Extracted text
Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the scan. Line-break hyphenation and unmistakable OCR errors have been repaired; the claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
Review of Koreshan Scientific Experiments.
An Expert Civil Engineer Submits Criticisms and Conclusions; Some Misapprehensions Corrected and Elements of Doubt Removed: Koreshan Demonstrations Consistent and Conclusive.
PROF. U. G. MORROW,
EDITOR FLAMING SWORD:—I received the CELLULAR COSMOGONY, and have studied it with much pleasure and also profit. Of course, your experiment in Florida is the only thing that has an element of proof of your position, and therefore interesting to me as a civil engineer of many years' practice. The proof, however, to my mind, lacks conclusiveness for this reason: that you had to transfer the water level at every change of your admirably designed apparatus. Up in these latitudes we have vast lakes which freeze solid for 4 or 5 feet, and remain so for 3 or 4 months. It would be conclusive to have the experiment made on such a surface, where the element of the water's level or contour is immediately present all through. A plumb-line at the start of the operation will give the direction at right angles, and by continuing this for 6 miles the curvature, which according to the convex theory should be about 26 feet, will, long before getting to that distance, have been detected.
The Flatists, as you no doubt know, maintain that an experiment by simple vision through a telescope shows that the surface of water is level [flat]. I have myself used my level and staff for a considerable length on the edges of a sheet of still water, placing my staff always on pegs driven to the water level. In reducing these levels to a common datum-line, I could find neither any fall nor rise at the end of the operation. I note that you doubt the correctness of such a method on account of refraction, collimation, etc. This may be so, and you may be right.
On the other hand, the transfer of sea-level at your operations may in like manner carry an error with it. It is for this reason, as an humble scientific student, I conclude that your experiment can only carry absolute conviction if it was performed on a frozen lake in winter, or by getting a stretch of lake fringe in summer, and driving pegs at level of still water at the lip, and then test the work thereby.
There is also another element of doubt. On page 119 you say: "Through the telescope the steel strip and the cross-hair were observed to point below the Gulf horizon;" i. e., from tide-staff with telescope you projected a line through point F, to cut the Gulf at B, which you say was below the horizon. This I cannot understand. If the telescope was truly level it may or may not have cut the steel strip at F, but its line of sight should have cut the horizon, and not have been below it. For I have tested this fact: that no matter at what elevation a level telescope is adjusted, in directing it to a clearly visible horizon (such as obtained on sea-coasts), the line of sight coincides very closely, if not absolutely, to the horizon.
This may be due certainly, to the concavity which you maintain; but it is equally certain to me that this phenomenon in perspective is possible on a flat surface likewise. Of course, it shatters the convex theory to pieces, for it is impossible to conceive of such a thing occurring to a convex surface. These few lines I write in all sincerity. I am wedded to no theory; every one of them, so far as I am able to judge, lacks conclusiveness. Of course, in your other splendid and brain-reeling speculations I take no stock, except to say that they are preferable to the infinity theory, and the monstrous ideas of immense distances and rates of velocity.
I am yours faithfully, —G. W. W., (Associate Member I. C. E., England) Winnipeg, Man.
The editor replies:
Koreshan Universology is a system of integralism—a complete system of the science of the universe of creation; it involves in itself all the elements of truth in all spheres of human thought and life, explains all phenomena, and embraces and employs all known facts of observation and experience. The same mind which discovered the form of the physical cosmos, discovered also all of the functions of that form, and of all forms which the universe contains. The great discovery made by Koresh thirty years ago, was therefore the discovery of the laws and principles of universal creation and perpetuity. What he discovered then to be the facts, laws, and principles of the great universal body, he has expressed in the logical system of scientific truth known as Koreshanity. The conclusions of Koresh are the inevitable result of the application of inexorable logic; the truth of his premise is a guaranty of the truth of his conclusions.
The physical cosmos is the foundation of all life—the outermost expression of the life which it contains; the science of the physical cosmos is the foundation of all truth. The facts of that form constitute the premise of all Koreshan conclusions; the demonstrations of the Koreshan premise are not confined to the field of experimentation. The principles of analysis, synthesis, and correspondential analogy are applied with mathematical precision and absoluteness; the application of these principles transcends all lines of demonstration by means of observations and geodetic survey; for indeed they must be applied in the train of logic to conclusions which are beyond the reach of the telescope and geodetic apparatus.
But the people of the world generally are not logicians; and for the masses the demonstration of a scientific system must be made simple and brought within the sphere of easy comprehension. For years the Founder of Koreshanity pointed to the facts, laws, and principles of optics—perspective and geolinear foreshortening, as related to the simplest facts of observation of the sea horizon—in proof of the earth's concavity; but there are few minds able to comprehend the processes through which we perceive the objective world. For this reason, still more simple demonstrations were found necessary; and numerous experiments have been conducted at the instigation of the Founder of the System, in actual demonstration of the fact that the surface on which we live curves concavely at the ratio of about 8 inches to the mile, making the conclusion inevitable that the earth is a hollow sphere about 8,000 miles in diameter.
