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PRIVATE EDITORIAL WORKING DRAFT — lightly normalized transcription. Historical claims below are attributed to The Flaming Sword and are not independently verified.
EDITOR FLAMING SWORD:—If the Lick telescope had been mounted at right angles to a plumb-line, 10 feet and 8 inches above the earth’s surface, and accurately leveled, as was the first section of your Rectilineator at Naples, Florida, would not the line of sight have struck the water at about four miles away?
You say in the CELLULAR COSMOGONY, page 166, that we cannot see across the hollow globe “because the atmospheres intervene.” Do not telescopes have a known diameter power of increasing our line of vision? And cannot the refractive power of the atmospheres which prevent our seeing across the globe be determined as of a given ratio? At what distance in an average clear atmosphere would vision through our most powerful telescopes come to the vanishing-point? The apparent size of the sun, the distance to which you say is about 1,000 miles, is greatly increased by one of these telescopes. Why cannot a terrestrial object the size of the sun be seen on the earth’s surface 1,000 miles from the telescope? If because the air is more dense near the surface, then what is the ratio of the denseness? And how far could an object the size of the sun be seen on the surface, appearing as large as the sun does through the telescope?
These questions are incited by Copernican followers, who insist that with our powerful telescopes we could see cities a thousand miles away if we were living on a concave surface.—D. E. S., Santa Ana, Cal.
The public looks upon the telescope as a miracle-worker; it is supposed that it should cover the expanse of the earth’s surface embracing a thousand or more miles radius, if it is concave. The telescope is much misunderstood by the people at large; misapprehension of its capabilities and ignorance of the laws of foreshortening have led many minds to formulate what they consider to be formidable objections against the Koreshan idea of the earth’s contour. We have never yet met a scientist of the old school who was able to define the principles of geolinear foreshortening. Many so called scientific minds have never heard of the term, and none of them have the slightest conception in the line of truth, as to how the horizon is formed. They suppose that the horizon is simply the apex of the convex arc, to which every horizontal line of vision is tangent. In the presentations of modern astronomy as related to the subject of the earth’s form, not a single principle of geolinear foreshortening is set forth. The laws of foreshortening are completely ignored—and yet a knowledge of these laws is absolutely essential to a correct interpretation of the phenomena of earth and sky.
The horizon is the vanishing-line of lateral vision; it is formed at a distance proportionate to the altitude of observation, because of the rapid ratio of apparent contraction of the geolinear extense. Art proves that the horizon is the vanishing-line. No artist can project upon a plane surface what he observes in extense without using the vanishing-line as his reference line. He applies the principles of geolinear foreshortening, and contracts his image of the surface of the landscape or waterscape according to a definite ratio of contraction from a given view-point; and his horizon line is the limit of his picture of the surface, just as the horizon line on the earth is the limit of his view of the surface—not because the earth is convex, but because the principles of foreshortening make the limit inevitable on a concave surface. If the scientist does not like this application of the principles employed by the artist, let him revise the principles of projection if he can!
The vanishing-line constitutes a barrier, as it were, to the view of the more distant surface; it cuts off the lower portions of objects which rise above the surface beyond the vanishing line. At the vanishing-line the earth and sky seem to meet. By virtue of the principles of foreshortening, the sky appears to be a great dome; we see only so much of the sky at any one time as lies above the horizon. In the field of unaided vision, a circle of the earth, the horizon-line, and the sky appear, and their apparent relations may be determined in terms of degrees, minutes, and seconds. Apply the telescope, and what is the result? Everything that appears in the telescopic field is magnified in proportion to the power, but the relations remain unchanged, with this difference, so far as the earth is concerned: The vanishing-line is extended some distance beyond that apparent to the unaided eye, but in the telescope the same ratio of geolinear foreshortening obtains. Why? Because all that the telescope does is to increase the angles of the lines of light which enter the pupil of the eye, and consequently, to increase the area of the image of any object on the retinal surface. It restores to view such objects as are situated on the surface between the horizon of the unaided vision and the telescopic horizon, but no farther; and the reason why any object on the earth’s surface at a distance of 1,000 miles, whether large or small, would be utterly invisible through the telescope, is because it is beyond the telescopic horizon.
In open space, if the atmosphere were perfectly clear, an object sufficiently bright could be seen by means of a telescope of 1,000 diameters, 1,000 times as far as with the naked eye. In such a case there would be but one factor of perspective operative, and that is vertical perspective; but it is entirely different in the case of an object on or near the earth’s surface; for there are the factors of perspective and geolinear foreshortening, and visual curvilineation which no telescope can overcome. In the consideration of the subject of the visibility of objects on the earth, the principles of geolinear foreshortening must be applied; and when they are applied, we discover that the vanishing-line on the earth’s surface stands as a practical barrier which renders all objects at great distances on the earth absolutely invisible, even if the telescopes of the Lick Observatory and the Yerkes Observatory were employed. It is not a question of density of the atmosphere; it is a question of foreshortening or apparent contraction of the geolinear extense—that is, the horizontal earthline.
Seeing across the hollow globe is out of the question. The atmosphere absorbs visual substance as well as the substance of light. The reason why objects in the heavens are visible is that they are luminous, and they are within our atmosphere. The atmosphere in which we exist is essential to vision. We cannot see into the atmosphere of hydrogen for the simple reason that light, as we know it, is not propagated in the sea of hydrogen. The telescope does not pierce the atmosphere beyond the normal visual rays; our own atmosphere is the limit of upward vision, and it is the limit of light such as we can perceive. In considering the function of the telescope, this fact must be borne in mind: That the power of the telescope is in itself, not beyond it; the wonder is performed between the object-glass and the eye, or rather in the eye, by the help of the telescope. The telescope is merely an aid to vision; and after all, it is the eye that perceives the telescopic image.
If the Lick telescope had been mounted as suggested, at Naples, Florida, the line of vision extending along the axis of the telescope and outward into space, would have followed the same course as a line projected by means of a common transit instrument. The visual lines curve away from the earth line at a definite ratio; hence, the telescopic line would not have extended into the water as did the line surveyed by mechanical means, but would have extended above the water, thereby giving the appearance of the depression of the horizon to the extent of several minutes of a degree. If the visual lines were straight; if there were no such thing as geolinear foreshortening, and if the atmosphere afforded no obscuration whatever, it would be possible to sweep the great concavity with the telescope for thousands of miles. But a few simple factors to which we have referred make such views absolutely impossible—and completely answer the above and similar objections urged against the Koreshan Cosmogony.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 16, No. 44 · 19 Sep. 1902 · PDF pp. 12–13