in
circumference. Now, the thing which is called a “proof” of
the Earth’s roundness, and which is presented to children at
school, is, that if we stand on <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb12"
href="#pb12" name="pb12">12</SPAN>]</span>the sea-shore we may see the
ships, as they approach us, absolutely “coming up,” and
that, as we are able to see the highest parts of these ships first, it
is because the lower parts are “behind the earth’s
curve.” Now, since, if this were the case—that is, if the
lower parts of these ships were behind a “hill of water” at
all—the size of the Earth, indicated by such a curve as this,
would be so small that it would only be big enough to hold the people
of a parish, if they could get all round it, instead of the nations of
the world, it follows that the idea is preposterous; that the
appearance is due to another and to some reasonable cause; and that,
instead of being a proof of the globular form of the Earth, it is a
proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof32">32. It is often said that, if the Earth were flat, we
could see all over it! This is the result of ignorance. If we stand on
the level surface of a plain or a prairie, and take notice, we shall
find that the horizon is formed at about three miles all around us:
that is, the ground appears to rise up until, at that distance, it
seems on a level with the eye-line or line of sight. Consequently,
objects no higher than we stand—say, six feet—and which are
at that distance (three miles), have reached the “vanishing
point,” and are beyond the sphere of our unaided vision. This is
the reason why the hull of a ship disappears (in going away from us)
before the sails; and, instead of there being about it the faintest
shadow of evidence of the Earth’s rotundity, it is a clear proof
that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof33">33. If the Earth were a globe, people—except
those on the top—would, certainly, have to be
“fastened” to its surface by some means or other, whether
by the “attraction” of astronomers or by some other
undiscovered and undiscoverable process! But, as we know that we simply
walk on its surface without any other aid than that which is necessary
for locomotion on a plane, it follows that we have, herein, a
conclusive proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof34">34. If the Earth were a globe, there certainly would
be—if we could imagine the thing to be peopled all
round—“antipodes:” “people who,” says the
dictionary, “living exactly on the opposite side of the globe to
ourselves, have their feet opposite to ours:”—people who
are hanging heads downwards whilst we are standing heads up! But, since
the theory allows us to travel to those parts of the Earth where the
people are said to be heads downwards, and still to fancy ourselves to
be heads upwards and our friends whom we have left behind us to be
heads downwards, it follows that the whole thing is a myth—a
dream—a delusion—and a snare; and, instead of there being
any evidence at all in this direction to substantiate the popular
theory, it is a plain proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof35">35. If we examine a true picture of the distant
horizon, or the thing itself, we shall find that it coincides exactly
with a perfectly straight and level line. Now, since there could be
nothing of the kind on a globe, and we find it to be the case all over
the Earth, it is a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof36">36. If we take a journey down the Chesapeake Bay, by
night, we shall see the “light” exhibited at Sharpe’s
Island for an hour before the steamer gets to it. We may take up a
position on the deck <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb13" href="#pb13"
name="pb13">13</SPAN>]</span>so that the rail of the vessel’s side
will be in a line with the “light” and in the line of
sight; and we shall find that in the whole journey the light will not
vary in the slightest degree in its apparent elevation. But, say that a
distance of thirteen miles has been traversed, the astronomers’
theory of “curvature” demands a difference (one way or the
other!) in the apparent elevation of the light, of 112 feet 8 inches!
Since, however, there is not a difference of 112 hair’s breadths,
we have a plain proof that the water of the Chesapeake Bay is not
curved, which is a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof37">37. If the Earth were a globe, there would, very
likely, be (for nobody knows) six months day and six months night at
the arctic and antarctic regions, as astronomers dare to assert there
is:—for their theory demands it! But, as this fact—the six
months day and six months night—is nowhere found but in the
arctic regions, it agrees perfectly with everything else that we know
about the Earth as a plane, and, whilst it overthrows the
“accepted theory,” it furnishes a striking proof that Earth
is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof38">38. When the Sun crosses the equator, in March, and
begins to circle round the heavens in north latitude, the inhabitants
of high northern latitudes see him skimming round their horizon and
forming the break of their long day, in a horizontal course, not
disappearing again for six months, as he rises higher and higher in the
heavens whilst he makes his twenty-four hour circle until June, when he
begins to descend and goes on until he disappears beyond the horizon in
September. Thus, in the northern regions, they have that which the
traveller calls the “midnight Sun,” as he sees that
luminary at a time when, in his more southern latitude, it is always
midnight. If, then, for one-half the year, we may see for ourselves the
Sun making horizontal circles round the heavens, it is presumptive
evidence that, for the other half-year, he is doing the same, although
beyond the boundary of our vision. This, being a proof that Earth is a
plane, is, therefore, a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof39">39. We have abundance of evidence that the Sun moves
daily round and over the Earth in circles concentric with the northern
region over which hangs the North Star; but, since the theory of the
Earth being a globe is necessarily connected with the theory of its
motion round the Sun in a yearly orbit, it falls to the ground when we
bring forward the evidence of which we speak, and, in so doing, forms a
proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof40">40. The Suez Canal, which joins the Red Sea with the
Mediterranean, is about one hundred miles long; it forms a straight and
level surface of water from one end to the other; and no
“allowance” for any supposed “curvature” was
made in its construction. It is a clear proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof41">41. When astronomers assert that it is
“necessary” to make “allowance for curvature”
in canal construction, it is, of course, in order that, in their idea,
a level cutting may be had for the water. How flagrantly, then, do they
contradict themselves when they say that the curved surface of the
Earth is a “true level!” What more can they want for a
canal than a true level? Since they contradict themselves in such an
elementary point as this, it is an evidence that the whole <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb14" href="#pb14" name="pb14">14</SPAN>]</span>thing is
a delusion, and we have a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof42">42. It is certain that the theory of the Earth’s
rotundity and that of its mobility must stand or fall together. A
proof, then, of its immobility is virtually a proof of its
non-rotundity. Now, that the Earth does not move, either on an axis, or
in an orbit round the Sun or anything else, is easily proven. If the
Earth went through space at the rate of eleven-hundred miles in a
minute of time, as astronomers teach us, in a particular direction,
there would unquestionably be a difference in the result of firing off
a projectile in that direction and in a direction the opposite of that
one. But as, in fact, there is not the slightest difference in any such
case, it is clear that any alleged motion of the Earth is disproved,
and that, therefore, we have a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof43">43. The circumstances which attend bodies which are
caused merely to fall from a great height prove nothing as to the
motion or stability of the Earth, since the object, if it be on a thing
that is in motion, will participate in that motion; but, if an object
be thrown upwards from a body at rest, and, again, from a body in
motion, the circumstances attending its descent will be very different.
In the former case, it will fall, if thrown vertically upwards, at the
place from whence it was projected; in the latter case, it will fall
behind—the moving body from which it is thrown will leave it in
the rear. Now, fix a gun, muzzle upwards, accurately, in the ground;
fire off a projectile; and it will fall by the gun. If the Earth
travelled eleven-hundred miles a minute, the projectile would fall
behind the gun, in the opposite direction to that of the supposed
motion. Since, then, this is NOT the case, in fact, the Earth’s
fancied motion is negatived, and we have a proof that the Earth is not
a globe.</p>
<p id="proof44">44. It is in evidence that, if a projectile be fired
from a rapidly moving body in an opposite direction to that in which
the body is going, it will fall short of the distance at which it would
reach the ground if fired in the direction of motion. Now, since the
Earth is said to move at the rate of nineteen miles in a second of
time, “from west to east,” it would make all the difference
imaginable if the gun were fired in an opposite direction. But, as, in
practice, there is not the slightest difference, whichever way the
thing may be done, we have a forcible overthrow of all fancies relative
to the motion of the Earth, and a striking proof that the Earth is not
a globe.</p>
<p id="proof45">45. The Astronomer Royal, of England, George
B<span class="corr" id="xd25e1020" title="Source: ,">.</span> Airy, in
his celebrated work on Astronomy, the “Ipswich Lectures,”
says: “Jupiter is a large planet that turns on his axis, and why
do not we turn?” Of course, the common sense reply is: Because
the Earth is not a planet! When, therefore, an astronomer royal puts
words into our mouth wherewith we may overthrow the supposed planetary
nature of the Earth, we have not far to go to pick up a proof that
Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof46">46. It has been shown that an easterly or a westerly
motion is necessarily a circular course round the central North. The
only north point or centre of motion of the heavenly bodies known to
man is that formed by the North Star, which is over the central portion
of the outstretched Earth. When, therefore, astronomers tell us of
<span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb15" href="#pb15" name=
"pb15">15</SPAN>]</span>a planet taking a westerly course round the Sun,
the thing is as meaningless to them as it is to us, unless they make
the Sun the northern centre of the motion, which they cannot do! Since,
then, the motion which they tell us the planets have is, on the face of
it, absurd; and since, as a matter of fact, the Earth can have no
absurd motion at all, it is clear that it cannot be what astronomers
say it is—a planet; and, if not a planet, it is a proof that
Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof47">47. In consequence of the fact being so plainly seen,
by everyone who visits the sea-shore, that the line of the horizon is a
perfectly straight line, it becomes impossible for astronomers, when
they attempt to convey, pictorially, an idea of the Earth’s
“convexity,” to do so with even a shadow of consistency:
for they dare not represent this horizon as a curved line, so well
known is it that it is a straight one! The greatest astronomer of the
age, in page 15 of his “Lessons,” gives an illustration of
a ship sailing away, “as though she were rounding the top of a
great hill of water;” and there—of a truth—is the
straight and level line of the horizon clear along the top of the
“hill” from one side of the picture to the other! Now, if
this picture were true in all its parts—and it is outrageously
false in several—it would show that Earth is a cylinder; for the
“hill” shown is simply up one side of the level, horizontal
line, and, we are led to suppose, down the other! Since, then, we have
such high authority as Professor Richard A. Proctor that the Earth is a
cylinder, it is, certainly, a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof48">48. In Mr. Proctor’s “Lessons in