Having pivoted the question of the earth's shape upon a single proposition, and having subjected that proposition to a scientific test, we are able to give to the world conclusive evidences of the truth of the fundamental premise of Koreshanity. The evidences, of course, become subjects of discussion by minds of all classes. The files of The Flaming Sword for three years past manifest that we have fairly met numerous criticisms, removed many objections, and explained in necessary detail the processes by which the facts that we announce to the world were obtained. We are pleased to publish the above kind-spirited letter from a candid civil engineer, and take pleasure in endeavoring to correct a few misapprehensions which stand as obstacles to his acceptance of the evidences of concavity as absolutely conclusive. It will be noticed that he questions the popular theory; and we would suggest here that the number of engineers and surveyors, as well as sailors and other practical men, whose experience has led them to doubt the popular theory of the earth's convexity, is rapidly increasing, because they have observed facts in their work which are not consistent with the premise of the modern astronomy.
The first conception of the inventor of the Koreshan Geodetic Apparatus, in the line of application of its principles to a test of the contour of the earth, was that of extending a straight line over a frozen canal; but circumstances and other sequentials led us to the straight beach on the west coast of Florida, at Naples. The suggestion that a satisfactory test is possible on the ice of Northern lakes we consider good, and we hope in time to operate upon such a natural datum-line. Such a solid basis of operations would be necessary to the most precise measurements, in ascertaining the exact ratio of the geodetic arc in relation to the rectiline; but such precise measurements are not necessary in determining the general contour of the earth as convex or concave. From the basis of the Koreshan survey in Florida, conducted on the beach of the Gulf of Mexico, we were enabled to mathematically determine an approximate ratio.
The point we desire to specially notice is where the "proof lacks conclusiveness," in the mind of the writer of the above. He labors under misapprehension regarding the transfer of the water level from the Gulf to the line of operation. The mistake is in supposing that we made this transfer at every change of the Rectilineator—which we take to mean at every adjustment. The fact is that throughout the 4-mile line of survey, there were put 25 record stakes, the result of as many applications of tide-staffs, by directly referring each to the caisson at the beginning of the survey. The processes involved in our hypsometric operations were not those of common survey. There was no possibility of accumulation of errors, as would be the case in running a datum-line with a transit instrument; because the measurements from the water level to 128 inches altitude at each point were purely mechanical, and as simple as driving pegs in shallow, still water, and then measuring from the tops of the pegs to the given altitude. The air line was run on the Gulf shore, near the edge of the water.
These measurements were quite independent of the extension of the line itself. As explained in the Cellular Cosmogony, these measurements were made by way of preparation for the survey; and upon arriving at each record stake it was simple and easy to measure the distance from the 128-inch altitude down to the air line. We suggest in this connection, a careful study of pages 105–109 of the Cellular Cosmogony. If it was possible to measure 128 inches above the water at the beginning of the line, it was also possible to measure the same distance above the water at every other point along the line. If there had been no measurements of altitudes at all, the line would have been the same—10 feet and 8 inches above the water at the beginning, and in touch with the water at a distance of 4 miles from the beginning. At the end of the line there would have been no possibility of our mistaking a point on the water's surface itself for the space of 128 inches above the water.
Another point to be considered in reply to the above communication, is the reference to viewing the cross-hair in the telescope below the horizon; this point is easily made clear. When we had proceeded along the line as far as the apparatus would admit, (and at the end of about 2½ miles the cross-arms touched the ground,) we found it necessary to extend the remainder of the line visually. The simple process was that of placing the telescope at record stake No. 19, so that the cross-hair (or the axis) was coincidental with the air line; and the steel strip coincidental with the air line at the distance of one eighth of a mile farther along the surveyed line. The idea was to look along the air line one eighth of a mile and beyond; and visually connecting two points 660 feet apart on the air line admitted of a more accurate observation, or rather of greater accuracy in projecting the line in the direction of the line itself, than would a transit instrument which we might endeavor to place at the same angle from the horizontal at the place of the telescope. The telescope was not level—it was not intended to be; its axis was coincidental with the air line itself.
It is obvious that at this distance from the beginning of the survey, the rectiline sustained an angle to the horizontal. That angle at the end of about 2½ miles was, for the length of 12 feet, .115 of an inch; this amounts to about 2¾' of a degree. The steel strip was 5.57 inches nearer the water than the telescopic axis; and the angle of 5.57 inches in 660 feet amounts to about 2¾'. At the elevation of 6 feet above the water, the dip of the horizon amounts to 2¾'; and this would make the cross-hair appear to fall 2¾' below where it would had the telescope been leveled, or ½° below the horizon, in line with a point on the Gulf of Mexico, 4½ miles from the beginning of the survey.
Alongside whatever objections may be made to the conduct of the survey,—the first of the kind in the history of the world,—is the fact of the extension of a line at right angles with the perpendicular in the middle of the chord, in accordance with the geometrical proposition made by Koresh over a quarter of a century ago. Then there are the facts of a definite ratio of approach of the earth's curvating surface to the surveyed chord, the result of the application of the geometrical and mechanical principles and factors involved in the apparatus. To the mind comprehending the principles involved, and in possession of all the details of such a survey, there is no escape from the conclusion that they evince the fact that Koreshanity has an absolutely scientific foundation. It is the coming System; it will revolutionize the world of human thought and relations, and succeed where all modern systems have failed.
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Source: The Flaming Sword · Vol. 14, No. 43 · September 14, 1900 · Physical PDF pp. 5–6
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 14, No. 43 · Sep 14, 1900 · PDF pp. 5-6