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 EDITOR.
Diurnal Rotation of the Heavens.
Editor Flaming Sword:—Permit me to recommend for your careful perusal, an article in the February (1902) number of the Popular Science Monthly, entitled "Stellar Evolution in the Light of Recent Research." If you have an atom of common sense left anent the nature and shape of the earth, it seems to me that this article must make you reconsider your present view. Especially would I advise you to closely ponder the illustration (Figure 2). I should like to see your opinion of this article, in The Flaming Sword, and how you would explain the mute witness—the illustration referred to. But of this I have but slight hope, for it would be apt to compromise the whole Koreshan theory.—J. S., Chicago, Ill.
The above communication and the article to which our attention is called, have suggested a number of thoughts that may be profitably expressed.
Passing by the spirit of intolerance and discourteous insinuations, we suggest that only an utter lack of evidences to support the popular astronomical conceptions would be likely to induce a mind to appeal to a speculative production—brought forward in defense of an utterly groundless hypothesis of evolution—as having any weight against Koreshan Universology.
The article in question was written by Professor George E. Hale, Director of the Yerkes Observatory, and champions Astronomer Keeler's theory of the spiral form of all nebulæ. But he does not attempt to prove his conclusions; he sums up probabilities only, and the kernel of his thought is that existence of solar systems runs from nebulæ to worn-out planets like the moon. The admission is frankly made that the hypothesis of La Place is entirely unsupported by any mathematical proof; that it has been variously modified to meet modern objections to it; that it is now threatened by recent attacks by Chamberlin and others; and that it may be sufficient to forsake the hypothesis in favor of the conclusions of Keeler. This is altogether quite as positive as modern so called science can make its conclusions concerning cosmogony.
We find nothing whatever in all the field of modern speculation that could possibly make us reconsider the Cosmogony of Koreshanity with any view to its modification, for the simple reason that it is the absolute truth concerning the principles and processes of creation.
We have had the pleasure of meeting both Professor Hale and Professor Keeler. They held views in common, and prior to Professor Keeler's death, they followed similar lines of research in the field of spectroscopy; their theories neither add to nor take from the value of the facts observed and photographed by tedious processes; they have discovered nothing in conflict with the demonstrated premise of the earth's concavity.
To both gentlemen, the fundamentals of the Koreshan System have been presented. In June, 1895, when the Founder of Koreshanity and the writer visited Professor Keeler at the Allegheny Observatory and discussed with him the question of the shape of the earth, he could do no better than refer to a few conclusions expressed by Astronomer Proctor in his work, "New and Old Astronomy;" he considered the theory of the earth's convexity a good working basis for astronomers, and was satisfied to let the matter rest without further examination.
In September, 1896, the writer called upon Astronomer Hale at his Observatory on Drexel Boulevard, Chicago. We laid before him our plans of accurate Geodetic Survey, and the details of experiments already performed on the water's surface. He was personally satisfied that such an air-line as we intended to survey would prove the earth to be convex, if it proved anything. As to our experiments on the Old Illinois and Michigan Canal and on the waters of Lake Michigan, he asked: "Why do you not get a number of surveyors, reporters, and scientists to go with you to the water, and settle the question once and for all, if the facts are as you say?" We replied that just such a project was the object of our visit to him; we asked him to consent to devote a few hours to the use of the telescope upon the surface of any body of still water, in company with us and others; but he replied: "Oh, I have no time for such work!"
From that time we each pursued our own lines—he with his spectroscope, telescope, and camera for views of the heavens; we with telescope and geodetic apparatus to measure the earth and test its contour. Since then we have observed many actual facts demonstrative of the concave form of the earth; the line we surveyed was a chord over a concave arc; it did not depart from the earth as a tangent, as Professor Hale anticipated. In nearly 500 specific and comparative observations, we have demonstrated absolutely that the popular conception of the earth's convexity is utterly without foundation.
The mute witnesses which have so emphatically told the story of the earth's shape, are so forceful in their testimony that nothing under the sun can change our mind concerning the form of the earth in which we live.
In view of all these emphatic evidences, think of such advice as contained in the above communication, written by one who blindly follows those whose conceit would forbid them examining the evidences of exact truth!
Professor Ritchey, of the Yerkes Observatory, fixed a common portrait camera so that its axis pointed directly to the astronomical pole of the heavens. During an exposure of about one hour, the circumpolar stars made bright trails or arcs about 15° in length. A reproduction of this photograph appears in Professor Hale's article. We presume it is suggested to us as evidence that the earth rotates diurnally. The photograph contains nothing new to us, nor to any one familiar with the phenomena of the heavens; the actual motion of the stars may be observed any clear night. All astronomers admit that so far as the phenomena of diurnal motion are concerned, it would make no difference, in accounting for the same, whether we consider the earth in motion or at rest.
But the camera silently says: "I am fixed in a stationary position upon the earth. Rays of light enter my lenticular eye of glass and implant themselves upon the filmy retina which the photographer has prepared. By means of the sensitive film I perceive and record the fact that the objects which produce moving images upon my retina, are actually in motion."
We take the testimony of the photograph for what it is worth; we examine it closely, and it affirms beyond a doubt, in agreement with a thousand other every-day witnesses, that the sphere of the heavens and not the earth, rotates on its axis once in twenty-four hours.
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the periodical's text as an editorial transcription; its claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 16, No. 23 · Apr 25, 1902 · PDF pp. 12-13