Astronomy,” page 15, a ship is represented as sailing away from
the observer, and it is given in five positions or distances away on
its journey. Now, in its first position, its mast appears above the
horizon, and, consequently, higher than the observer’s line of
vision. But, in its second and third positions, representing the ship
as further and further away, it is drawn higher and still higher up
above the line of the horizon! Now, it is utterly impossible for a ship
to sail away from an observer, under the conditions indicated, and to
appear as given in the picture. Consequently, the picture is a
misrepresentation, a fraud, and a disgrace. A ship starting to sail
away from an observer with her masts above his line of sight would
appear, indisputably, to go down and still lower down towards the
horizon line, and could not possibly appear—to anyone with his
vision undistorted—as going in any other direction, curved or
straight. Since, then, the design of the astronomer-artist is to show
the Earth to be a globe, and the points in the picture, which would
only prove the Earth to be cylindrical if true, are <span class="sc">NOT</span> true, it follows that the astronomer-artist fails to
prove, pictorially, either that the Earth is a globe or a cylinder, and
that we have, therefore, a reasonable proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof49">49. It is a well-known fact that clouds are continually
seen moving in all manner of directions—yes, and frequently, in
different directions at the same time—from west to east being as
frequent a direction as any other. Now, if the Earth were a globe,
revolving through space from west to east at the rate of nineteen miles
in a second, the clouds appearing to us to move towards the east would
have to move quicker than nineteen miles in a second to be thus seen;
whilst those which <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb16" href="#pb16"
name="pb16">16</SPAN>]</span>appear to be moving in the opposite direction
would have no necessity to be moving at all, since the motion of the
Earth would be more than sufficient to cause the appearance. But it
only takes a little common sense to show us that it is the clouds that
move just as they appear to do, and that, therefore, the Earth is
motionless. We have, then, a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof50">50. We read in the inspired book, or collection of
books, called <span class="sc">The Bible</span>, nothing at all about
the Earth being a globe or a planet, from beginning to end, but
hundreds of allusions there are in its pages which could not be made if
the Earth were a globe, and which are, therefore, said by the
astronomer to be absurd and contrary to what he knows to be true! This
is the groundwork of modern infidelity. But, since every one of many,
many allusions to the Earth and the heavenly bodies in the Scriptures
can be demonstrated to be absolutely true to nature, and we read of the
Earth being “stretched out” “above the waters,”
as “standing in the water and out of the water,” of its
being “established that it cannot be moved,” we have a
store from which to take all the proofs we need, but we will just put
down one proof—the Scriptural proof—that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof51">51. A “Standing Order” exists in the
English Houses of Parliament that, in the cutting of canals, &c.,
the datum line employed shall be a “horizontal line, which shall
be the same throughout the whole length of the work.” Now, if the
Earth were a globe, this “Order” could not be carried out:
but, it is carried out: therefore, it is a proof that the Earth is not
a globe.</p>
<p id="proof52">52. It is a well-known and indisputable fact that there
is a far greater accumulation of ice south of the equator than is to be
found at an equal latitude north: and it is said that at Kerguelen, 50
degrees south, 18 kinds of plants exist, whilst, in Iceland, 15 degrees
nearer the northern centre, there are 870 species; and, indeed, all the
facts in the case show that the Sun’s power is less intense at
places in the southern region than it is in corresponding latitudes
north. Now, on the Newtonian hypothesis, all this is inexplicable,
whilst it is strictly in accordance with the facts brought to light by
the carrying out of the principles involved in the Zetetic Philosophy
of “Parallax.” This is a proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof53">53. Every year the Sun is as long south of the equator
as he is north; and if the Earth were not “stretched out”
as it is, in fact, but turned under, as the Newtonian theory suggests,
it would certainly get as intensive a share of the Sun’s rays
south as north; but the Southern region being, in consequence of the
fact stated, far more extensive than the region North, the Sun, having
to complete his journey round every twenty-four hours, travels quicker
as he goes further south, from September to December, and his influence
has less time in which to accumulate at any given point. Since, then,
the facts could not be as they are if the Earth were a globe, it is a
proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof54">54. The aeronaut is able to start in his balloon and
remain for hours in the air, at an elevation of several miles, and come
down again in the same county or parish from which he ascended. Now,
unless the Earth drag the balloon along with it in its
nineteen-miles-a-second <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb17" href="#pb17" name="pb17">17</SPAN>]</span>motion, it must be left far behind,
in space: but, since balloons have never been known thus to be left, it
is a proof that the Earth, does not move, and, therefore, a proof that
the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof55">55. The Newtonian theory of astronomy requires that the
Moon “borrow” her light from the Sun. Now, since the
Sun’s rays are hot and the Moon’s light sends with it no
heat at all, it follows that the Sun and Moon are “two great
lights,” as we somewhere read; that the Newtonian theory is a
mistake; and that, therefore, we have a proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof56">56. The Sun and Moon may often be seen high in the
heavens at the same time—the Sun rising in the east and the Moon
setting in the west—the Sun’s light positively putting the
Moon’s light out by sheer contrast! If the accepted Newtonian
theory were correct, and the Moon had her light from the Sun, she ought
to be getting more of it when face to face with that luminary—if
it were possible for a sphere to act as a reflector all over its face!
But as the Moon’s light pales before the rising Sun, it is a
proof that the theory fails; and this gives us a proof that the Earth
is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof57">57. The Newtonian hypothesis involves the necessity of
the Sun, in the case of a lunar eclipse, being on the opposite side of
a globular earth, to cast its shadow on the Moon: but, since eclipses
of the Moon have taken place with both the Sun and the Moon above the
horizon, it follows that it cannot be the shadow of the Earth that
eclipses the Moon; that the theory is a blunder; and that it is nothing
less than a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof58">58. Astronomers have never agreed amongst themselves
about a rotating Moon revolving round a rotating and revolving
Earth—this Earth, Moon, planets and their satellites all, at the
same time dashing through space, around the rotating and revolving Sun,
towards the constellation Hercules, at the rate of four millions of
miles a day! And they never will: agreement is impossible! With the
Earth a plane and without motion, the whole thing is clear. And if a
straw will show which way the wind blows, this may be taken as a pretty
strong proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof59">59. Mr. Proctor says: “The Sun is so far off that
even moving from one side of the Earth to the other does not cause him
to be seen in a different direction—at least the difference is
too small to be measured.” Now, since we know that north of the
equator, say 45 degrees, we see the Sun at mid-day to the south, and
that at the same distance south of the equator we see the Sun at
mid-day to the north, our very shadows on the ground cry aloud against
the delusion of the day and give us a proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof60">60. There is no problem more important to the
astronomer than that of the Sun’s distance from the Earth. Every
change in the estimate changes everything. Now, since modern
astronomers, in their estimates of this distance, have gone all the way
along the line of figures from three millions of miles to a hundred and
four millions—to-day, the distance being something over
91,000,000; it matters not how much: for, not many years ago, Mr. Hind
gave the distance, “accurately,” as 95,370,000!—it
follows that they don’t know, and that it is foolish for anyone
to expect that they ever will know, the Sun’s <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb18" href="#pb18" name=
"pb18">18</SPAN>]</span>distance! And since all this speculation and
absurdity is caused by the primary assumption that Earth is a
wandering, heavenly body, and is all swept away by a knowledge of the
fact that Earth is a plane, it is a clear proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof61">61. It is plain that a theory of measurements without a
measuring-rod is like a ship without a rudder; that a measure that is
not fixed, not likely to be fixed, and never has been fixed, forms no
measuring-rod at all; and that as modern theoretical astronomy depends
upon the Sun’s distance from the Earth as its measuring-rod, and
the distance is not known, it is a system of measurements without a
measuring-rod—a ship without a rudder. Now, since it is not
difficult to foresee the dashing of this thing upon the rock on which
Zetetic astronomy is founded, it is a proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof62">62. It is commonly asserted that “the Earth must
be a globe because people have sailed round it.” Now, since this
implies that we can sail round nothing unless it be a globe, and the
fact is well known that we can sail round the Earth as a plane, the
assertion is ridiculous, and we have another proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof63">63. It is a fact not so well known as it ought to be
that when a ship, in sailing away from us, has reached the point at
which her hull is lost to our unaided vision, a good telescope will
restore to our view this portion of the vessel. Now, since telescopes
are not made to enable people to see through a “hill of
water,” it is clear that the hulls of ships are not behind a hill
of water when they can be seen through a telescope though lost to our
unaided vision. This is a proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof64">64. Mr. Glaisher, in speaking of his balloon
<span class="corr" id="xd25e1077" title=
"Source: ascents">ascends</span>, says: “The horizon always
appeared on a level with the car.” Now, since we may search
amongst the laws of optics in vain for any principle that would cause
the surface of a globe to turn its face upwards instead of downwards,
it is a clear proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof65">65. The Rev. D. Olmsted, in describing a diagram which
is supposed to represent the Earth as a globe, with a figure of a man
sticking out at each side and one hanging head downwards, says:
“We should dwell on this point until it appears to us as truly
up,”—in the direction given to these figures as it does
with regard to a figure which he has placed on the top! Now, a system
of philosophy which requires us to do something which is, really, the
going out of our minds, by dwelling on an absurdity until we think it
is a fact, cannot be a system based on God’s truth, which never
requires anything of the kind. Since, then, the popular theoretical
astronomy of the day requires this, it is evident that it is the wrong
thing, and that this conclusion furnishes us with a proof that the
Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof66">66. It is often said that the predictions of eclipses
prove astronomers to be right in their theories. But it is not seen
that this proves too much. It is well known that Ptolemy predicted
eclipses for six-hundred years, on the basis of a plane Earth, with as
much accuracy as they are predicted by modern observers. If, then, the
predictions prove the truth of the particular theories current at the
time, they just as well prove one side of the question as the other,
and enable us to lay claim to a proof that the Earth is not a globe.
