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.
"The Cellular Cosmogony is a malignant species of insanity, and when it is settled on the mind firmly is incurable. To begin with, not one adherent to this cosmogony knows enough about mathematics to even hold an argument with. Not one knows the first rudiments of geodesy or analytical geometry. They do not even know the true mathematical direction of a plumb-line. The maniacs ran a line in Florida, from a point, 4½ miles to the south, and ran a level line into the water. Of course they did; for I made an accurate computation, and found that the [surface of the sea at the?—ED.] south end of the line is 64 feet farther from the center of the earth than at the north end. The earth is not exactly round. The equator is 13 miles (13.647) higher than the poles. From Florida to the equator is uphill all the way. They ran into the side of the hill, which they could not help doing. But this rigid mathematics would all be lost on a "Koresh fake." Do not even hold an argument with any of them. You might argue a year with one. When a man disputes absolute mathematics, when every step is subjected to absolute proof, the time is worse than wasted. Let them alone.—\\\ P. S.—Why did they not run a line to the north, i. e.,* down hill?"
If the above proves offensive to our readers we desire to apologize for its insertion. It is quite insulting to all those at all interested in the Cellular Cosmogony; and ordinarily we should pay no attention to it. We do so now only because of the source from which it emanates. It may be surprising to note that it is from the pen of an eminent astronomer, in his mountain-top observatory. If it were not a private letter to a friend we should publish his name; we have been requested to withhold it.
The letter is evidently born of prejudice and unmitigated conceit. It shows to what lengths a man will go in the attempted defense of a popular fallacy. It is an example of the most consummate folly, and reminds us of the old saying: "If you cannot answer a man's arguments, call him crazy." We have no desire to retaliate along such lines; but it is perhaps due to our position to state that we are, for the sake of general scientific progress, heartily ashamed of the letter and its author! A man must be hard pressed for arguments, and desperate in realization of the force of the evidences demonstrating the cellular idea, to resort to such manifest sophistry, so utterly out of harmony and inconsistent with the system he seeks to defend. The argument has not a shadow of support, either in fact or in claim or conclusion of scientists as a class, as we will show. It is not mathematics we deny, but merely the premise of astronomical calculation and conclusion. If the premise be false, rigid mathematics guarantees that the results are equally fallacious. Let us here note that if the above were the true explanation of the Naples survey, it would be the only one; and that all the many efforts of others to overthrow the results of our geodetic work are of no avail!
We have in the above an attempt to show that a slight flattening at the poles and corresponding bulge at the equator are sufficient to cause a rectiline, tangent to a convex arc, to run into the upward slope of the side of a spheroid—there being an up-hill in one direction and a downward slope in another! It is generally conceded that the earth, possessing a diameter of 7920 miles, curves at the rate of about 8 inches to the mile. A perfect sphere of this size would curve from a given tangent exactly 7.92 inches to the mile for the first few miles. It is supposed that the equatorial diameter of the earth exceeds the polar diameter by about one two-hundred-and-ninety-fourth of its length. The reader may conceive of how small a factor such a degree of ellipticity has in producing a difference of ratio of curvature, if a round hoop 2 feet in diameter be stood upon the floor and a pressure made upon it from the top sufficient to change its vertical diameter only .0816 of an inch! It is obvious that a slight change in its curvature would be made; but it is equally obvious that the outside surface of the hoop is still convex all around; and more, if it is less convex at the flattened part, it must be more convex at the point of greatest distension; hence the earth would be more rounded in the vicinity of the equator, even in Florida, than in higher latitudes.
Either designedly or ignorantly, the author of the above letter confuses the relations of an imaginary perfect sphere and an oblate spheroid. We do not deny that 64 feet in 4½ miles is the approximate rate or amount of divergence of meridianal ellipse from the true spherical form. If the true sea-level were perfectly spherical, and there should exist an actual hill to the south of our survey station, then a rectiline starting at right angles to the direction of gravity would extend into the hill; but it could not possibly extend into the arc of the convex water level. We do not inhabit the surface of a perfect sphere, but one varying more or less from that form; and it follows as a necessary consequence that the water level in any part of the earth is neither "up" nor "down," no matter if its surface diverge from the computed spherical form 64 feet or a hundred feet in a few miles.
