Extracted text
Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the scan. Line-break hyphenation, spacing, capitalization, and unmistakable OCR errors have been repaired; the claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
Place a tube in the form of a spyglass—but without the lenses—parallel with and by the side of a straight rail. At the visual end—the end of the tube near the eye, as it is to be used for observation—let there be a minute aperture no larger than a needle's point. At the opposite end, the objective end of the tube, locate two hair lines, one perpendicular and the other horizontal, so that in looking through the tube, longitudinally, from the aperture at the visual end, the aperture and point where the two hair lines cross will constitute a visual and longitudinal axis parallel with the rail. This may be about fourteen inches long, and about one foot from the straight rail. Somewhere, not a great way in the distance, the rail will seem to meet the line of vision as determined by the law of foreshortening. The rail cannot be seen beyond the point where the visual line and the rail appear to meet. The meeting of the visual line and the rail is not a reality, but merely a visual phenomenon.
Place, correspondingly, a like tube by the side of a concave rail, the concavity of which is eight inches to the mile, and turned toward the visual line of the tube. Instead of the two lines appearing to come together in the distance, as in the case of the straight rail and visual axis of the tube, the concave rail—which in reality curves toward the visual line—appears to curve away from the visual line just before coming into juxtaposition in the distance.
If we place a tube level with the surface of the earth,—or, for better observation, a large body of water,—with a hair line across the objective end, and look toward the horizon, we find that the horizontal hair line appears to cross the sky just above the water's horizon; that the "plane" of the earth does not touch the line indicating the apparent line of vision, as the plane of the rail touches the corresponding line as in the tube placed by its side. Now, if the visual phenomenon regarding the straight or plane surface of the rail does not agree with the phenomenon relating to the earth's surface, and the phenomenon regarding the rail curved eight inches to the mile does agree with the phenomenon regarding the earth's surface, the proof is conclusive that the earth instead of being either convex or "plane" is concave. This is the doctrine of Koreshanity regarding the cosmogony, and upon this truth the Koreshan theology is predicated.
The comprehension of the above phenomenon is an essential prerequisite to any just geometrical conclusion. It must be known that vision is the result of an impression on the cortical area of the cerebral cells, from a picture planted upon the retina of the eye—the nervous sheath which lines the inner area of the eyeball. In a study of the principles of picture-making upon the retinal coat of the eyeball, and thence upon the cerebral cortex, some closely analytical application is demanded. At this very point rest all the accuracies or inaccuracies of deduction which must constitute the groundwork of either a scientific or fallacious catena of consociation, which, in a conspiring plenum of error, manifests in the human mind what have been denominated Satan and Devil, or, in a consecution of knowledges and their application, God and Lord.
Before any definite conclusion can be arrived at concerning objects of sight as determined by their pictures upon the retina, the laws of optics must be thoroughly familiar to the mind. In placing before the reader the system of integralism embraced by Koreshanity, the physical basis of which is a material cosmogony, we herewith present a more or less complete analysis of the organs and functions of vision. The phenomenon called vision is the result of the transmission, to and fro, of energies through the pupil of the eye. The interchange of visual energy is made through a double convex lens situated in the anterior of the eyeball, immediately posterior to what is called the posterior chamber. The convexity is greater on the posterior surface of the lens, which has the effect of shortening the convergence of the penciling of the visual energy to the focal point of distribution to the retina. Through this peculiar formation of the posterior convexity, the focal point is drawn closer to the lens and farther from the retina. This provides for the broader expanse of the picture planted upon the retinal sheath.
Any picture of a given size planted upon the retina and observed in the direction of the ordinary horizontal, will diminish in size proportionally to the distance of the object. As the picture diminishes on the retinal coat, and the expanse contracts, there is a closer approximation to a point, until the distance is so great that it ceases to make the picture when the object vanishes. If the picture is broad enough to take in the front and lateral expanse, the visual point of diminution becomes a hair line across the retinal sheath corresponding to the horizon. Two rails side by side, perfectly straight and parallel with each other, when observed from a position half way between them, will seem to meet. Two rails placed side by side, being at the point of observation just the distance apart of the two straight ones, each curving toward the other eight inches to the mile, will not appear to meet but, at a farther distance than the straight rails, will seem to diverge or curve away from each other. The phenomenon is the same if the rails are placed in a corresponding relation, except that they are placed one above another, instead of side by side.
If we study the mechanism of the eye—the organ of vision—and learn to interpret its functions from the principles of physical optics, we may obviate the speculative theories which befog the mind and lead astray the inquirer after truth. If we observe, at a little distance, a pole three hundred feet in height, it makes a long picture upon the retina of the eye because its rays of incidence, as their pencils fall into the focal point through the lens, obtusely meet. The rays of incidence become more and more pointed or acute as the object passes farther from the point of observation. If we place the pole horizontally on the ground, taking a perspective and lengthwise view, though the pole is of the same length it makes a shorter picture upon the retinal coat, and a still shorter one as the pole is carried and laid upon the ground another length distant. The reason the pole seems shorter and makes a shorter picture upon the retina the farther it is distant, is because the lines of convergence from the pole—as they incide through the lens—become more acute, thereby shortening the parallax upon the retinal coat. The picture planted upon the retina (from a surface curved toward the visual axis, as in the illustration of the rail curved toward the line of vision) does not diminish in length so rapidly from the concave line, because the obtuseness of the angles of incidence does not so rapidly assume the acute angle as upon the straight surface. Because of this fact, the horizon would appear farther distant upon a concave than upon a plane surface. We maintain that this difference is geometrically and mathematically demonstrable, and upon the mathematical verity of such a demonstration we know that the earth is neither convex nor plane, but concave.
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the periodical's argument and reported observations without presenting its conclusions as independently established results. The claims remain attributed to The Flaming Sword.
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The Flaming Sword · Vol. 9, No. 3 · · PDF pp. 3-4