One Hundred Proofs That the Earth Is Not a Globe

Part 1

A Challenge to the JOHNS HOPKINS University

ONE HUNDRED PROOFS THAT THE EARTH IS NOT A GLOBE.

Dedicated to RICHARD A. PROCTOR, Esq. "The Greatest Astronomer of the Age."

By WM. CARPENTER, 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.

"UPRIGHT, DOWNRIGHT, STRAIGHTFORWARD."

BALTIMORE: Printed and Published by the Author, No. 71 Chew Street 1885.

TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. Five Copies, Postage Paid, for One Dollar. 5th Edition: 6th Thousand.

INDEX.

1 The aeronaut sees for himself. 2 Standing water level. 3 Surveyors' "allowance." 4 Flow of Rivers--the Nile. 5 Lighthouses--Cape Hatteras. 6 The sea-shore.--"Coming up." 7 A trip down Chesapeake Bay. 8 The model globe useless. 9 The sailor's level charts. 10 The mariners' compass. 11 The southern circumference. 12 Circumnavigation of the Earth. 13 Meridians are straight lines. 14 Parallels of latitude--circles. 15 Sailing down and underneath. 16 Distance round the South. 17 Levelness required by man. 18 The "level" of the astronomers. 19 Half the globe is cut off, now! 20 No "up" or "down" in nature? 21 The "spherical lodestone." 22 No falsehoods wanted! 23 No proof of "rotundity." 24 A "most complete" failure. 25 The first Atlantic Cable. 26 Earth's "curvature." 27 Which end goes down? 28 A "hill of water." 29 Characteristics of a globe. 30 Horizon--level with the eye. 31 Much too small a globe. 32 Vanishing point of objects. 33 We are not "fastened on." 34 Our "antipodes."--a delusion. 35 Horizon a level line. 36 Chesapeake Bay by night. 37 Six months day and night. 38 The "Midnight Sun." 39 Sun moves round the Earth. 40 Suez Canal--100 miles--level. 41 The "true level."--a curve. 42 Projectiles--firing east or west. 43 Bodies thrown upwards. 44 Firing in opposite direction. 45 Astronomer Royal of England. 46 An utterly meaningless theory. 47 Professor Proctor's cylinder. 48 Proctor's false perspective. 49 Motion of the clouds. 50 Scriptural proof--a plane. 51 The "Standing Order." 52 More ice in the south. 53 Sun's accelerated pace, south. 54 Balloons not left behind. 55 The Moon's beams are cold. 56 The Sun and Moon. 57 Not Earth's shadow at all. 58 Rotating and revolving. 59 Proctor's big mistake. 60 Sun's distance from Earth. 61 No true "measuring-rod." 62 Sailing "round" a thing. 63 Telescopes--"hill of water." 64 The laws of optics--Glaisher. 65 "Dwelling" upon error. 66 Ptolemy's predictions. 67 Canal in China--700 miles. 68 Mr. Lockyer's false logic. 69 Beggarly alternatives. 70 Mr. Lockyer's suppositions. 71 North Star seen from S. lat. 72 "Walls not parallel!" 73 Pendulum experiments. 74 "Delightful uncertainty." 75 Outrageous calculations. 76 J. R. Young's Navigation. 77 "Tumbling over." 78 Circumnavigation--south. 79 A disc--not a sphere. 80 Earth's "motion" unproven. 81 Moon's motion east to west. 82 All on the wrong track. 83 No meridianal "degrees." 84 Depression of North Star. 85 Rivers flowing up-hill? 86 100 miles in five seconds. 87 Miserable makeshifts. 88 What holds the people on. 89 Luminous objects. 90 Practice against theory. 91 Unscientific classification. 92 G. B. Airy's "suppositions." 93 Astronomers give up theory. 94 School-room "proofs" false. 95 Pictorial proof--Earth a plane. 96 Laws of perspective ignored. 97 "Rational suppositions." 98 It is the star that moves. 99 Hair-splitting calculation. 100 How "time" is lost or gained.

INTRODUCTION.

"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" 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.

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 FOR US. 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." 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.

ONE HUNDRED PROOFS THAT EARTH IS NOT A GLOBE.

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 horizon, 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 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 NOT 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!

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