<span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb19" href="#pb19" name=
"pb19">19</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p id="proof67">67. Seven-hundred miles is said to be the length of the
great Canal, in China. Certain it is that, when this canal was formed,
no “allowance” was made for “curvature.” Yet
the canal is a fact without it. This is a Chinese proof that the Earth
is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof68">68. Mr. J. N. Lockyer says: “Because the Sun
seems to rise in the east and set in the west, the Earth really spins
in the opposite direction; that is, from west to east.” Now, this
is no better than though we were to say—Because a man seems to be
coming up the street, the street really goes down to the man! And since
true science would contain no such nonsense as this, it follows that
the so-called science of theoretical astronomy is not true, and,
therefore, we have a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof69">69. Mr. Lockyer says: “The appearances connected
with the rising and setting of the Sun and stars may be due either to
our earth being at rest and the Sun and stars travelling round it, or
the earth itself turning round, while the Sun and stars are at
rest.” Now, since true science does not allow of any such
beggarly alternatives as these, it is plain that modern theoretical
astronomy is not true science, and that its leading dogma is a fallacy.
We have, then, a plain proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof70">70. Mr. Lockyer, in describing his picture of the
supposed proof of the Earth’s rotundity by means of ships
rounding a “hill of water,” uses these
words:—“Diagram showing how, when we suppose the earth is
round, we explain how it is that ships at sea appear as they do.”
This is utterly unworthy of the name of Science! A science that begins
by supposing, and ends by explaining the supposition, is, from
beginning to end, a mere farce. The men who can do nothing better than
amuse themselves in this way must be denounced as dreamers only, and
their leading dogma a delusion. This is a proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof71">71. The astronomers’ theory of a globular Earth
necessitates the conclusion that, if we travel south of the equator, to
see the North Star is an impossibility. Yet it is well known this star
has been seen by navigators when they have been more than 20 degrees
south of the equator. This fact, like hundreds of other facts, puts the
theory to shame, and gives us a proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof72">72. Astronomers tell us that, in consequence of the
Earth’s “rotundity,” the perpendicular walls of
buildings are, nowhere, parallel, and that even the walls of houses on
opposite sides of a street are not strictly so! But, since all
observation fails to find any evidence of this want of parallelism
which theory demands, the idea must be renounced as being absurd and in
opposition to all well-known facts. This is a proof that the Earth is
not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof73">73. Astronomers have made experiments with pendulums
which have been suspended from the interior of high buildings, and have
exulted over the idea of being able to prove the rotation of the Earth
on its “axis,” by the varying direction taken by the
pendulum over a prepared table underneath—asserting that the
table moved round under the pendulum, instead of the pendulum shifting
and oscillating in different directions over the table! But, since it
has been found that, as often as not, the pendulum went round the wrong
way for the <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb20" href="#pb20" name=
"pb20">20</SPAN>]</span>“rotation” theory, chagrin has taken
the place of exultation, and we have a proof of the failure of
astronomers in their efforts to substantiate their theory, and,
therefore, a proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof74">74. As to the supposed “motion of the whole Solar
system in space,” the Astronomer Royal of England once said:
“The matter is left in a most delightful state of uncertainty,
and I shall be very glad if anyone can help us out of it.” But,
since the whole Newtonian scheme is, to-day, in a most deplorable state
of uncertainty—for, whether the Moon goes round the Earth or the
Earth round the Moon has, for years, been a matter of
“raging” controversy—it follows that, root and
branch, the whole thing, is wrong; and, all hot from the raging furnace
of philosophical phrensy, we find a glowing proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof75">75. Considerably more than a million Earths would be
required to make up a body like the Sun—the astronomers tell us:
and more than 53,000 suns would be wanted to equal the cubic contents
of the star Vega. And Vega is a “small star!” And there are
countless millions of these stars! And it takes 30,000,000 years for
the light of some of these stars to reach us at 12,000,000 miles in a
minute! And, says Mr. Proctor, “I think a moderate estimate of
the age of the Earth would be 500,000,000 years!<span class="corr" id="xd25e1106" title="Not in source">”</span> “Its
weight,” says the same individual, “is
6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons!” Now, since no human being is
able to comprehend these things, the giving of them to the world is an
insult—an outrage. And though they have all arisen from the one
assumption that Earth is a planet, instead of upholding the assumption,
they drag it down by the weight of their own absurdity, and leave it
lying in the dust—a proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof76">76. Mr. J. R. Young, in his work on Navigation, says:
“Although the path of the ship is on a spherical surface, yet we
may represent the length of the path by a straight line on a plane
surface.” (And plane sailing is the rule.) Now, since it is
altogether impossible to “represent” a curved line by a
straight one, and absurd to make the attempt, it follows that a
straight line represents a straight line and not a curved one. And,
since it is the surface of the waters of the ocean that is being
considered by Mr. Young, it follows that this surface is a straight
surface, and we are indebted to Mr. Young, a professor of navigation,
for a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof77">77. “Oh, but if the Earth is a plane, we could go
to the edge and tumble over!” is a very common assertion. This is
a conclusion that is formed too hastily, and facts overthrow it. The
Earth certainly is, just what man by his observation finds it to be,
and what Mr. Proctor himself says it “seems” to
be—flat; and we cannot cross the icy barrier which surrounds it.
This is a complete answer to the objection, and, of course, a proof
that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof78">78. “Yes, but we can circumnavigate the South
easily enough,” is often said—by those who don’t
know. The British Ship Challenger recently completed the circuit of the
Southern region—indirectly, to be sure—but she was three
years about it, and traversed nearly 69,000 miles—a stretch long
enough to have taken her six times round on the globular
hypothesis<span class="corr" id="xd25e1115" title="Source: ,">.</span>
This is a proof that Earth is not a globe<span class="corr" id="xd25e1118" title="Source: ,">.</span> <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name=
"pb21" href="#pb21" name="pb21">21</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p id="proof79">79. The remark is common enough that we can see the
circle of the Earth if we cross the ocean, and that this proves it to
be round. Now, if we tie a donkey to a stake on a level common, and he
eats the grass all around him, it is only a circular disc that he has
to do with, not a spherical mass. Since, then, circular discs may be
seen anywhere—as well from a balloon in the air as from the deck
of a ship, or from the standpoint of the donkey, it is a proof that the
surface of the Earth is a plane surface, and, therefore, a proof that
the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof80">80. It is “supposed,” in the regular course
of the Newtonian theory, that the Earth is, in June, about 190 millions
of miles (190,000,000) away from its position in December. Now, since
we can, (in middle north latitudes), see the North Star, on looking out
of a window that faces it—and out of the very same corner of the
very same pane of glass in the very same window—all the year
round, it is proof enough for any man in his senses that we have made
no motion at all. It is a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof81">81. Newtonian philosophers teach us that the Moon goes
round the Earth from west to east. But observation—man’s
most certain mode of gaining knowledge—shows us that the Moon
never ceases to move in the opposite direction—from east to west.
Since, then, we know that nothing can possibly move in two, opposite
directions at the same time, it is a proof that the thing is a big
blunder; and, in short, it is a proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof82">82. Astronomers tell us that the Moon goes round the
Earth in about 28 days. Well, we may see her making her journey round,
every day, if we make use of our eyes—and these are about the
best things we have to use. The Moon falls behind in her daily motion
as compared with that of the Sun to the extent of one revolution in the
time specified; but that is not making a revolution. Failing to go as
fast as other bodies go in one direction does not constitute a going
round in the opposite one—as the astronomers would have us
believe! And, since all this absurdity has been rendered necessary for
no other purpose than to help other absurdities along, it is clear that
the astronomers are on the wrong track; and it needs no long train of
reasoning to show that we have a proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof83">83. It has been shown that meridians are, necessarily,
straight lines; and that it is impossible to travel round the Earth in
a north or south direction: from which it follows that, in the general
acceptation of the word “degree,”—the 360th part of a
circle—meridians have no degrees: for no one knows anything of a
meridian circle or semicircle, to be thus divided. But astronomers
speak of degrees of latitude in the same sense as those of longitude.
This, then, is done by assuming that to be true which is not true.
