362 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Dec. U, 1883. 



THE EARTH-FLATTENER'S 

 CHALLENGE. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



A LETTER from the dietetic Society points out (1) that 

 Parallax claims to have seen, not the structure of a 

 bridge, but a boat (through a telescope), six miles away, his 

 eye being close to the water's edge : his law of perspective, 

 though inconsistent with the laws of nature and observed 

 facts, is not inconsistent, it seems, " with iJds fact." I dare 

 say not. The impossible things seen by Parallax are doubt- 

 less quite consistent with his imaginary law. But to one 

 who like myself has swum in lakes and rivers in all parts 

 of the world, and in seas as still as the calmest lake, it is 

 well known that what Parallax claims to have seen he never 

 did see. True, I have not swum with " a good telescope " 

 at my eye ; but I have seen objects in the water with 

 perfect distinctness to the water's edge at a mile's distance 

 when my eyes have been six or seven inches above the 

 water; so that when I have seen the water line rise up 

 and hide those objects as my eyes have approached the 

 water level, I have known that no new law of perspective, 

 but the water's rotundity concealed them. 



would indeed have been an astounding observation if 23° 

 south latitude had been in question. But I would invite 

 the Zetetic Society (before they accept their many-named 

 founder at his own valuation) to observe that he manifestly 

 spoke falsely over this matter, since the ship in question — 

 no flyer — reached Southampton at a date mentioned in the 

 report, and she would have had to fly indeed to have 

 reached that port from 23° south in the time shown ; 

 whereas from 23" north, some 3,200 miles nearer, the 

 journey was very comfortably accomplished. 



The Zetetic Society then profiers an explanation of my 

 first problem, an explanation which is so far from even any 

 pretecice at validity that at first I was disposed to regard 

 it as a joke. Having satisfied myself that it is not so 

 meant, 1 give it, not to amuse readers (though it will) but 

 to show the utter hopelessness of any attempt to set right 

 persons who can be deceived by such ludicrous pretence of 

 reasoning. 



QuEKY. — Why, despite the enormously varying distance of the 

 sun (while yet it is day) according to their theory, the sun does not 

 vary correspondingly in apparent size. 



" His size does vary, as everybody knows, mostly in rising and 

 setting, and quite in accordance with the theory of fiatness, and on 

 the principle that a luminous body of a given diameter does not 

 subtend the same angle as a non-luminous body of the same magni- 



The Zetetic Society invites me to repeat Parallax's ex- 

 periment of firing a gun tied vertically, to see whether it is 

 or is not utterly incredible that two shots out of fifty 

 might fall back into the muzzle of the gun. I utterly 

 decline. If I missed killing myself, I should probably kill 

 someone else : I may very literally say therefore, " I'll be 

 hanged if I do." Considering, however, that thousands of 

 experiments on falling bodies show that with the most 

 delicate appliances to avoid disturbance, bodies let fall 

 within places carefully shielded from the external air have 

 not in a single instance fallen either, — exactly in the calcu- 

 lated place, or exactly below the point of suspension, or 

 any two in precisely the same place, I must be excused for 

 utterly declining to believe that two balls out of Mty Jired 

 from a gun tied i-erticaUi/, fell back into the muzzle. I 

 should have been quite sure independently of this state- 

 ment that Parallax would not stick at a trifle in the way 

 of invention ; but if he had before been known to me as 

 the original Unclothed Dweller in a Well I should still 

 have unhesitatingly rejected this story. 



With reference to the Times' note in which mention 

 was made of the Pole Star being seen from latitude 23°, 

 the representative of the Zetetic Society thinks it must 

 have been south latitude, because the North Pole is always 

 above the horizon in 23 N., "and the Times being a care- 

 fully informed and well written paper, we must infer that 

 south latitude was meant." The inference is an odd one. 

 The passage occurred under head " Naval and Military 

 Intelligence," and related to a war-ship or transport-ship 

 whose return was announced. It merely meant that on 

 such and such a day, a latitude observation of the Pole 

 Star showed the ship to have been in latitude 23°, not that 

 on that day the astounding observation was made that the 

 Pole Stai' was visible from latitude 23° : though that 



tude and at the same distance. The diagram will show also that, 

 as the sun recedes from the meridian, over a plane surface, the- 

 light, as it strikes the atmosphere, must give a larger disc." 



" Let A, B, represent the upper stratum of the atmosphere ; C, D, 

 the surface of the earth ; and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, the snn in his morning, 

 forenoon, noon, afternoon, and evening positions. It is evident that 

 when he is in the position 1, the disc of light projected upon the- 



I atmosphere at C, is considerably larger that the disc projected from. 



I the forenoon position, 2, upon the atmosphere at 7 ; and the disc at 

 7 is larger than that formed at 8, when the sun, at 3, is on the meri- 

 dian ; when at 4, the disc at 9 is again larger ; and when at 5, or in 

 the evening, the disc at 10 is again as large as at 6, or in the 

 morning position. It is evident that the above results are what 

 must of necessity occur if the sun's path, the line of atmosphere, 

 and the earth's surface, are parallel and horizontal lines. That 

 such results do constantly occur is a matter of everyday observa- 

 tion ; and we may logically deduce from it a striking argument 

 against the rotundity of the earth, and in favour of the contrary 

 conclusion, that it is horizontal. The atmosphere surrounding a 

 globe would not permit of anything like the same degree of enlarge- 

 ment of the sun when rising and setting, as we daily see in nature." 

 " With regard to the remaining three questions," proceeds the 

 representative of the Zetetic Society, " we do not think they have 

 any bearing on the subject. Parallax and his' followers do not 

 pretend to solve all the problems so as to reconcile them with his 

 doctrine. It has taken nearly three centuries to reconcile certain 

 phenomena with the theory of rotunditj-, and scores of them stil? 

 remain unreconcilable. We do not doubt that in time all such 

 questions will be solved each in its turn, so long as the premises 

 are based on data which are capable of being tested and demon- 

 strated in accordance with facts and tnith." — H. OsbiPOFF Wolfson, 

 Secretary, Zetetic Society of Great Britain. 



I propose to wait, all the same, until the Society is good 

 enough to explain why when their system puts the sun at 

 certain times in certain positions, he shvvs himself in quite 

 other positions. These questions may have no bearing on 

 the Zetetic theory : for they are reasonable and the theory 

 is not But the Zetetists must be content to wait for fur- 

 ther notice till they have a reasonable theory. 



