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 Direction of Gravity Shown to be Toward the Circumference, not the Center of the Earth.
J. S. SARGENT, IN “FLORIDA TIMES-UNION.”
REV. LAMAR C. STEWART, of Crescent City, asks a question about gravity in People’s Forum; and as you give it to the field for reply, I should like to submit some ideas upon the subject. But I do not care to discuss the question upon its merits as stated, for the reason that the query as to whether a stone dropped into a hole through the earth would stop at the center, or never stop vibrating to and fro, within the supposed limits of the earth’s sphere, is a supposition that is so irrational and illogical as to be unworthy of consideration, from the fact that the earth is concave, instead of convex, and we are living upon the inside surface of the shell, and not upon the outside. Consequently, the force of gravity would tend to carry the stone toward the circumference of the earth, rather than to the center, which is the sun’s location.
The theory that the earth is a great ball revolving in space, is a fallacy handed down to us from the gloom of the “ dark ages,” and will be dissipated as soon as the dawning light of the new dispensation, now gleaming on the mountain tops of human intellect, gets down into the valleys of human thought, and the common people begin to find out that they have been gulled into accepting for science (which is only another word for knowledge) that which is based upon hypothesis only, a mere guess-so, and which the professors themselves, when pinned down to it, are compelled to admit that they do not know if it is true.
The evidence by which the scientists make themselves and the public believe that the earth is convex, and that we dwell upon the outside, would not stand in any court of justice in the United States. For instance, civil engineers in running levels find a divergence of some inches to the mile between the lines they make with the transit or surveyor’s level, and the water’s surface. This they attribute to the earth curving away from the line; but when it can be shown, by the application of the same rule, that an absolutely straight rail will appear to curve four different ways at the same time, it would seem that the convex curvature of the earth is more apparent than real.
And when a ship sails away in the distance, disappearing hull first, until finally the topmast fades out of sight on the horizon, it is loudly claimed that this phenomenon conclusively proves the rotundity of the water’s surface, for has not the vessel evidently gone down over the bulge? But when a glass having a longer range of vision than the naked eye, is brought to bear on the line of the vanished ship, it is again brought into view, hull and all, as is a common experience with sea-faring men; it would, therefore, appear that there is something crooked either in the visual ray, or in the theory of the earth’s convexity.
And then, again, when Lady Moon is seen blushing behind a dark veil, its disk-like form stealing slowly over her face, it is taught that the earth has intervened between her and the sun, and is casting its shadow upon her, the form of which proves the shape of the earth. But when, as not infrequently happens, an eclipse of the moon occurs with both the sun and moon above the horizon, it will, I think, puzzle our astute self-deceivers— the scientists—to explain this accommodating wobbling of the earth’s shadow.
Then there is the pendulum test, which so far has proved nothing, unless it be the credulity of those believing that the earth is whirling through space at cannonball speed, without so much as ruffling the filaments of a feather floating idly upon the atmosphere; and then it is expected that a delicately poised pendulum to resist disturbance by any of the earth’s subtle attractions, or distractions, such as magnetism, electricity, etc., including Newton’s fake law of gravity, and yet to attend strictly to the business of determining that “ the earth do move.”
- One of the most remarkable things in all of the history of modern scientific effort is that for three hundred years the disciples of that cult have repeatedly resorted to such far-fetched schemes as the above to prove the Copernican hypothesis, while continually neglecting the most conclusive evidence that lay right at their feet; namely, the contour of the earth’s surface, as delineated by the water’s level. But the advocates of the Cellular Cosmogony have not been so slow to avail themselves of its testimony. By projecting a straight line at right angles to a perpendicular for some miles along the sea level, they have found by actual mechanical measurement that the water’s level approached this line at the rate of about eight inches to the mile—making the inside sphere of the earth’s shell, upon which we live, about eight thousand miles in diameter.
Having established the earth’s concavity as a basic premise from which to reason, we can indulge the exploitation of the rational faculty toward the location of the various spheres or domains of the physical activities emplaced between the center and the circumference, with the assurance that if we reason correctly there can be no gainsaying our conclusion. Taking the sun as the center from which all creative energies of the physical universe radiate, we find ourselves located at the only place fitted for the existence of animal and vegetable life—to wit, the line where earth and air, or rather air and water, are contiguous. We take this point as zero, from which all lighter substances ascend, and heavier ones descend, and determine their emplacement by their relative specific gravity.
Hydrogen, being lighter than our atmosphere, ascends; therefore, upon the upper limit of our air must rest an atmosphere of hydrogen. As there is a complete correspondence between spiritual and natural things, we who believe in Paul’s writings, believe there are three spiritual heavens, to the third of which he (Paul) said he was caught up; therefore, there must be another physical heaven or atmosphere surrounding the sun; this we call aboron. As water will not rise above its level without being forced, so air will not descend very far below water level of itself. There must also be a lower limit to the water stratum as well as there is to that of the atmosphere; and at this line is the upper level proper of the geologic—that is, earth and rock strata; but being non-fluid they are thrown up by earth upheavals and water action, and cannot return to their levels, as can water. Below these are the minerals, and then the seven metallic spheres, composed of the seven primary metals, arranged relatively as to their specific weight.
These laminae or plates, with their mercurial pools comprising the planetary system of the universe, constitute a great voltaic pile, which, together with the sun’s action, comprise a great electro-magnetic battery, whose interplay of forces consumes the wastes of all the intervening domains, transforming them by alchemic change to levic energies that converge to feed the fires of the sun, and at the same time transmutes the gravic radiations from the sun into renewals of the matter consumed. Thus the universe continually perpetuates itself.
Newton’s law of gravity, “ that every particle of matter is attracted to every other particle of matter in the universe by a force directly proportionate as to the mass and inversely as to the square of the distance between them,” is an ingenious, but fallacious attempt to determine the law of emplacement, governing the relations of the supposed great masses of matter revolving in space, which, if it were true, would immediately precipitate all of them into one mass.
The point at which each kind of matter is created and deposited is the point of attraction of all particles of that particular quality of matter ; also of the energies entering into the creation of that kind of matter. That is its static point, at which it has no weight. Above that level it is heavy and will seek that point, if free to do so. Below that it becomes levic, and will ascend until it reaches its equilibrium, or place of rest. So that a stone dropped into a hole in the earth would by its momentum, perhaps, be forced beyond its static point somewhat, but would return and come to rest there, just the same as water seeks its level.
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the periodical’s argument without presenting its conclusion as an independently established result.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 19, No. 11 · Aug 1905 · PDF pp. 8–9