The astronomer in question assumes that the plumb-line is not at right angles with the water level; and that the engineer's level is not coincident with or parallel to the surface of water. In our position, which is the opposite of this, we are in agreement with the facts observed in practical work by generations of men—astronomers, physicists, and engineers of the past and present. Pertinent to the subject we make the following quotations from well known scientific works:
"The plumb-line must everywhere be perpendicular to the surface of tranquil water, and cannot therefore, everywhere point exactly toward the earth's center."—Loomis' Treatise on Astronomy.
"The surface of equal pressure in a still fluid mass is everywhere at right angles to the direction of gravity. A horizontal surface is one that is everywhere at right angles to the direction of the force of gravity."—Pressure and Balance of Fluids.
"A level surface is a surface (not a plane) which is at every point perpendicular to the plumb-line at that point. Owing to much irregularity in the distribution of the mass with respect to the form of the earth, there are many irregular deviations of the plumb-line from any one point. A level surface follows all such deviations."—Johnson's Theory and Practice of Surveying.
"Since the earth is ellipsoidal instead of spherical, it is evident that the lines of "level" on the earth's surface are affected by the earth's rotation. If this rotation were to cease, the direction of gravity would be so much changed that the Gulf of Mexico would run up the Mississippi river, because the distance from the center of the earth at the head of the river is less by some thousands of feet than the distance from the mouth of the river to the center of the earth."—Young's General Astronomy.
It is evident that the astronomer to whom we are replying, would commit a serious blunder if he were to attempt to apply his theory in an endeavor to determine the astronomical, geographical, and geocentric latitudes of any point on the surface of the earth. The astronomical level is practical and real; the geographical is from the basis of the standard spheriod; while the geocentric is almost entirely in the abstract. The astronomer in question wants to apply the principles of geocentric latitude when considering the level at any point. It is but an attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the unwary—a desperate attempt to evade the evidences of a revolutionary fact.
Our position regarding the relation of levels and plumb-lines is in accord with the most rigid principles of hydrostatics and the conclusions of the great mass of men educated in the practical sciences. It is absolutely conclusive that a straight line projected at right angles from the direction of a plumb-line, or co-incident with the level at any point, on a convex surface, would be tangent to that surface. It is equally conclusive that such a line extended over a concave surface would extend into the surface at a distance proportionate to the altitude of the line at the starting point.
In the projection of the air line at Naples, Florida, not only did the line, starting 10 feet and 8 inches above the water, converge with that surface in a little over 4 miles, but the approximate ratio of approach of the earth and the line was 8 inches to the mile,—a ratio maintained in exact measurement, at more than 20 different points along the route of survey. Rigid mathematics applied to the basis of such a survey makes the earth's concave curvature absolutely conclusive. It is such "rigid mathematics" as this that the astronomer in question wishes to deny and evade.
If there were an actual up-hill slope of 64 feet in 4½ miles to the south of Naples, Florida, it would be quite apparent to the naked eye, and markedly so if accurately observed by means of scientific instruments. 64 feet in 4½ miles would subtend an angle of 9' 15". The dip of the horizon from an elevation of 10 feet from the water level is only about 3'. It is obvious that the up-hill slope of 64 feet in 4½ miles would extend in the telescopic field at least 6' of arc above the cross-hair of the levelled transit; and the corresponding down-hill slope toward the north would manifest a dip of the sea line below the cross-hair, to the extent of the usual 3'+9' 15"=12' 15"!
No one in his normal and unintoxicated state ever saw such an abnormal slope to the circle of the water horizon. The transit instrument that would persist in showing such relations of the cross-hair to the circle of the horizon should be discarded by the engineer or surveyor as useless and sadly in need of correction or repair; and the mind that persists in the conception of such a funny looking horizon anywhere in the world, is likewise sadly in need of adjustment!
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The Flaming Sword · Vol. 18, No. 10 · · PDF pp. 12-13