Makch 9, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



151 



(J^ur ^3nralior Corner. 



FLAT EARTH v. GLORK. 



AVAILING myself of the permission vouchsafed me at the end 

 of twelve years' patient appeal for a hearing, I now most 

 teadily aud tliankfullv present myself as tho champion of a cause 

 which, for the first 5,500 years, was never doubted or disputed bv 

 the grandest intellects that the world has ever given birth to. It 

 is not, perhaps, so much out of justice to me as to themselves that 

 has influenced my opponents to acconl me the privilege of stating 

 my case and allowing both sides to be heard. Sir William Thomp- 

 son said, " 1 maintain that science is bound by the everlasting law 

 of honour to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly 

 presented to it." And Mr. Charles' Koade, in a letter to the Daily 

 Telegraph some months ago, declared : " Facts should always be 

 faced. The champion of truth neither shirks nor succumbs. Kither 

 he lets hostile facts convert him, or he meets them with more facts 

 and weightier. The same with arguments ; to mistake, or even 

 understate, an opponent's case, is the practice of the many respect- 

 able rogues controversy breeds ; but it is more cunning than wise, 

 for these are the known arts of falsehood, and truth gains nothing 

 by them." 



Now, I presume I may take for granted the permission to conduct 

 my case according to rr.y own judgment as to what is best under 

 the conditions specified, and I claim the right to be calmly heard 

 and fully understood before I am interrupted by attempts to draw 

 me from my own line of argnment, or am to be told that no more 

 can be heard upon the subject, as soon as it is seen that tho issue of 

 the case is likely to be unfavourable to the professors. 



I also wish it to bo distinctly understood that I most respectfully 

 decline to be treated as if on my defence, or to allow those to be my 

 judges who have for .300 years proved themselves incapable of 

 forming a correct opinion on the subject. In this discussion I 

 occupy the position of plaintiff, and I place my opponents at the 

 bar. I specifically charge them with having set aside a system 

 of the most perfect cosmogony, ■which was designed by the 

 Creator Himself, and never doubted or disputed by tho 

 profoundest philosophers of the first 5,000 vears, and having 

 placed in its stead a whimsical hypothe.'^is and a baseless fiction, 

 which the most learned professors of modem times have never pre- 

 tended to explain, or ventured for one instant to defend. There is 

 not a single fact to which any honest appeal can be made which 

 has not given the lie to the globular theorists. In one of the papers 

 of the J/irror, dated May 16, 1780, we read : — " In every art and 

 science, practitioners complain how often they are deceived by 

 specious theories and delusive speculation. Learned men, in the 

 solitude of their studies, are apt to imagine that nothing they can 

 reconcile to their own ideas upon paper can fail to be evinced by 

 actual experiment, or to be reduced into easy and constant 

 practice. But those who attempt to apply the doctrine to 

 the fact too often find that what was infallible in the brain 

 «f the demonstrator is sadly fallacious in the hands of 

 him who endeavours to illustrate it by an appeal to 

 fact." Dr. Scott, writing on the Newtonian philosophy, soundly 

 remarks, " I think it necessary to observe that the fallacy 

 by which our celebrated philosopher imposed first on himself and 

 afterwards on the world, proceeded from his having inconsiderately 

 beheved th.it there were powers in nature which do not exist, and, 

 consequently, his conclusions, though formally and mathematically 

 tme, were materially and physically false ; for nothing can bo in- 

 ferred from nonentity but nothing ; and this was his case." This 

 language exactly describes my charge against the doctrines 

 of Sir Isaac Newton. If the earth is really the sphere his 

 disciples contend for, it must have a demonstrable curvature 

 on some part of its surface, either on land or water. Of 

 this. Sir Isaac should have been positively certain before he 

 wrote a single line of his " Principia." Ho simply delineated 

 his figures according to tho fictitious data of his predecessor, 

 Kepler. But a structure can never have any permanent stability 

 when erected on an insecure or disproportioned frjuiulation. Sooner 

 or later its weakness is sure to betray itself. And to persist in 

 calling that a " globe " which practical measurements prove to bo 

 a plane may sound very scientific and learned, but it is shamefully 

 at variance with the truth. 



Newton's followers have blindly adhered to his teaching, but 

 never have dared to justify it by an appeal to facts, or even to state 

 the premises from which he set out. This is the dilemma in which 

 I leave my opponents. I remain master of the situation till they 

 can give me something more than mere assertion, or the frothy 

 opinions of some of his learned dupes". In my next week's 

 article I will describe the geometry of the circular plane 

 and the extraordinary precision and harmony of the solar circuits, 



so that I trust every impartial and unprejudiced reader will be con- 

 vinced that no human ingenuity, or skill, or conception could pos- 

 sibly have formulated or devised such a system, which the modem 

 theorists have ruthlessly abandoned for the sake of tho most irra- 

 tional and fictitious conceit to which the mind of man over was a 

 slave. 