Zetetic philosophy does not involve this necessity. This proves that
the basis of this philosophy is a sound one, and, in short, is a proof
that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof84">84. If we move away from an elevated object on or over
a plain or a prairie, the height of the object will apparently diminish
as we do so. Now, that which is sufficient to produce this effect on a
small scale is sufficient on a large one; and travelling away from an
elevated <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb22" href="#pb22" name=
"pb22">22</SPAN>]</span>object, no matter how high, over a level surface,
no matter how far, will cause the appearance in question—the
lowering of the object. Our modern theoretical astronomers, however, in
the case of the apparent lowering of the North Star as we travel
southward, assert that it is evidence that the Earth is globular! But,
as it is clear that an appearance which is fully accounted for on the
basis of known facts cannot be permitted to figure as evidence in favor
of that which is only a supposition, it follows that we rightfully
order it to stand down, and make way for a proof that the Earth is not
a globe.</p>
<p id="proof85">85. There are rivers which flow east, west, north, and
south—that is, rivers are flowing in all directions over the
Earth’s surface, and at the same time. Now, if the Earth were a
globe, some of these rivers would be flowing up-hill and others down,
taking it for a fact that there really is an “up” and a
“down” in nature, whatever form she assumes. But, since
rivers do not flow up-hill, and the globular theory requires that they
should, it is a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof86">86. If the Earth were a globe, rolling and dashing
through “space” at the rate of “a hundred miles in
five seconds of time,” the waters of seas and oceans could not,
by any known law, be kept on its surface—the assertion that they
could be retained under these circumstances being an outrage upon human
understanding and credulity! But as the Earth—that is, the
habitable world of dry land—is found to be “standing out of
the water and in the water” of the “mighty deep,”
whose circumferential boundary is ice, we may throw the statement back
into the teeth of those who make it and flaunt before their faces the
flag of reason and common sense, inscribed with—a proof that the
Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof87">87. The theory of a rotating and revolving earth
demands a theory to keep the water on its surface; but, as the theory
which is given for this purpose is as much opposed to all human
experience as the one which it is intended to uphold, it is an
illustration of the miserable makeshifts to which astronomers are
compelled to resort, and affords a proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof88">88. If we could—after our minds had once been
opened to the light of Truth—conceive of a globular body on the
surface of which human beings could exist, the power—no matter by
what name it be called—that would hold them on would, then,
necessarily, have to be so constraining and cogent that they could not
live; the waters of the oceans would have to be as a solid mass, for
motion would be impossible. But we not only exist, but live and move;
and the water of the ocean skips and dances like a thing of life and
beauty! This is a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof89">89. It is well known that the law regulating the
apparent decrease in the size of objects as we leave them in the
distance (or as they leave us) is very different with luminous bodies
from what it is in the case of those which are non-luminous. Sail past
the light of a small lamp in a row-boat on a dark night, and it will
seem to be no smaller when a mile off than it was when close to it.
Proctor says, in speaking of the Sun: “his apparent size does not
change,”—far off or near. And then he forgets the fact! Mr.
Proctor tells us, subsequently, that, if <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name=
"pb23" href="#pb23" name="pb23">23</SPAN>]</span>the traveller goes so far
south that the North Star appears on the horizon, “the Sun should
therefore look much larger”—if the Earth were a plane!
Therefore, he argues, “the path followed cannot have been the
straight course,”—but a curved one. Now, since it is
nothing but common scientific trickery to bring forward, as an
objection to stand in the way of a plane Earth, the non-appearance of a
thing which has never been known to appear at all, it follows that,
unless that which appears to be trickery were an accident, it was the
only course open to the objector—to trick. (Mr. Proctor, in a
letter to the “English Mechanic” for Oct. 20, 1871, boasts
of having turned a recent convert to the Zetetic philosophy by telling
him that his arguments were all very good, but that “it seems as
though [mark the language!] the sun ought to look nine times larger in
summer.” And Mr. Proctor concludes thus: “He saw, indeed,
that, in his faith in ‘Parallax,’ he had ‘written
himself down an ass.’ ”) Well, then: trickery or no
trickery on the part of the objector, the objection is a
counterfeit—a fraud—no valid objection at all; and it
follows that the system which does not purge itself of these things is
a rotten system, and the system which its advocates, with Mr. Proctor
at their head, would crush if they could find a weapon to use—the
Zetetic philosophy of “Parallax”—is destined to live!
This is a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof90">90. “Is water level, or is it not?” was a
question once asked of an astronomer. “Practically, yes;
theoretically, no,” was the reply. Now, when theory does not
harmonize with practice, the best thing to do is to drop the theory.
(It is getting too late, now, to say “So much the worse for the
facts!”) To drop the theory which supposes a curved surface to
standing water is to acknowledge the facts which form the basis of
Zetetic philosophy. And since this will have to be done—sooner or
later,—it is a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof91">91. “By actual observation,” says
Schœdler, in his “Book of Nature,” “we know
that the other heavenly bodies are spherical, hence we unhesitatingly
assert that the earth is so also.” This is a fair sample of all
astronomical reasoning. When a thing is classed amongst
“other” things, the likeness between them must first be
proven. It does not take a Schœdler to tell us that
“heavenly bodies” are spherical, but “the greatest
astronomer of the age” will not, now, dare to tell us that
<span class="sc">The Earth</span> is—and attempt to prove it.
Now, since no likeness has ever been proven to exist between the Earth
and the heavenly bodies, the classification of the Earth with the
heavenly bodies is premature—unscientific—false! This is a
proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof92">92. “There is no inconsistency in supposing that
the earth does move round the sun,” says the Astronomer Royal of
England. Certainly not, when theoretical astronomy is all supposition
together! The inconsistency is in teaching the world that the thing
supposed is a fact. Since, then, the “motion” of the Earth
is supposition only—since, indeed, it is necessary to suppose it
at all—it is plain that it is a fiction and not a fact; and,
since “mobility” and “sphericity” stand or fall
together, we have before us a proof that Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof93">93<span class="corr" id="xd25e1161" title=
"Source: ,">.</span> We have seen that astronomers—to give us a
level surface on <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb24" href="#pb24" name=
"pb24">24</SPAN>]</span>which to live—have cut off one-half of the
“globe” in a certain picture in their books. [See page 6.]
Now, astronomers having done this, one-half of the substance of their
“spherical theory” is given up! Since, then, the theory
must stand or fall in its entirety, it has really fallen when the half
is gone. Nothing remains, then, but a plane Earth, which is, of course,
a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof94">94. In “Cornell’s Geography” there is
an “Illustrated proof of the Form of the Earth.” A curved
line on which is represented a ship in four positions, as she sails
away from an observer, is an arc of 72 degrees, or one-fifth of the
supposed circumference of the “globe”—about 5,000
miles. Ten such ships as those which are given in the picture would
reach the full length of the “arc,” making 500 miles as the
length of the ship. The man, in the picture, who is watching the ship
as she sails away, is about 200 miles high; and the tower, from which
he takes an elevated view, at least 500 miles high. These are the
proportions, then, of men, towers, and ships which are necessary in
order to see a ship, in her different positions, as she “rounds
the curve” of the “great hill of water” over which
she is supposed to be sailing: for, it must be remembered that this
supposed “proof” depends upon lines and angles of vision
which, if enlarged, would still retain their characteristics. Now,
since ships are not built 500 miles long, with masts in proportion, and
men are not quite 200 miles high, it is not what it is said to
be—a proof of rotundity—but, either an ignorant farce or a
cruel piece of deception. In short, it is a proof that the Earth is not
a globe.</p>
<p id="proof95">95. In “Cornell’s Intermediate
Geography,” (1881) page 12, is an “Illustration of the
Natural Divisions of Land and Water.” This illustration is so
nicely drawn that it affords, at once, a striking proof that Earth is a
plane. It is true to nature, and bears the stamp of no
astronomer-artist. It is a pictorial proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof96">96. If we refer to the diagram in
“Cornell’s Geography,” page 4, and notice the ship in
its position the most remote from the observer, we shall find that,
though it is about 4,000 miles away, it is the same size as the ship
that is nearest to him, distant about 700 miles! This is an
illustration of the way in which astronomers ignore the laws of
perspective. This course is necessary, or they would be compelled to
lay bare the fallacy of their dogmas. In short, there is, in this
matter, a proof that the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof97">97. Mr. Hind, the English astronomer, says: “The
simplicity with which the seasons are explained by the revolution of
the Earth in her orbit and the obliquity of the ecliptic, may certainly
be adduced as a strong presumptive proof of the
correctness”—of the Newtonian theory; “for on no
other rational suppositions with respect to the relations of the Earth
and Sun, can these and other as well-known phenomena, be accounted
for.” But, as true philosophy has no “suppositions”
at all—and has nothing to do with
“suppositions”—and the phenomena spoken of are
thoroughly explained by facts, the “presumptive proof”
falls to the ground, covered with the ridicule it so richly deserves;
and out of the dust of Mr. Hind’s “rational
suppositions” we see standing before us a proof that Earth is not
a globe.</p>
<p id="proof98">98. Mr. Hind speaks of the astronomer watching a star
as it is <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb25" href="#pb25" name=
"pb25">25</SPAN>]</span>“carried across the telescope by the diurnal
revolution of the Earth.” Now, this is nothing but downright
absurdity. No motion of the Earth could possibly carry a star across a
telescope or anything else. If the star is carried across anything at
all, it is the star that moves, not the thing across which it is
carried! Besides, the idea that the Earth, if it were a globe, could
possibly move in an orbit of nearly 600,000,000 of miles with such
exactitude that the cross-hairs in a telescope fixed on its surface
would appear to glide gently over a star “millions of
millions” of miles away is simply monstrous; whereas, with a
<span class="sc">FIXED</span> telescope, it matters not the distance of
the stars, though we suppose them to be as far off as the astronomer
supposes them to be; for, as Mr. Proctor himself says, “the
further away they are, the less they will seem to shift.” Why, in
the name of common sense, should observers have to fix their telescopes
on solid stone bases so that they should not move a
hair’s-breadth, if the Earth on which they fix them move at the
rate of nineteen miles in a second? Indeed, to believe that Mr.
