Post by Clark on May 23, 2015 14:56:30 GMT
Back in the 1850s, when sailing in a balloon was in its early stages, some people remarked of the view. These people were called “aeronauts.”
“The apparent concavity of the Earth as seen from a balloon. A perfectly-formed circle encompassed the visible planisphere beneath, or rather the concavo-sphere it might now be called, for I had attained a height from which the surface of the Earth assumed a regularly hollowed or concave appearance – an optical illusion which increases as you recede from it. At the greatest elevation I attained, which was about a mile and a half up, the appearance of the World around me assumed a shape or form like that which is made by placing two watch-glasses together by their degrees, the balloon apparently in the central cavity all the time of its flight at the elevation.”
Wise's Aeronautics
“Another curious effect of the aerial ascent was, that the Earth, when we were at our greatest altitude, positively appeared concave, looking like a huge dark bowl, rather than the convex sphere such as we naturally expect to see it.
“The horizon always appears to be on a level with your eye, and seems to rise as we rise, until at length the elevation of the circular boundary lie of the sight becomes so marked that the Earth assumes the anomalous appearance as we have said of a concave rather than a convex body.”
Mayhew's Great World of London
Mr. Elliott, an American aeronaut, in a letter giving an account of his ascension from Baltimore, thus speaks of the appearance of the Earth from a balloon:
“I don't know that I ever hinted heretofore that the aeronaut may well be the most sceptical man about the rotundity of the Earth. Philosophy imposes the truth upon us; but the view of the Earth from the elevation of a balloon is that of an immense terrestrial basin, the deeper part of which is that directly under one's feet. As we ascend, the Earth beneath us seems to recede – actually to sink away – while the horizon gradually and gracefully lifts a diversified slope stretching away farther and farther to a line that, at the highest elevation, seems to close with the sky. Thus upon a clear day, the aeronaut feels as if suspended at about an equal distance between the vast blue oceanic concave above, and the equally expanded terrestrial basin below.
“The chief peculiarity of the view from a balloon, at a considerable elevation, was the altitude of the horizon, which remained practically on a level with the eye at an elevation of two miles, causing the surface of the Earth to appear concave instead of convex, and to recede during the rapid ascent, whilst the horizon and the balloon seemed to be stationary.”
London Journal, July 18, 1857
Mr. Glaisher, of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the same phenomenon was observed:
“The horizon always appeared on a level with the car.”
Vide “Glaisher's Report.”
The surface of the earth appears to rise to the line-of-sight from the balloon, and “seems to close with the sky” on the right and left; in the same manner that the ceiling and the floor of a long room, or the top and bottom of a tunnel appear to approach each other, and from the same cause, viz: that they are parallel to the line-of-sight, and therefore horizontal.
If the Earth's surface were convex the observer, looking from a balloon, instead of seeing it gradually ascent to the level of the eye, would have to look downwards to the horizon, and the amount of dip in the line-of-sight would be the greatest at the highest elevation.
Many more experiments have been made than are here described, but the selection now given is amply sufficient to prove that the surface of water is horizontal, and that the Earth, taken as a whole, its land and water together, is not a globe, as really no degree of sphericity; but is “to all intents and purposes” A PLANE!
If we now consider the fact that when we travel by land or sea, and from any part of the known world, in a direction towards the North polar star, we shall arrive at one and the same point, we are forced to conclusion that what has hitherto been called the North Polar region, is really THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH.