﻿INTRODUCTION TO "THEORETICAL ASTRONOMY." 



THE EARTH NOT A GLOBE. 



"The Earth not a Globe I" Well, we ask, "Is it a globe?" that is 

 the question. We have been taught the extraordinary dogma that the 

 Earth IS a globe; and if we had been taught that the Earth was a cone or 

 cylinder, we should, in all probability, teach oar children that it was 

 conical or cylindrical, and the next generation would have no more doubt 

 about the matter than the generality of educated people of these enlightened 

 times have that the Earth is globular. But then, toe have a right to doubt, 

 just as we have a right to know. There is a book called " That's it" 

 " recommended by eminent Clergymen " and others, in which we read as 

 follows : — " The earth is nearly round : we are accustomed to think it so, 

 " because we see round maps, and round globes. But maps and globes are 

 "made round because it is known that the Earth is so." Well then, Who 

 knows ? Can we do better than go back to the author — from whom the 

 theory takes its name — and learn what he knew of it, since astronomers 

 confessedly take the Gopernican system for granted, and trouble not 

 themselves about it? What then do we read? M. Fontenelle says 

 " Copernicus himself was very doubtful of the success of his opinion : it 

 " was a long time before he would publish it ; at length he resolved to do 

 " it, on the importunity of some people of consequence ; but the very day 

 " that they brought him the first impression of his book in print, do you 

 "know what he did 1 — he died ! He could not bear all the objections he 

 " foresaw would be made to his opinion, and wisely withdrew." So we 

 find, after all, that "people of consequence" in 1543, were much like people 

 of consequence in 1864 : they could have things pretty well their own way, 

 and send forth "opinions" right or wrong, which they laboured not to 

 form, and cared not to examine. These opinions are up and down in the 

 world now ; if, indeed, they have not lost all title even to such a name as 

 this. Opinions, indeed, I It is not long since we were looking at the new 

 brass plate which has been affixed to the outside wall of the Royal Obser- 

 vatory in Greenwich Park, which marks the height of the spot above the 

 level of the water of the Thames, and shows that there is less than two feet 

 difference between its height above the water at Greenwich and the water 

 at Liverpool. On the brass plate becoming a subject of conversation 

 amongst the bystanders (who agreed without an opposing word that 

 the said brass plate entirely overthrew the doctrines professed by the 

 astronomers themselves, making out the Earth to be level instead of 

 convex), one gentleman remarked as follows : — " Yes: it's a strange science, 

 " Astronomy ! Our forefathers used to say that the Sun went round the 

 "Earth, instead, of the Earth round the Sun /" Opinions ! Who can say that 

 he has an opinion on the matter, when the fact is that our teachers them- 

 selves are even now engaged in serious controversy as to whether the Moon 

 goes round the Earth, or the Earth round the Moon'? Who can be 

 surprised at the visitors in Greenwich Park, approaching too close to the 

 Observatory, becoming so enveloped in fog and mystery as not to know 

 that it is our astronomers who tell us that we are going round the Sun, and 

 that it was our forefathers who made use of their senses, and knew that 

 the Sun went round the Earth? It is time that people began to form 

 opinions for themselves in such matters as these. It is quite time we left 

 off making "round globes" just to help us to "think" that the earth is 

 like unto them ! — as we would make a golden calf to assist us in the worship 