It would greatly assist my explanation if the MS. diagram 

 might appear with my next article. I have made it as simple as I 

 possibly could, for fear of trespassing on the space afforded me. 



John Hami'Dkn. 



Mr. Hampden shall have weekly, for a reasonable time, from a 

 column to a column and a-half (on the average), toexplain his theory, 

 with such illustrations as he maj" need. I accede to his request 

 that ho should be calmly heard without any comment or inter- 

 ruption whatever, provided he will, on his jiart, calmly 

 explain his views without comment on those more generally 

 accepted. If he proves his own, these last will of course be 

 proved unworthy of credit. It may bo well for Mr. Hampden to 

 say how much spaco he will require to fully state and explain 

 his views. If after that he shonld push himself off the board 

 by wasting space in denunciation, ho would not, I trust, blame 

 Knowledge. He has not, as yet, got on very fur with the state- 

 ment of his views. With regard to Mr. Hampden's chart of the 

 earth, to which he ascribes high pecuniary value, I can only say 

 that I wish to publish nothing of his which ho does not voluntarily 

 offer. R. P. 



ArcoRMNG to a report by the Board of Trade on the Bills of the 

 Session, there are 106 applications for i)rovisional orders relating 

 to electric lighting, the capital proposed being ,1:2,752,778. Ac- 

 cording to the list of provisional orders originally apjilied for, 

 there were 152 applicants. Comparing this with the Board's report, 

 it will be seen that of this number 40 have allowed the matter to 

 drop. 



At the Stanley Show of 1882, the National Arms Company of 

 Birmingham exhibited a front-steering tricycle. This machine was 

 distinguished by having a new double-driving arrangement, which 

 consisted of two screws working on hook joints, the whole arrange- 

 ment being contained in an oval gun-metal receptacle in the centre 

 of the axle. The machine was admirably made, and commanded 

 a great deal of attention and a good sale. Very recently it was 

 announced that tho National Arms Company wero in liquidation. 

 We are pleased to hear that a Limited Company has boon formed 

 for the purpose of carrying on the make of tricycles for which the 

 late company had become celebrated. 



Not long ago there arrived in London in sound condition a large 

 consignment of New Zealand mutton and beef. P'ull 2t,000 legs and 

 shoulders of the former were cast on the market one morning, yet 

 the most searching inquiry among probable consumers of tho Anti- 

 podean meat fails to elicit a trace of its ultimate destination as 

 food. I have interrogated various butchers, but none of 

 them have seen this meat, and all agree that their customers 

 would never buy it. Some say that East-end butchers 

 "clear" the market for a "low-price" trade; others opine 

 that it goes to the suburbs, but all affect utter ignorance as 

 to the precise way in which this mysterious meat has gone into 

 consumption. It is a suspicious fact, certainly, that certain 

 butchers who formerly had offal in abundance, are now innocent of 

 such profitless accessories to tho trade, and those who keep animals 

 suffer great inconvenience. If it is gently hinted to one of these 

 purveyors that Colonial carcases come without offal, and that this 

 perhaps accounts for the present scarcity in some quarters of the 

 special dainties of cat and dog, he turns virtuously indignant, and 

 angrily repels any base and insulting in.iinuation on your part that 

 possibly the key to the curious enigma may be found in Australian 

 meat. There is an obvious wrong somewhere. Jesting aside, the 

 enormous demand for butcher's meat in this country renders con- 

 siirnments like that of the Sorato a mere drop in the ocean. The 

 unfortunate part of the matter is that so much Colonial moat is 

 consumed by persons ignorant of its origin, that the poj)ularization 

 of Antipodean beef and mutton is, pro lunto, checked, and the 

 public at large receives no benefit whatever from the im- 

 portation of meat at 6d. or 7d. a pound. Now, it is well 

 understood by those acquainted with tho Colonial Pastoralists 

 that directly they can distinctly see the way to a general popular 

 demand in Great Britain for Colonial meat, tho necessary organi- 

 sation for sending a really adequate and regiilar supply will be 

 forthcoming, and then, of course, the retailers will be compelled to 

 sell at a reasonable profit and price. At present the butchers' hole- 

 and-corner policy — equally selfish and shortsighted — is postponing 

 the time when the seventy or eighty millions of Australian sheep 

 will be really as much ours as though they fed in English pastures. 

 — P. R. 



