Earth Not a Globe

Samuel Rowbothan

Description

An experimental inquiry into the true figure of the earth, proving it a plane, without orbital or axial motion; and the only material world; its true position in the universe, comparatively recent formation, present chemical condition, and the approaching destruction by fire, etc.

Sujets

• Geology
• Geophysics
• Geocentric model
• Cosmology
• Earth
• Gravitation
• Astronomy
• Bible
• Science
• Nature
• Newton
• Flat
• Globe

Informations

• Publié par: Bahrmanou
• Publié le: 06 avril 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 29
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

E ARTH N OT A G LOBE

S AMUEL B IRLEY R OWBOTHAM 1881

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

ZETETIC AND THEORETIC DEFINED AND COMPARED

11

EXPERIMENTS DEMONSTRATING THE TRUE FORM OF STANDING WATER, AND PROVING THE EARTH TO BE A PLANE17 EXPERIMENT 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 EXPERIMENT 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 EXPERIMENT 322. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EXPERIMENT 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 EXPERIMENT 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 EXPERIMENT 627. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EXPERIMENT 7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 EXPERIMENT 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 EXPERIMENT 932. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EXPERIMENT 1036. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EXPERIMENT 1139. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EXPERIMENT 1244. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EXPERIMENT 13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 EXPERIMENT 1452. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EXPERIMENT 1554. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

THE EARTH NO AXIAL OR ORBITAL MOTION

THE TRUE FORM AND MAGNITUDE OF THE EARTH

THE TRUE DISTANCE OF THE SUN

THE SUN’S MOTION, CONCENTRIC WITH THE POLAR CENTRE

57

75

83

89

THE SUN’S PATH EXPANDS AND CONTRACTS DAILY FOR SIX MONTHS AL TERNATELY91

CAUSE OF DAY AND NIGHT, WINTER AND SUMMER; AND THE LONG AL TERNATIONS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS AT THE NORTHERN CENTRE93

CAUSE OF SUNRISE AND SUNSET

103

3

E ARTH N OT A G LOBE

S. B. Rowbotham

10 CAUSE OF SUN APPEARING LARGER WHEN RISING AND SETTING THAN AT NOONDAY107

11 CAUSE OF SOLAR AND LUNAR ECLIPSES

12 THE CAUSE OF TIDES

109

129

13 THE EARTH’S TRUE POSITION IN THE UNIVERSE; COMPARATIVELY RECENT FORMATION; PRESENT CHEMICAL CONDITION; AND APPROACHING DE STRUCTION BY FIRE143

14 EXAMINATION OF THE SOCALLED “PROOFS” OF THE EARTH’S ROTUND ITY.159 WHY A SHIP’S HULL DISAPPEARS BEFORE THE MASTHEAD. . . . . . . . 159 PERSPECTIVE ON THE SEA168. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ON THE DIMENSIONS OF OCEAN WAVES173. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HOW THE EARTH IS CIRCUMNAVIGATED.175. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LOSS OF TIME ON SAILING WESTWARD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 DECLINATION OF THE POLE STAR180. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE “DIP SECTOR”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 VARIABILITY OF PENDULUM VIBRATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 ARCS OF THE MERIDIAN187. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SPHERICITY INEVITABLE FROM SEMIFLUIDITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 DEGREES OF LONGITUDE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 “SPHERICAL EXCESS”200. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THEODOLITE TANGENT202. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TANGENTIAL HORIZON. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 STATIONS AND DISTANCES209. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GREAT CIRCLE SAILING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 MOTION OF STARS NORTH AND SOUTH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 CONTINUED DAYLIGHT IN THE EXTREME SOUTH218. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANALOGY IN FAVOUR OF ROTUNDITY224. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LUNAR ECLIPSE A PROOF OF ROTUNDITY224. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE SUPPOSED MANIFESTATION OF THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. . . 227 RAILWAYS, AND “EARTH’S CENTRIFUGAL FORCE”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 DEFLECTION OF FALLING BODIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 GOOSE ROASTING BY REVOLVING FIRE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 DIFFERENCE IN SOLAR AND SIDEREAL TIMES238. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . STATIONS AND RETROGRADATION OF PLANETS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 TRANSMISSION OF LIGHT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES240. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE PLANET NEPTUNE243. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4

E ARTH N OT A G LOBE

MOON’S PHASES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 MOON’S APPEARANCE246. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MOON TRANSPARENT248. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SHADOWS ON THE MOON251. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONCLUSION253. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15 GENERAL SUMMARY–APPLICATION–CUI BONO

16 “PARALLAX” AND HIS TEACHINGS–OPINIONS OF THE PRESS

255

289

5

I NTRODUCTION

Samuel Birley Rowbotham, under the pseudonym ‘Parallax’, lectured for two decades up and down Britain promoting his unique flat earth theory. This book, in which he lays out his world system, went through three editions, starting with a 16 page pamphlet published in 1849 and a second edition of 221 pages published in 1865. The third edition of 1881 (which had inflated to 430 pages) was used as the basis of this text.