Proctor’s mass of “six thousand million million million
tons” is “rolling, surging, flying, darting on through
space for ever” with a velocity compared with which a shot from a
cannon is a “very slow coach,” with such unerring accuracy
that a telescope fixed on granite pillars in an observatory will not
enable a lynx-eyed astronomer to detect a variation in its onward
motion of the thousandth part of a hair’s-breadth is to conceive
a miracle compared with which all the miracles on record put together
would sink into utter insignificance. Captain R. J. Morrison, the late
compiler of “Zadkeil’s Almanac,” says: “We
declare that this ‘motion’ is all mere ‘bosh’;
and that the arguments which uphold it are, when examined with an eye
that seeks for <span class="sc">TRUTH</span> only, mere nonsense, and
childish absurdity.” Since, then, these absurd theories are of no
use to men in their senses, and since there is no necessity for
anything of the kind in Zetetic philosophy, it is a “strong
presumptive proof”—as Mr. Hind would say—that the
Zetetic philosophy is true, and, therefore, a proof that Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p id="proof99">99. Mr. Hind speaks of two great mathematicians
differing only fifty-five yards in their estimate of the Earth’s
diameter. Why, Sir John Herschel, in his celebrated work, cuts off 480
miles of the same thing to get “round numbers!” This is
like splitting a hair on one side of the head and shaving all the hair
off on the other! Oh, “science!” Can there be any truth in
a science like this? All the exactitude in astronomy is in Practical
astronomy—not Theoretical. Centuries of observation have made
practical astronomy a noble art and science, based—as we have a
thousand times proved it to be—on a fixed Earth; and we denounce
this pretended exactitude on one side and the reckless indifference to
figures on the other as the basest trash, and take from it a proof that
the “science” which tolerates it is a false—instead
of being an “exact”—science, and we have a proof that
the Earth is not a globe.</p>
<p id="proof100">100. The Sun, as he travels round over the surface of
the Earth, brings “noon” to all places on the successive
meridians which he crosses: his journey being made in a westerly
direction, places east of the Sun’s position have had their noon,
whilst places to the west of the <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb26"
href="#pb26" name="pb26">26</SPAN>]</span>Sun’s position have still
to get it. Therefore, if we travel easterly, we arrive at those parts
of the Earth where “time” is more advanced, the watch in
our pocket has to be “put on,” or we may be said to
“gain time.” If, on the other hand, we travel westerly, we
arrive at places where it is still “morning,” the watch has
to be “put back,” and it may be said that we “lose
time.” But, if we travel easterly so as to cross the 180th
meridian, there is a loss, there, of a day, which will neutralize the
gain of a whole circumnavigation; and, if we travel westerly, and cross
the same meridian, we experience the gain of a day, which will
compensate for the loss during a complete circumnavigation in that
direction. The fact of losing or gaining time in sailing round the
world, then, instead of being evidence of the Earth’s
“rotundity,” as it is imagined to be, is, in its practical
exemplification, an everlasting proof that the Earth is not a
globe.</p>
<p>“And what then?” What then! No intelligent man will ask
the question; and he who may be called an intellectual man will know
that the demonstration of the fact that the Earth is not a globe is the
grandest snapping of the chains of slavery that ever took place in the
world of literature or science. The floodgates of human knowledge are
opened afresh and an impetus is given to investigation and discovery
where all was stagnation, bewilderment and dreams! Is it nothing to
know that infidelity cannot stand against the mighty rush of the living
water of Truth that must flow on and on until the world shall look
“up” once more “to Him that stretched out the earth
above the waters”—“to Him that made great
lights:—the Sun to rule by day—the Moon and Stars to rule
by night?” Is it nothing to know and to feel that the heavenly
bodies were made for man, and that the monstrous dogma of an infinity
of worlds is overthrown for ever? The old-time English “Family
Herald,” for July 25, 1885, says, in its editorial, that
“The earth’s revolution on its own axis was denied, against
Galileo and Copernicus, by the whole weight of the Church of
Rome.” And, in an article on “The Pride of
Ignorance,” too!—the editor not knowing that if the Earth
had an axis to call its “own”—which the Church well
knew it had not, and, therefore, could not admit—it would not
“revolve” on it; and that the theoretical motion on an axis
is that of rotation, and not revolution! Is it nothing to know that
“the whole weight of the Church of Rome” was thrown in the
right direction, although it has swayed back again like a gigantic
pendulum that will regain its old position before long? Is it nothing
to know that the “pride of ignorance” is on the other side?
Is it nothing to know that, with all the Bradlaughs and Ingersolls of
the world telling us to the contrary—Biblical science is true? Is
it nothing to know that we are living on a body at rest, and not upon a
heavenly body whirling and dashing through space in every conceivable
way and with a velocity utterly inconceivable? Is it nothing to know
that we can look stedfastly up to Heaven instead of having no heaven to
look up to at all? Is it nothing, indeed, to be in the broad daylight
of Truth and to be able to go on towards a possible perfection, instead
of being wrapped in the darkness of error on the rough ocean of Life,
and finding ourselves stranded at last—God alone knows where?</p>
<p class="dateline">Baltimore, Maryland, U. S. A., August, 1885.
<span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb27" href="#pb27" name=
"pb27">27</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div></div>
<div class="back">
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">APPENDIX TO THE SECOND EDITION.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first">The following letters remain unanswered, at the time
of going to press, December 7, 1885:—</p>
<p>“71 Chew Street, Baltimore, Nov. 21, 1885. R. A. Proctor,
Esq., St. Joe, Mo. Sir: I have sent you two copies of my ‘One
Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe,’ and, as several
weeks have since elapsed and I have not heard from you, I write to
inform you that if you have any remarks to make concerning that
publication, and will let me have them in the course of a week or ten
days, I will print them—if you say what you may wish to say in
about five or six hundred words—in the second edition of the
pamphlet, which will very soon be called for. Allow me to say that, as
this work is not only ‘dedicated’ to you but attacks your
teachings, the public will be looking for something from your pen very
shortly. I hope they may not be disappointed. Yours in the cause of
truth, W. Carpenter.”</p>
<p>“71 Chew Street, Baltimore, Nov. 24, 1885. Spencer F. Baird,
Esq., Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
Sir:—I had the pleasure, several weeks ago, of sending you my
‘One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe.’ I hope
you received them. A second edition is now called for, and I should
esteem it a favor if you would write me a few words concerning them
that I may print with this forthcoming edition as an appendix to them.
If you think any of the ‘Hundred Proofs’ are unsound, I
will print all you may have to say about them, if not over 400 words,
as above stated. I have made Richard A. Proctor, Esq., a similar offer,
giving him, of course, a little more space. I feel sure that the very
great importance of this matter will prompt you to give it your
immediate attention. I have the honor to be, sir, yours sincerely, Wm.
Carpenter.”</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Copies of the first edition of this pamphlet have been sent to the
leading newspapers of this country and of England, and to very many of
the most renowned scientific men of the two countries—from the
Astronomer Royal, of England, to Dr. Gilman, of Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore. Several copies have been sent to graduates of
different Universities, on application, in consequence of the subjoined
advertisement, which has appeared in several newspapers:—</p>
<p>“WANTED.—A Scholar of ripe attainments to review
Carpenter’s ‘One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a
Globe.’ Liberal remuneration offered. Apply to Wm. Carpenter, 71
Chew Street, Baltimore. N. B.—No one need apply who has not
courage enough to append his name to the Review for
publication.”</p>
<p>☞ We should be pleased to hear from some of the gentlemen in
time for the insertion of their courageous attacks in the Third
edition!</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first">“This can only be described as an extraordinary
book …. His arguments are certainly plausible and
ingenious, and even the reader who does not agree with him will find a
singular interest and fascination in analyzing the ‘one hundred
proofs.’… The proofs are set forth in brief, forcible,
compact, very clear paragraphs, the meaning of which can be
comprehended at a glance.”—Daily News, Sept. 24<span class="corr" id="xd25e1218" title="Source: ,">.</span> <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb28" href="#pb28" name="pb28">28</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p>“Throughout the entire work there are discernible traces of a
strong and reliant mind, and such reliance as can only have been
acquired by unbiassed observation, laborious investigation, and final
conviction; and the masterly handling of so profound a theme displays
evidence of grave and active researches. There is no groping wildly
about in the vagueness of theoretical speculations, no empty hypotheses
inflated with baseless assertions and false illustrations, but the
practical and perspicuous conclusions of a mind emancipated from the
prevailing influences of fashionable credence and popular prejudice,
and subordinate only to those principles emanating from reason and
common sense.”—H. D. T., Woodberry News, Sept. 26,
1885.</p>
<p>“We do not profess to be able to overthrow any of his
‘Proofs.’ And we must admit, and our readers will be
inclined to do the same, that it is certainly a strange thing that Mr.
Wm. Carpenter, or anyone else, should be able to bring together
‘One Hundred Proofs<span class="corr" id="xd25e1226" title=
"Not in source">’</span> of anything in the world if that thing
is not right, while we keep on asking for one proof, that is really a
satisfactory one, on the other side. If these ‘Hundred
Proofs’ are nonsense, we cannot prove them to be so, and some of
our scientific men had better try their hands, and we think they will
try their heads pretty badly into the bargain.”—The
Woodberry News, Baltimore, Sept. 19, 1885.</p>
<p>“This is a remarkable pamphlet. The author has the courage of
his convictions, and presents them with no little ingenuity, however
musty they may appear to nineteenth century readers. He takes for his
text a statement of Prof. Proctor’s that ‘The Earth on
which we live and move seems to be flat,’ and proceeds with great
alacrity to marshal his hundred arguments in proof that it not only
seems but is flat, ‘an extended plane, stretched out in all
directions away from the central North.’ He enumerates all the
reasons offered by scientists for a belief in the rotundity of the
earth and evidently to his own complete satisfaction refutes them. He
argues that the heavenly bodies were made solely to light this world,
that the belief in an infinity of worlds is a monstrous dogma, contrary
to Bible teaching, and the great stronghold of the infidel; and that
the Church of Rome was right when it threw the whole weight of its
influence against Galileo and Copernicus when they taught the
revolution of the earth on its axis.”—Michigan Christian
Herald, Oct. 15, 1885.</p>
<p>“So many proofs.”—Every Saturday, Sept. 26,
1885.</p>
<p>“A highly instructive and very entertaining
work …. The book is well worth
reading.”—Protector, Baltimore, Oct. 3, 1885.</p>
<p>“The book will be sought after and read with peculiar
interest.”—Baltimore Labor Free Press, Oct. 17, 1885.</p>
<p>“Some of them [the proofs] are of sufficient force to demand
an answer from the advocates of the popular
theory.”—Baltimore Episcopal Methodist, October 28,
1885.</p>
<p>“Showing considerable smartness both in conception and
argument.”—Western Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, O., Oct.
