MIDNIGHT SUN

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 19/47)

MIDNIGHT SUN.

M. Paul B. du Chaillu, published, a few years ago, a work entitled "The Land of the Midnight Sun," of which the following are extracts:

"The sun at midnight is always north of the observer, on account of the position of the earth. IT SEEMS TO TRAVEL AROUND IN A CIRCLE, requiring twenty-four hours for its completion, it being noon when it reaches the greatest elevation, and midnight at the lowest. Its ascent and descent are so imperceptible at the pole, and the variations so slight, that it sinks south very slowly, and its disappearance below the horizon is almost immediately followed by its re-appearance."

"We have here spoken as if the observer were on a level with the horizon; but should he climb a mountain, the sun of course will appear higher; and should he, instead of travelling fifteen miles north, climb about 220 feet above the sea level each day, he would see it the same as if he had gone north; consequently if he stood at the arctic circle at that elevation, and had an unobstructed view of the horizon, he would see the sun one day sooner. Hence tourists from Haparanda prefer going to Avasaxa, a hill 680 feet above the sea, from which, though eight or ten miles south of the arctic circle, they can see the midnight sun for three days."

"As the voyage drew to a close, and we approached the upper end of the Gulf of Bothnia the twilight had disappeared, and between the setting and rising of the sun hardly one hour elapsed."

"Haparanda is in 65° 51' N. latitude, and forty-one miles south of the arctic circle. It is 1° 18' farther north than Archangel, and in the same latitude as the most northern part of Iceland. The sun rises on the 21st of June at 12.01 a.m., and sets at 11.37 p.m. From the 22nd to the 25th of June the traveller may enjoy the sight of the midnight sun from Avasaxa, a hill six hundred and eighty feet high, and about forty-five miles distant, on the other side of the stream; and should he be a few days later, by driving north on the high road he may still have the opportunity of seeing it."

If the earth be a globe, at midnight the eye would have to penetrate thousands of miles of land and water even at 65° North latitude, in order to see the sun at midnight. That the sun can be seen for days together in the Far North during the Northern summer, proves that there is something very seriously wrong with the globular hypothesis. Besides this, how is it that the midnight sun is never seen in the south during the southern summer? Cook penetrated as far South as 71°, Weddell in 1893 reached as far as 74°, and Sir James C. Ross in 1841 and 1842 reached the 78th parallel, but I am not aware that any of these navigators have left it on record that the sun was seen at midnight in the south.

Captain Woodside of the American barkentine Echo, at Capetown on 26th June, 1898, reports that he had been a good deal in the great southern ocean, and often when in latitude 62° south he has had a kind of daylight all night, but not sufficient to read by; but the midnight sun was never seen.   

Since writing the foregoing I have received from the Secretary of the Royal Belgian Geographical Society a paper, entitled EXPEDITION ANTARCTIQUE BELGE.

In this paper it is stated by Lieut. de Gerlache, the Commander of the expedition, that:

"On 17th May the sun set, and was not seen above our horizon again until 21st July."

This was during the severest part of the winter at latitude 71° 36' south.

On pages 9 and 10 of the same pamphlet it is stated that the ship quitted her winter quarters on the 14th February. She had thus been a winter and a summer in the ice at that latitude. During the winter, the extraordinary phenomenon of total darkness caused by the total disappearance of the sun for two months is duly recorded, and had the sun been seen at midnight in the summer, it is only natural and reasonable that such another extraordinary phenomenon should have been chronicled; but there is not one word in the pamphlet about the matter. We conclude, therefore, that there is no midnight sun in the south. The midnight sun can be seen in the north during the summer at 66° of latitude, and if there be the same extraordinary phenomenon in the south, it must have been seen at the latitude the "Belgica" reached much sooner and longer than it is in the north at latitude 66.