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.
Printed under the department heading The Open Court of Inquiry. — The Editor.
Editor Flaming Sword:—Please explain clearly the exact or relative action of the sun upon and toward us in rising and setting.—F. H. S., Shippensburg, Pa.
The physical heavens have the appearance of a great concavity above us; the star-strewn sphere appears to be a dome, arching from horizon to horizon. From rising to setting, the sun seems to follow the concave curvature. The zenith appears to be the highest point of the sky; the lowest points, where the sky seems to meet the earth. We see one half of the heavens at any one time from any one point of observation—a hemisphere of the sky, the dividing plane being that of the horizon. If we should take it for granted that the shape of the heavens is what it appears to be, we should be forced to the conclusion that the surface upon which we live is convex. Modern astronomy has developed from the basis of this optical illusion.
Koreshan Astronomy demonstrates by numerous processes that the surface of the earth is concave, and therefore, that the sphere of the heavens is convex to us; and that the visible heavenly bodies are within our atmosphere at a distance of not over 1,000 miles. We observe these bodies above us by means of the eye; and necessarily, the factors of optics and physics cannot be dispensed with in a scientific explanation of phenomena. The actual position of the sun at time of rising is not where it appears to be; it appears to be much lower and nearer to us than it really is. It seems to be on a level with the eye, while in fact it is 90° east on the arc of the convex sphere of the heavens, at an angle of about 45°. It seems to be on the horizon, because it is merging into that hemisphere of the sky which, by perspective foreshortening and visual curvilineation, is apparently drawn down to meet the earth.
The sun's rays are not propagated in straight lines in the concave atmosphere; there is a gradual downward curvature of those rays which greet us at sunrise; they enter the eye horizontally, and this makes the sun seem to be on the line of the horizontal. If we incline a mirror on a level with the eye, at an angle of 45°, reflecting surface up, we seem to see in the direction of the horizontal that which is in reality above the mirror. In this case there is an abrupt refraction of the line of sight. If the refraction were gradual, yet making the line begin and end at right-angle directions, it would not change the apparent position of the objects seen by reflection.
In rising, the sun enters our field of vision, not by means of the earth's rotation or the rising of the sun above a convexity, but by coming this side of the vanishing point of the space between the earth-line and the sky. The sun seems to come up from beneath the horizon, for the simple reason that the observer is upon the surface of the earth, which impresses itself upon the visual retina to the extent of only a few miles; and the amount of vertical space vanished by perspective beyond the horizon increases as to the square of the distance; so that the vertical space of 900 miles is foreshortened to the vanishing point at a distance of about 6,000 miles from the observer. The factors of perspective and geolinear foreshortening, therefore, make the earth at the horizon appear to be as much of a barrier between us and the sun just before and during the rising of the disc, as it does between the eye and the vanished ship's hull at sea. We see the upper limb of the sun before we see the entire disc, on the same principle that we see the topmast of the incoming ship before we see the hull. In setting, the lower limb of the sun disappears first in accordance with the same visual laws which cause the hull of the outgoing vessel to disappear before the sails.
The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the article's argument without presenting its conclusions as independently established results.
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the periodical's argument and reported observations without presenting its conclusions as independently established results. The claims remain attributed to The Flaming Sword.
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The Flaming Sword · Vol. 16, No. 9 · 17 Jan 1902 · PDF p. 12