re of a case--or less of a want of case--than the arithmetical squarer of
the circle. The evidence that the earth is round is but cumulative and
circumstantial: scores of phenomena ask, separately and independently, what
other explanation can be imagined except the sphericity of the earth. The
evidence for the earth's figure is tremendously powerful of its kind; but
the proof that the circumference is 3.14159265... times the diameter is of
a higher kind, being absolute mathematical demonstration.

The Zetetic system still lives in lectures and books; as it ought to do,
for there is no way of teaching a truth comparable to opposition. The last
I heard of it was in lectures at Plymouth, in October, 1864. Since this
time a prospectus has been issued of a work entitled "The Earth not a
Globe"; but whether it has been published I do not know. The contents are
as follows:

"The Earth a Plane--How circumnavigated.--How time is lost or gained.--Why
a ship's hull disappears (when outward bound) before the mast head.--Why
the Polar Star sets when we proceed Southward, etc.--Why a pendulum
vibrates with less velocity at the Equator than {90} at the Pole.--The
allowance for rotundity _supposed_ to be made by surveyors, not made in
practice.--Measurement of Arcs of the Meridian unsatisfactory.--Degrees of
Longitude North and South of the Equator considered.--Eclipses and Earth's
form considered.--The Earth no motion on axis or in orbit.--How the Sun
moves above the Earth's surface concentric with the North Pole.--Cause of
Day and Night, Winter and Summer; the long alternation of light and
darkness at the Pole.--Cause of the Sun rising and setting.--Distance of
the Sun from London, 4,028 miles--How measured.--_Challenge to
Mathematicians._--Cause of Tides.--Moon self-luminous, NOT a
reflector.--Cause of Solar and Lunar eclipses.--Stars _not worlds_; their
distance.--Earth, the _only material_ world; its true position in the
universe; its condition and ultimate destruction by fire (2 Peter iii.),
etc."

I wish there were geoplatylogical lectures in every town; in England
(_platylogical_, in composition, need not mean _babbling_). The late Mr.
Henry Archer[185] would, if alive, be very much obliged to me for recording
his vehement denial of the roundness of the earth: he was excited if he
heard any one call it a globe. I cannot produce his proof from the
Pyramids, and from some caves in Arabia. He had other curious notions, of
co