Extracted text
Source-led transcription, lightly normalized from PDF p. 14; historical claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
The primary element of the premise upon which we predicate the cellular cosmogony, or the Koreshan System of astronomic formula, is the relation of the horizontal to the perpendicular, as comprising the trigonometric and mathematical root of its evolution. A visual line extended from the vertical point of a perpendicular to the vanishing point of the earth's surface exhibits two lines at right angles—the perpendicular or plumb-line, and the horizontal. The cosine of the horizontal visual line completes the chord, the two extremities of which are the two horizon points or two points of vanishing distance. The perpendicular is the radius vector, and the arc of the chord is the concavity of the earth.
If the earth were convex, any point on the surface would be the highest point, and a line drawn from an elevated position to the vanishing point or horizon would not be horizontal; the point at which it touched the earth would not be the horizon, and the line called the horizontal would sustain an obliquity to the perpendicular. A horizontal line is one drawn at right angles to the perpendicular. If one stands on an elevation above the sea level, and looks over the water surface to the horizon, or to that point where the sky and water seem to meet, the vision is over a horizontal line; and no matter at what altitude the observation is made, the horizon is on a level with the eye.
This statement is denied by the physicist and so-called critical objector, on the ground that the theodolite or transit instrument indicates to the contrary; for an observation taken through the transit instrument pictures the horizontal hair-line, placed across the focus of the instrument, on the sky, a little above the water-line at the horizon. Let the critical observer and honest student define a track on a level surface, to the earth's vanishing point of the horizon, and, at the subjective terminus or plane of observation, elevate a pole fifty feet, from the top of which a line is extended, as a telegraph wire, for some miles. Let the point of observation, or the visual point, be located twenty-five feet above the earth, or half-way between the earth and the top of the pole.
The line on the earth will appear to converge upward toward the wire, and the wire to converge downwards toward the track, and at the vanishing point the two lines will appear to meet. Hang the transit instrument to the line leveled to it as the instrument would be leveled to the surface of the earth in surveying, with the longitudinal axis of the instrument sustaining the same relation to the line that it would, in surveying, to the surface of the earth, and look through it; the hair-line in the focus of the instrument would cross the horizon below instead of above the horizontal line. Look through the instrument, along the parallel of the line from which it is suspended, the distance of ten rods, to the end of a line suspended, perpendicularly, far enough to level with the horizontal hair-line in the focus of the instrument.
We may suppose the instrument to hang ten inches from the horizontal line and the suspended perpendicular line to suspend far enough for the lower end to meet the visual line at the level of the hair-line. At ten rods farther distant a suspended line, to hang pendant enough to appear on a level with the first suspended line, would necessarily be longer than the line at the distance of ten rods. Now, would this prove that the extended wire or line curved upward ? Let us take another relation of the same illustration. Extend two railroad tracks perfectly straight for a long distance, and perfectly parallel. Stand half-way between the two, and they will appear to converge equally toward a point. This does not prove that the two tracks diverge from each other beyond the point at which they appear to meet.
Place a transit instrument ten inches from one of the tracks, in a parallel attitude to the track, or so that the longitudinal axis of the instrument sustains the same relation to the track that it would to the surface of the earth in surveying. Two rods from this a projection from the track must be more than ten inches long to be seen on a parallel with the hair-line across the focus of the instrument, and a projection double the distance from the instrument, or twenty rods away, would have to be longer than the first, and the third at three times the distance must be longer than the second. Would this prove that the track curved away from the other one because it appeared to do so, as observed through the instrument? Men jump at conclusions from appearances, and, upon these conclusions, predicate fallacious theories, call them scientific, and teach them as facts.
Succeeding generations drop them, and present new hypotheses to their contemporaries and their children. The theories of modern, so-called science are too preposterous for scarcely a notice, but that the masses have been taught them from childhood, and believe them. We do not deny the fact that there is an apparent depression of the horizontal line, and that the transit instrument seems to indicate a real depression. The apparent depression is due to foreshortening and not to convexity. The visual point, or the point from which the visual impression is determined, is at the focus projection, as far in front of the lens of the eye as the convexity of the lens locates it. It is not the same in every eye because the lenses of different eyes vary.
The visual point, when a telescope is employed, is a projection of the focus beyond the objective end of the instrument, and the focal axis is necessarily slightly oblique to the apparent horizontal line. Look over a prairie, to the horizon, from an elevation of ten or fifteen feet. The first mile of the landscape makes a long picture upon the retina of the eye; the second mile, a shorter one, the third still shorter, and the fourth would make no picture. This is the vanishing point. The landscape appears to drop out of sight. A line drawn from the subjective visual point to the vanishing point will appear to be depressed in proportion to the foreshortening of the geolinear surface. This foreshortening is about five inches to the mile, and allowance is made, by civil engineers, as if it were convexity instead of foreshortening. The surface of the earth is concave.
We have reached this conclusion from downright geometrical and mechanical hard work. The absurdities of the old or Copernican system are too many, too apparent, and attended by too much guesswork to be of any value to the critical and analytical thinker. The modern, so-called, astronomer is a Liliputian, and the time is not far distant when there will be an awakening. In less than ten years, the Koreshan Astronomy, if not the only one recognized, will stand on an equal footing with the Copernican, and the brightest minds will be its advocates. Don't forget to give plutocracy a back seat, at the labor convention of the future. Whatsoever else the money agitators forget or fail to do, let them not forget or fail to destroy the money king, the gold god.
Destroy the golden calf; grind it to powder, and pour it down the necks of the plutocrats who mourn for the flesh-pots of Egypt—the flesh and blood of the wage slaves
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 4, No. 3 · 16 Jul. 1892 · PDF p. 14