CANALS

ZETETIC COSMOGONY:
OR
Conclusive Evidence
THAT THE WORLD IS NOT A
ROTATING—REVOLVING—GLOBE,
BUT
A STATIONARY PLANE CIRCLE.
By Thomas Winship
1899

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(Post 8/47)

CANALS.

If the earth be the globe of popular belief, it is very evident that in cutting a canal, an allowance must be made for the curvature of the globe, which allowance would correspond to the square of the distance multiplied by eight inches, nearly. From the Age of 5th August 1893, I extract the following:

"The German Emperor performed the ceremony of opening the Gates of the Baltic and North Sea Canal, in the spring of 1891. The canal starts at Holtenau, on the south side of Kiel Bay, and joins the Elbe 15 miles above its mouth. It is 61 miles long, 200 feet wide at the surface and 85 feet at bottom, the depth being 28 feet. No locks are required, as the surface of the two seas is level."

Let those who believe it is the practice for surveyors to make allowance for "curvature" ponder over the following from the Manchester Ship Canal Company.—(Earth Review, October, 1893):

"It is customary in Railway and Canal constructions for all levels to be referred to a datum which is nominally horizontal, and is so shown on all sections. It is not the practice in laying out Public Works to make allowance for the curvature of the earth."—Manchester Ship Canal Co., Engineer's Office, 19th February, 1892.

A surveyor, Mr. T. Westwood, writes to the Earth Review, for January, 1896, as follows: "In levelling, I work from Ordnance marks, or canal levels, to get the height above sea level. . . . . I work sometimes from what is known as the Wolverhampton level, this is said to be 473.19 feet above sea level; sometimes I work from the Birmingham level, this is said to be 453.04 feet above sea level. Sometimes I work from the Walsall level, this is said to be 407.89 feet above sea level. The puzzle to me used to be, that, though each extends several miles, each level was and is treated throughout its whole length as the same level from end to end; not the least allowance being made for curvature, although if the earth were a globe, 112 feet ought to be allowed. . . . . One of the civil engineers in this district, after some amount of argument on each side as to the reason why no allowance for curvature was made, said he did not believe anybody would know the shape of the earth in this life."

I think most will grant that a practical man is capable of forming a judgment, in all cases of more value than the merely theoretical calculator. Here, then, we have the evidence of practical men to the effect that no allowance for curvature is made in cutting canals, a clear proof that we are not living on a huge ball, but on a surface, the general contour of which is level, as the datum line from which surveys are made IS ALWAYS A HORIZONTAL LINE.