Rowbotham was an accomplished debater who reputedly steamrollered all oppon ents, and his followers, who included many welleducated people, were equally tena cious. One of them, John Hampden, got involved in a bet with the famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace about the flat earth. An experiment which Hampden proposed didn’t resolve the issue, and the two ended up in court in 1876. The judge ruled against Hampton, who started a long campaign of legal harassment of Wallace. Row botham hints at the incident in this book.

Rowbotham believed that the earth is flat. The continents float on an infinite ocean which somehow has a layer of fire underneath it. The lands we know are surrounded by an infinite wilderness of ice and snow, beyond the Antarctic ocean, bordered by an immense circular icecliff. What we call the North Pole is in the centre of the earth.

The polar projection of the flat earth creates obvious discrepancies with known geo graphy, particularly the farther south you go. Figure 54 inadvertently illustrates this problem. The Zetetic map has a severely squashed South America and Africa, and th Australia and New Zealand in the middle of the Pacific. I think that by the 19 century people would have noticed if Australia and Africa were thousands of miles further apart than expected, let alone if Africa was wider than it was long!

The Zetetic Sun, moon, planets and stars are all only a few hundred miles above the surface of the earth. The sun orbits the north pole once a day at a constant altitude. The moon is both selfilluminated and semitransparent. Eclipses can be explained by some unknown object occulting the sun or moon. Zetetic cosmology is ‘faithbased’, based, that is, on a literal interpretation of selected Biblical quotes. Hell is exactly as advertised, directly below us. Heaven is not a state of mind, it is a real place,

E ARTH N OT A G LOBE

S. B. Rowbotham

somewhere above us. He uses Ussherian Biblical chronology to mock the concept that stars could be millions of light years away. He attacks the concept of a plurality of worlds because no other world than this one is mentioned in the Bible.

Rowbotham never adequately explains his alternative astronomy. If the Copernican theory so adequately explains planetary motions, why discard it, and what would he use in its place? What is the sun orbiting around once a day and how does it work like a spotlight, not a ‘point source’? If the moon is selfluminous, what creates its phases? If gravity appears to work here on earth, why doesn’t it apply to the celestial objects just a few hundred miles up?

To make his system work he had to throw out a great deal of science, including the scientific method itself, using instead what he calls a ‘Zetetic’ method. As far as I can see this is simply a license to employ circular reasoning (e.g., the earth is flat, hence we can see distant lighthouses, hence the earth is flat).

Zetetic Astronomyis a key work of flatearth thought, just as Donnelly’sAtlantis, the Antediluvian Worldis still considered required reading on the subject of Atlantis. If you ever have to debate the flat earth pro or con, this book is a complete agenda of each point that you’ll have to argue.

th –John Bruno Hare, June 16 , 2005.

8

P REFACE

TO

THE

SECOND

EDITION

To the various critics who reviewed unfavourably the first edition of this work, and to those also who wrote and published replies to it, my thanks are due and now re spectfully tendered. They pointed out several matters which, on proper examination, were not, as evidence, entirely satisfactory; and as my object is to discover and hold to that only which is true beyond doubt, I have omitted them in the present edition. The true business of a critic is to compare what he reads with known and provable data, to treat impartially the evidence he observes, and point out logical deficiencies and inconsistencies with first principles, but never to obtrude his own opinions. He should, in fact, at all times take the place of Astrea, the Goddess of Justice, and firmly hold the scales, in which the evidence is fairly weighed.

I advise all my readers who have become Zetetic not to be content with anything less than this; and also not to look with disfavour upon the objections of their opponents. Should such objections be well or even plausibly founded, they will only tend to free us from error, and to purify and exalt our Zetetic philosophy. In a word, let us make friends, or, at least, friendly and useful instruments of our enemies; and, if we cannot convert them to the better cause, let us carefully examine their objections, fairly meet them if possible, and always make use of them as beacons for our future guidance.

In all directions there is so much truth in our favour that we can well afford to be dainty in our selection, and magnanimous, charitable, and condescending towards those who simply believe, but cannot prove, that we are wrong. We need not seize upon every crude and illdeveloped result which offers, or only seems to offer, the slightest chance of becoming evidence in our favour, as every theorist is obliged to do if he would have his theory clothed and fit to be seen. We can afford to patiently wait, carefully weigh, and well consider every point advanced, in the full assurance that simple truth, and not the mere opinions of men, is destined, sooner or later, to have ascendancy.

“I N VERITATE VICTORIA .”—P ARALLAX .

London, September 24, 1872.