21, 1885.</p>
<p>“Forcible and striking in the extreme.”—Brooklyn
Market Journal.</p>
<p class="dateline">Baltimore, Maryland, U. S. A., December 7, 1885.
<span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb29" href="#pb29" name=
"pb29">29</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="label">[Appendix to Third Edition.]</h2>
<h2 class="main">COPY OF LETTER FROM RICHARD A. PROCTOR, ESQ.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first xd25e1252">5 Montague Street, Russell Square, London,
W.C., 12 Dec., 1885.</p>
<p class="salute">W. Carpenter, Esq., Baltimore.</p>
<p>Dear Sir,—I am obliged to you for the copy of your “One
Hundred Proofs that the Earth is not a Globe,” and for the
evident kindness of your intention in dedicating the work to me. The
only further remark it occurs to me to offer is that I call myself
rather a student of astronomy than an astronomer.</p>
<p class="signed">Yours faithfully,<br/>
RICHARD A. PROCTOR.</p>
<p>P.S. Perhaps the pamphlet might more precisely be called “One
hundred difficulties for young students of astronomy.”</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="label">[Appendix to Fourth Edition.]</h2>
<h2 class="main">COPY OF LETTER FROM SPENCER F. BAIRD, ESQ.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first xd25e1252">Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.,
Jan. 6, 1886.</p>
<p>Dear Sir,—A copy of your “One Hundred Proofs that the
Earth is not a globe” was duly received, and was deposited in
Library of Congress October 8, 1884. [1885] A pressure of much more
important work has prevented any attempt at reviewing these hundred
proofs:—which however have doubtless been thoroughly investigated
by the inquisitive astronomers and geodesists of the last four
centuries.</p>
<p class="signed">Yours very respectfully,<br/>
SPENCER F. BAIRD, Secretary S. I.</p>
<p>Mr. William Carpenter, 71, Chew Street, Baltimore, Md.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Copy of a letter from one of the several applicants for the
“One Hundred Proofs” for the purpose of reviewing them. The
writer is Professor of Mathematics at the High School, Auburn, N. Y.,
and, in his application for the pamphlet, says: “Am a Yale
graduate and a Yale Law School man: took the John A<span class="corr" id="xd25e1283" title="Not in source">.</span> Porter Prize (literary)
($250) at Yale College.”</p>
<p>Auburn, Dec. 10th, 1885. My Dear Sir: Your treatise was received. I
have looked it over and noted it somewhat. A review of it to do it
justice would be a somewhat long and laborious task. Before I undertook
so much thought I would write and ask What and how much you expect: how
elaborately you wished it discussed: and what remuneration might be
expected. It sets forth many new and strange doctrines which would have
to be thoroughly discussed and mastered before reviewed. I am hard at
work at present but would like to tackle this if it would be for my
interest as well as yours. Hope you will let me know very soon. Very
respectfully,</p>
<p class="salute">To Mr. W. Carpenter, Baltimore, Md. FRANK STRONG.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>NOTE.—Unless a man be willing to sell his soul for his
supposed worldly “interest,” he will not dare to
“tackle” the “One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is
Not a Globe.” No man with well-balanced faculties will thus
condemn himself. We charge the mathematicians of the world that, if
they cannot say what they think of this pamphlet in a dozen words, they
are entitled to no other name than—cowards!</p>
<p class="dateline">Baltimore, Maryland, May 22, 1886. <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb30" href="#pb30" name="pb30">30</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">APPENDIX TO THE FIFTH EDITION.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first xd25e1300">Editorial from the “New York
World,” of August 2, 1886:—</p>
<p class="h2 xd25e1302">THE EARTH IS FLAT.</p>
<p>The iconoclastic tendencies of the age have received new impetus
from Mr. <span class="sc">William Carpenter</span>, who comes forward
with one hundred proofs that the earth is not a globe. It will be a sad
shock to many conservatives who have since their childhood fondly held
to the conviction that “the earth is round like an orange, a
little flattened at the poles.” To find that, after all, we have
been living all these years on a prosaic and unromantic plane is far
from satisfactory. We have rather gloried in the belief that the
semi-barbarous nations on the other side of the earth did not carry
their heads in the same direction in which ours point. It is hard to
accept the assertion that the cannibals on savage islands are walking
about on the same level with the civilized nations of our little
world.</p>
<p>But Mr. <span class="sc">Carpenter</span> has one hundred proofs
that such is the unsatisfactory truth. Not only that, but the
iconoclast claims that we are not whirling through space at a terrible
rate, but are absolutely stationary. Some probability is given to this
proposition by the present hot weather. The earth seems to be becalmed.
If it were moving at the rate of nineteen miles a second wouldn’t
there be a breeze? This question is thrown out as perhaps offering the
one hundred and first proof that the earth is not a globe. Mr.
<span class="sc">Carpenter</span> may obtain the proof in detail at the
office at our usual rates. A revolution will, of course, take place in
the school geographies as soon as Mr. <span class="sc">Carpenter’s</span> theories have been closely studied. No
longer will the little boy answer the question as to the shape of the
earth by the answer which has come ringing down the ages,
“It’s round like a ball, sir.” No. He’ll have
to use the unpoetic formula, “It’s flat like a pancake,
sir.”</p>
<p>But, perhaps, after we have become used to the new idea it will not
be unpleasant. The ancients flourished in the belief that the earth was
a great plane. Why shouldn’t we be equally fortunate? It may be
romantic but it is not especially comforting to think that the earth is
rushing through space twisting and curving like a gigantic ball
delivered from the hand of an enormous pitcher. Something in the
universe might make a base hit if we kept on and we would be knocked
over an aerial fence and never found. Perhaps, after all, it is safer
to live on Mr. <span class="sc">Carpenter’s</span> stationary
plane.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>The “Record,” of Philadelphia, June 5, 1886, has the
following, in the Literary Notes:—“Under the title One
Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe, Mr. William Carpenter, of
Baltimore, publishes a pamphlet which is interesting on account of the
originality of the views advanced, and, from his standpoint, the very
logical manner in which he seeks to establish their truth. Mr.
Carpenter is a disciple of what is called the Zetetic school of
philosophy, and was referee for Mr. John Hampden when that gentleman,
in 1870, made a wager with Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, of England, that the
surface of standing water is always level, and therefore that the earth
is flat. Since then he has combated his views with much earnestness,
both in writing and on the platform, and, whatever opinions we may have
on the subject, a perusal of his little book will prove interesting and
afford room for careful study.” <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name=
"pb31" href="#pb31" name="pb31">31</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p>“The motto which he puts on the cover—‘Upright,
Downright, Straightforward’—is well chosen, for it is an
upright lie, a downright invention, and a straightforward butt of a
bull at a locomotive.”—The Florida Times Union, Dec. 13,
1885. Editor, Charles H. Jones. [Pray, Mr. Jones, tell us what you mean
by “an upright lie.”!!]</p>
<p>“We have received a pamphlet from a gentleman who thinks to
prove that the earth is flat, but who succeeds only in showing that he
is himself one.”—New York Herald, Dec. 19, 1885. [The
reviewer, in this case, is, no doubt, a very “sharp” man,
but his honesty—if he have any at all—is jagged and worn
out. The “quotations” which he gives are fraudulent, there
being nothing like them in the pamphlet.]</p>
<p>“The author of the pamphlet is no ‘flat,’ though
he may perhaps be called a ‘crank.’ ”—St.
Catharines (Can.) Evening Jour., Dec. 23.</p>
<p>“To say that the contents of the book are erudite and
entertaining does not do Mr. Carpenter’s astronomical ability
half credit.”—The Sunday Truth, Buffalo, Dec. 27, 1885.</p>
<p>“The entire work is very ingeniously gotten up ….
The matter of perspective is treated in a very clever manner, and the
coming up of ‘hull-down’ vessels on the horizon is
illustrated by several well-worded examples.”—Buffalo
Times, Dec. 28, 1885.</p>
<p>“The erudite author, who travels armed with plans and
specifications to fire at the skeptical at a moment’s notice,
feels that he is doing a good work, and that his hundred anti-globular
conclusions must certainly knock the general belief in territorial
rotundity out of time.”…</p>
<p>“We trust that the distinguished author who has failed to coax
Richard Proctor into a public discussion may find as many citizens
willing to invest two shillings in his peculiar literature as he
deserves.”—Buffalo Courier, Dec. 27, 1885, and Jan. 1,
1886.</p>
<p>“It is a pleasure now to see a man of Mr. Carpenter’s
attainments fall into line and take up the cudgels against the theories
of the scientists who have taught this pernicious doctrine [the
sphericity of the earth].”—Rochester Morning Herald, Jan.
13, 1886.</p>
<p>“As the game stands now, there is ‘one horse’ for
Prof. Carpenter.”—Buffalo World, Jan. 16, 1886.</p>
<p>“It is interesting to show how much can be said in favor of
the flat world theory …. It is fairly well written,
although, we believe filled with misstatements of
facts.”—Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Jan. 17, 1886.
