Ships Climbing Both Ways
In figure 11 we have shown an illustration used to support
the false perspective, and false teaching, of the schools ;
but while some of the higher class astronomical books do not
disgrace their pages with such a palpable monstrosity, their
teachings are in agreement therewith, and some of their
diagrams equally faulty.
Let an observer be placed on, some small island in midocean,
as represented in figure 12, where he can watch ships
sail away from him in opposite directions: now if figure 11
be a true picture of the surface shape of the sea, and the
observer on turning round sees a similar rise of the water on
opposite sides, then the surface of the ocean would consist
of a series of bulges, continued ad infinitum, as indicated by
figure 12!
Still Mounting Upwards
Now let there be a series of observers, as implied in figure
13; the first observer on the right sees the vessel mount
hill number one. At this point let there be another observer
watching the same ship going in the same direction he
should see it mount up hill number two. And a third
observer, similarly placed, should see the vessel still mounting
up hill number three; and so on, up towards the moon! This
would agree with the theory that the moon temporarily
attracts the waters of the ocean— but who would trust himself
to that theory to make the voyage?
We may well leave the theory of a globular sea to the
reprobation of all honest thinkers. Yet, Sir Robert Ball, in
common with some other astronomers, maintains that an
observer on the seashore, in watching a receding vessel,
actually views it mounting a hill, or a “protuberant ”
part of the ocean, until it reaches the horizon, when it begins
to descend! If the sea-earth were a globe, the observer
should always be placed on the top, near the sea-level ; and
the receding ship should at once begin to descend. But as
perspective requires objects below the eye-line to appear to
rise in the distance, the globularist is thus unconsciously
constrained to yield this testimony as a concession to truth!