[We “believe” the editor cannot point one out.]</p>
<p>“It is certainly worth twice the price, and will be read by
all with peculiar interest.”—Scranton Truth, March 8,
1886.</p>
<p>“Mr. <span class="sc">William Carpenter</span> has come to
Washington with a “hundred proofs that the earth is not a
globe.” He has a pamphlet on the subject which is ingenious, to
say the least, and he is ominously eager to discuss the matter with any
one who still clings to the absurd prejudices of the
astronomers.”—The Hatchet, May 9, 1886.</p>
<p>“It contains some curious problems for solution, and the
author boldly asserts that until they are solved the globular theory of
the earth remains unproven, and is fallacious, &c.”—The
Presbyterian, Philadelphia, June 19, 1886. <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb32" href="#pb32" name="pb32">32</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p>“His reasoning is, to say the least, plausible, and the book
interesting.”—The Item, Philadelphia, June 10, 1886.</p>
<p>“Mr. Carpenter seems to have made a thorough investigation of
the subject, and his arguments are practical and to the
point.”—Sunday Mercury, Philadelphia, June 13, 1886.</p>
<p>“A gentleman has just called at the editorial rooms with a
pamphlet which is designed to demonstrate that the earth is not a
globe, but a flat disk; he also laid before us a chart from which it
plainly appeared that the earth is a circular expanse of land, with the
north pole in the exact center, and the Antarctic Sea flowing all
around the land …. We went on to state that we lodged the
care of all astronomical questions in the hands of Rev. R. M. Luther,
to whom these perplexing matters are but as child’s
play …. Our readers may, therefore, expect at an early
date a judicial view of the astronomical and cosmological
situation.”—National Baptist, Philadelphia, July 8, 1886.
Editor, Dr. Wayland. [We hope that the Rev. R. M. Luther will give us
the means of publishing his decision before many more editions of the
“Hundred Proofs” be issued. We are afraid that he finds the
business much more than “child’s play.”]</p>
<p>“<span class="corr" id="xd25e1370" title=
"Not in source">‘</span>One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not
a Globe,<span class="corr" id="xd25e1373" title=
"Source: ”">’</span> by William Carpenter, is published by
the author, whose novel and rather startling position is certainly
fortified by a number of argumentative points, which, if they do not
shake the reader’s preconceived notions on the subject, will, at
least, be found entertaining for the style in which they are
put.”—Evening Star, Philadelphia, July 22, 1886.</p>
<p>“His ‘Proofs’ go a long way towards convincing
many that his ideas on the subject are practical and
sensible.”—Fashion Journal, Philadelphia, July, 1886.
Editor, Mrs. F. E. Benedict.</p>
<p>“ ‘One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a
Globe’ is a curious little pamphlet that we can commend to all
interested in astronomy and related sciences. It may not upset received
notions on the subject, but will give cause for much serious
reflection. Published by the author, Wm. Carpenter, Baltimore, Md.
Price 25 cents.”—The Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia,
July 31, 1886.</p>
<p>“Here now is an able thinker of Baltimore, Professor
<span class="sc">William Carpenter</span>, who presents the claims of
the Zetetic philosophy to be considered the leading issue of our
times …. One of the great proofs of the truth of the
philosophy is that the regular astronomers do not dare to gainsay
it …. They are well aware there is no South
pole …. Prof. <span class="sc">Carpenter</span>, in a
treatise that has reached us, furnishes 100 proofs that the earth is
flat, and while we cannot say that we understand all of them we
appreciate the earnestness of his appeals to the moral people of the
community to rise up and overthrow the miserable system of error that
is being forced upon our children in the public schools, vitiating the
very foundations of knowledge. What issue can be more noble or
inspiring than Truth vs. Error? Here is an issue on which there can be
no trifling or compromise. In the great contest between those who hold
the earth is flat and they who contend that it is round, let the flats
assert themselves.”—Milwaukee Sentinel, Aug., 1886. [From a
long article, “The Great Zetetic Issue.”] <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb33" href="#pb33" name="pb33">33</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">LETTERS TO PROFESSOR GILMAN, OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first dateline">71 Chew Street, Baltimore, September 10,
1886.</p>
<p>Prof. Gilman, Johns Hopkins University—Sir: On the 21st ultimo
I wrote to ask you if you received the pamphlet, which I left for you
at the University twelve months ago, entitled “One Hundred Proofs
that the Earth is Not a Globe,” and, if so, that you would kindly
give me your opinion concerning it. I write, now, to ask you if you
received my letter. I am quite sure that you will consider that the
importance of the subject fully warrants the endeavor on my part to
gain the views which may be entertained by you respecting it. The fifth
edition will soon be called for, and anything you may urge—for or
against—I shall be happy to insert in the “appendix.”
I send, herewith, a copy of the fourth edition of the pamphlet.</p>
<p class="signed">Yours sincerely, William Carpenter.</p>
<p class="dateline">71 Chew Street, Baltimore, October 7, 1886.</p>
<p>Professor Gilman—Dear Sir: I am now preparing the appendix for
the fifth edition of my “One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not
a Globe,” and I should be glad to receive your opinion of this
work to insert in the said appendix. I can offer you from a few lines
to a page, or two if necessary. Of course, if this work as a whole be a
fraud, it must be fraudulent in all its parts; and each one of the
“hundred proofs” must contain a fallacy of some kind or
other, and the thing would justify your disapprobation—expressed
in few words or many. If, on the other hand, the work is what it
professes to be, it will certainly claim your approval. Yours
sincerely, W. Carpenter.</p>
<p class="dateline">71 Chew Street, Baltimore, October 14, 1886.</p>
<p>Prof. Gilman—Dear Sir: A week ago I wrote you a letter to tell
you that I should be glad to receive your opinion of the “Hundred
Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe,” of which work 5,000 copies
are now in circulation. I wrote this work (26 pages) in one week,
without neglecting my daily business: surely, you can reply to it in a
week from this time. I will give you from one to four pages, if you
wish that amount of space, and send you fifty copies, if you desire to
have them, without putting you to the slightest expense. I will even
take any suggestion you please to make as to the title which shall be
given to this extra edition of my work containing your reply or
opinions. I should be sorry to be under the necessity of printing this
letter, with others, in my next edition, in the place of any such reply
or expression of opinion; for I feel sure there is no one in Baltimore
who is more capable of giving an opinion on this great subject.
Trusting to hear from you in a few days, I am, Dear Sir, Yours
truly,</p>
<p class="signed">William Carpenter.</p>
<p class="dateline">71 Chew Street, Baltimore, October 22, 1886.</p>
<p>Prof. Gilman—Sir: This is the fifth letter—and the
last—to you, asking you for an expression of your opinion
concerning the “One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a
Globe.” Which would you prefer—to see my words, or yours,
in print? I give you a week in which to decide.</p>
<p class="signed">Truly, William Carpenter. <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb34" href="#pb34" name="pb34">34</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, OF BALTIMORE.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first">We are indebted to “Scribner’s
Monthly” for the following remarks concerning this
institution:—“By the will of Johns Hopkins, a merchant of
Baltimore, the sum of $7,000,000 was devoted to the endowment of a
University and a Hospital, $3,500,000 being devoted to each. This is
the largest single endowment ever made to an institution of learning in
this country. To the bequest no burdensome conditions were
attached.”… “The Physiological Laboratory of the
Johns Hopkins has no peer in this country, and the other laboratories
few equals and no superiors.”</p>
<p>In the First Annual Report of the University (1876) we
read:—“Early in the month of February, 1874, the Trustees
of the University having been apprised by the Executors of Johns
Hopkins, of the endowment provided by his will, took proper steps for
organization and entering upon the practical duties of the trust, and
addressed themselves to the selection of a President of the University.
With this view the Trustees sought the counsel and advice of the heads
of several of the leading seats of learning in the country, and, upon
unanimous recommendation and endorsement from these sources, the choice
fell upon Mr. <span class="sc">Daniel C. Gilman</span>, who, at the
time, occupied the position of President of the University of
California.</p>
<p>“Mr. Gilman is a graduate of Yale College, and for several
years before his call to California, was a Professor in that
institution, taking an active part in the organization and development
of ‘The Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College,’ at
New Haven. Upon receiving an invitation to Baltimore, he resigned the
office which he had held in California since 1872, and entered upon the
service of The Johns Hopkins University, May 1,
1875.”—<span class="sc">Galloway Cheston.</span></p>
<p>“In the hunt for truth, we are not first hunters, and then
men; we are first and always men, then
hunters.”—<span class="sc">D. C. Gilman</span>, Oct.,
1883.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>The “One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe”
have been running around within the observation of the master huntsman
and his men for a year or more: now let the hunters prove themselves to
be men; and the men, hunters. It is impossible to be successful hunters
for Truth, if Error be allowed to go scot-free. Nay, it is utterly
impossible for the Johns Hopkins University to answer the purpose of
its founder if its hunters for Truth do not first hunt Error with their
hounds and hold it up to ridicule, and then, and always, keep a
watchful eye for the Truth lest they should injure it by their hot
haste or wound it with their weapons. Prof. <span class="sc">Daniel C.
Gilman</span>, we charge you that the duties of your office render it
imperative that, sooner or later, you lead your men into the field
against the hundred proofs, to show the world that they are hunters
worthy of the name—if, in your superior judgment, you decide that
there is Error to be slain—or, show that your hunters are worthy
of the better name of men, by inducing them to follow and sustain you,
out of the beaten track, in your endeavors to uphold God’s Truth,
if, in your superior judgment, you tell them, “There is a Truth
to be upheld!”</p>
<p class="xd25e1300">[End of the Appendix to the Fifth Edition. Nov. 9,
1886.] <span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb35" href="#pb35" name=
"pb35">35</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">PROFESSOR PROCTOR’S PROOFS.</h2>
<div class="lgouter">
<p class="line">“A proof, a proof!” cries Student Brown;
says Proctor, “Very well,</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">If that is all you want, indeed, I’ve
plenty I can tell:</p>
<p class="line">But really I have scarcely time, or patience, now, to
do it;</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">You ought to know the earth’s a globe,
then, as a globe you’d view it.</p>
<p class="line">I knew it long ago: in truth, ’twas taught me in
my cot,</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And, then, too old was I to doubt—too
young to say ’twas not!”</p>
<p class="line">“And you have never questioned it?”
“Why should I, now, friend Brown?</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">I took it all for granted, just as daddy laid
it down.</p>
<p class="line">And as my duty clearly was,—no other way I saw
it—</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And that’s the reason why, of course, a
globe I always draw it.</p>
<p class="line">And so you want a proof! Ah ha: just cross the broad
Atlantic,</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And then a proof so strong you’ll have,
with joy ’twill send you frantic!”</p>
<p class="line">“You mean, that I shall see the ships come round
the old earth’s side—</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And up—and o’er the ‘watery
hill’—as into view they glide!</p>
<p class="line">No, Proctor, no: you say, yourself, the earth so vast
in size is,</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">The surface seems a level one—indeed,
to sight, it rises.</p>
<p class="line">And ships, when coming into view, seem ‘bearing
down upon us.’</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">No, Proctor, let us have a proof—no,
no, come—mercy on us!”</p>
<p class="line">“Well, Brown, I’ve proofs that serve to
show that earth, indeed, a ball ‘tis;</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">But if you won’t believe
them—well, not mine but yours the fault is.</p>
<p class="line">Why, everybody, surely, knows a planet must be
round,</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And, since the earth a planet is, its shape
at once is found.</p>
<p class="line">We know it travels round the sun, a thousand miles a
minute,</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And, therefore, it must be a globe: a flat
earth couldn’t spin it.</p>
<p class="line">We know it on its axis turns with motion
unperceived;</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And therefore, surely, plain it is, its shape
must be believed.</p>
<p class="line">We know its weight put down in tons exactly as we
weigh’d it;</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And, therefore, what could clearer be, if we
ourselves had made it?</p>
<p class="line">We know its age—can figures lie?—its
size—its weight—its motion;</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And then to say, ‘’tis all my
eye,’ shows madness in the notion.</p>
<p class="line">Besides, the other worlds and suns—some cooling
down—some hot!—</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">How can you say, you want a proof, with all
these in the pot?</p>
<p class="line">No, Brown: just let us go ahead; don’t interfere
at all;</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">Some other day I’ll come and bring
proof that earth’s a ball!”</p>
<p class="line">“No, Proctor, no:” said Mr. Brown;
“’tis now too late to try it:—</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">A hundred proofs are now put down (and you
cannot deny it)</p>
<p class="line">That earth is not a globe at all, and does not move
through space:</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And your philosophy I call a shame and a
disgrace.</p>
<p class="line">We have to interfere, and do the best that we are
able</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">To crush your theories and to lay the facts
upon the table.</p>
<p class="line">God’s Truth is what the people need, and men will
strive to preach it;</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And all your efforts are in vain, though you
should dare impeach it.</p>
<p class="line">You’ve given half your theory up; the people have
to know it:—</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">You smile, but, then, your book’s
enough: for that will plainly show it.</p>
<p class="line">One-half your theory’s gone, and, soon, the other
half goes, too:</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">So, better turn about, at once, and show what
you can do.</p>
<p class="line">Own up (as people have to do, when they have been
deceived),</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">And help the searcher after Truth of doubt to
be relieved.</p>
<p class="line">‘The only amaranthine flower is
virtue;’—don’t forget it—</p>
<p class="line xd25e1452">‘The only lasting treasure,
<span class="sc">Truth</span>:’—and never strive to let
it.”</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN name="pb36" href="#pb36" name=
"pb36">36</SPAN>]</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="div1 appendix"><span class="pagenum">[<SPAN href="#toc">Contents</SPAN>]</span>
<div class="divHead">
<h2 class="main">ODDS AND ENDS.</h2></div>
<div class="divBody">
<p class="first">“We do not possess a single evident proof in
favor of the rotation”—of the earth—“around its
axis.”—Dr. Shœpfer.</p>
<p>“To prove the impossibility of the revolution of the earth
around the sun, will present no difficulty. We can bring self-evident
proof to the contrary.”—Dr. Shœpfer.</p>
<p>“To reform and not to chastise, I am afraid is
impossible …. To attack views in the abstract without
touching persons may be safe fighting, indeed, but it is fighting with
shadows.”—Pope.</p>
<p>“Both revelation and science agree as to the shape of the
earth. The psalmist calls it the ‘round world,’ even when
it was universally supposed to be a flat extended
plain.”—Rev. Dr. Brewer. [What a mistake!?]</p>
<p>“If the earth were a perfect sphere of equal density
throughout, the waters of the ocean would be absolutely
level—that is to say, would have a spherical surface everywhere
equidistant from the earth’s centre.”—English
“Family Herald,” February 14, 1885<span class="corr" id="xd25e1571" title="Source: !">.</span></p>
<p>“The more I consider them the more I doubt of all systems of
astronomy. I doubt whether we can with certainty know either the
distance or magnitude of any star in the firmament; else why do
astronomers so immensely differ, even with regard to the distance of
the sun from the earth? some affirming it to be only three, and others
ninety millions of miles.”—Rev. John Wesley, in his
“Journal.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know that I ever hinted heretofore that the
aeronaut may well be the most sceptical man about the rotundity of the
earth. Philosophy imposes the truth upon us; but the view of the earth
from the elevation of a balloon is that of an immense terrestrial
basin, the deeper part of which is that directly under one’s
feet. As we ascend, the earth beneath us seems to recede—actually
to sink away—while the horizon gradually and gracefully lifts a
diversified slope, stretching away farther and farther to a line that,
at the highest elevation, seems to close with the sky. Thus, upon a
clear day, the aeronaut feels as if suspended at about an equal
distance between the vast blue oceanic concave above and the equally
expanded terrestrial basin below.”—Mr. Elliott,
Baltimore.</p>
<p>In the “Scientific American,” for April 27, 1878, is a
full report of a lecture delivered at Berlin, by Dr. Shœpfer,
headed “Our Earth Motionless,” which concludes
thus:—“The poet Goethe, whose prophetic views remained
during his life wholly unnoticed, said the following: ‘In
whatever way or manner may have occurred this business, I must still
say that I curse this modern theory of cosmogony, and hope that
perchance there may appear in due time some young scientist of genius
who will pick up courage enough to upset this universally disseminated
delirium of lunatics. The most terrible thing in all this is that one
is obliged to repeatedly hear the assurance that all the physicists
adhere to the same opinion on this question. But one who is acquainted
with men knows how it is done: good, intellectual, and courageous heads
adorn their mind with such an idea for the sake of its probability;
they gather followers and pupils, and thus form a literary power; their
idea is finally worked out, exaggerated<span class="corr" id="xd25e1580" title="Source: .">,</span> and with a passionate impulse is
forced upon society; hundreds and hundreds of noble-minded, reasonable
people who work in other spheres, desiring to see their circle esteemed
and dear to the interests of daily life, can do nothing better or more
reasonable than to leave to other investigators their free scope of
action, and add their voice in the benefit of that business which does
not concern them at all. This is termed the universal corroboration of
the truthfulness of an idea!’ ”</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="transcribernote">
<h2 class="main">Colophon</h2>
<h3 class="main">Availability</h3>
<p class="first">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the <SPAN class="seclink xd25e45"
title="External link" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/license" rel=
"license">Project Gutenberg License</SPAN> included with this eBook or
online at <SPAN class="seclink xd25e45" title="External link" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/" rel="home">www.gutenberg.org</SPAN>.</p>
<p>This eBook is produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at <SPAN class="exlink xd25e45" title="External link" href="http://www.pgdp.net/">www.pgdp.net</SPAN>.</p>
<h3 class="main">Metadata</h3>
<table class="colophonMetadata">
<tr>
<td><b>Title:</b></td>
<td>One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Author:</b></td>
<td>William Carpenter</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Language:</b></td>
<td>English</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Original publication date:</b></td>
<td>1885</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3>Catalog entries</h3>
<table class="catalogEntries">
<tr>
<td>Related Library of Congress catalog page:</td>
<td><SPAN href="https://lccn.loc.gov/52055019" class="seclink">52055019</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Related Open Library catalog page (for source):</td>
<td><SPAN href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25597135M" class="seclink">OL25597135M</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Related Open Library catalog page (for work):</td>
<td><SPAN href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17026383W" class="seclink">OL17026383W</SPAN></td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3 class="main">Encoding</h3>
<p class="first"></p>
<h3 class="main">Revision History</h3>
<ul>
<li>2017-08-10 Started.</li>
</ul>
<h3 class="main">External References</h3>
<p>This Project Gutenberg eBook contains external references. These
links may not work for you.</p>
<h3 class="main">Corrections</h3>
<p>The following corrections have been applied to the text:</p>
<table class="correctiontable" summary=
"Overview of corrections applied to the text.">
<tr>
<th>Page</th>
<th>Source</th>
<th>Correction</th>
<th>Edit distance</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e287">N.A.</SPAN>,
<SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e947">9</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">loadstone</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">lodestone</td>
<td class="bottom">2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e510">N.A.</SPAN>,
<SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1020">14</SPAN>, <SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1115">20</SPAN>, <SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1118">20</SPAN>,
<SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1161">23</SPAN>, <SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1218">27</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">,</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">.</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e548">N.A.</SPAN>,
<SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1106">20</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">”</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e654">N.A.</SPAN>,
<SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e662">N.A.</SPAN>, <SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e682">N.A.</SPAN>, <SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e696">N.A.</SPAN>,
<SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1283">29</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">.</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e825">2</SPAN>,
<SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e833">2</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">’</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">”</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e963">10</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">PROQF</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">PROOF</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1077">18</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">ascents</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">ascends</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1226">28</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">’</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1370">32</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">‘</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1373">32</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">”</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">’</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1571">36</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">!</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">.</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="width20"><SPAN class="pageref" href="#xd25e1580">36</SPAN></td>
<td class="width40 bottom">.</td>
<td class="width40 bottom">,</td>
<td class="bottom">1</td>
</tr>
</table></div>
</div>
<SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.