I see, your main complaint is that the flatness of the Nile river basin is doubtful, so we should remind all those who hadn't followed "Equator problem" thread and/or "North-South" thread at Energetic forum, to these words:
In " Chambers' Information for the People," section on Physical Geography, page 513, the following occurs:
"In North America, the basin or drainage of the Mississippi is estimated at 1.3oo.ooo square miles, and that of the St. Lawrened at 600,000; while northward of the 50th parallel, extends an inhospitable FLAT of perhaps greater dimensions. . . . Next in order of importance is that section of Europe extending from the German Sea, through Prussia. Poland, and Russia, towards the Ural Mountains, presenting indifferently tracts of heath, sand and open pasture, and regarded by geographers as ONE VAST PLANE. So flat is the general profile of the region, that It has been remarked, IT IS POSSIBLE TO DRAW A LINE FROM LONDON TO MOSCOW, WHICH WOULD NOT PERCEPTIBLY VARY FROM A DEAD LEVEL."
The foregoing is a London-to-Moscow proof that the surface of the world is not globular.
Is this the reference you're citing:
Chambers's Information for the People, A Popular Encyclopedia, Fifteenth American Edition, 1854?
http://books.google.com/books?id=UP4QAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false[Be forewarned that in this Google Books volume, the Table of Contents links near the beginning don't work correctly; the links to pages before p.48 take you to p.48 and you have to scroll or use Page Back to earlier pages.]
The reason I ask is because page 513 is in the section about Kitchen Gardens, and I don't see a section about Physical Geography. Maybe you're looking at a different edition?
'FLAT' in this context clearly means "essentially devoid of topography", not a flat
plane in the mathematical sense.
Are you sure that's PLANE and not plain? They sound the same and are vaguely related, but mean different things.
There's a key word, 'PERCEPTIBLY', in the description of the London-to-Moscow elevation profile. It's not saying it
is dead level, just
hard to tell it's not without using measurements. The elevation of London is about 35 m above sea level (ASL); Moscow is 74 m ASL. They are 2500 km (about 1600 miles) apart, and the low points between them, the North Sea and Baltic, are presumably at or close to 0 ASL. This doesn't particularly support your 1 foot in 1,000 miles assertion.
This isn't proof of anything but your cherry picking information and misunderstanding the parts you choose to believe.
Also noted is your willingness to accept as "proof" some writings in a published text, perhaps taken out of context and/or certainly misinterpreted, if you think it supports your view, while ignoring nearly
everything else in the same (or similar?) text. For instance:
The Earth which we inhabit, as has been explained in the article Astronomy, is a nearly round globe or mass of matter, forming one of eleven[nb]He counts the current eight planets (excluding Pluto) less Neptune, and includes the four largest asteroids.[/nb] primary planets, which at various distances revolve round the sun as a centre, and receive from that splendid luminary the blessings of light and heat The earth is one of the smaller sized of the planets, being only about a fourth of the diameter of Uranus, and an eleventh of the diameter of Jupiter, and forms, therefore, a comparatively small portion of the planetary system, and, with reference to the stars, only a speck in the vast extent of creation.
Hmmm... that sounds suspiciously like all those things you
don't believe. Any thoughts? Different Chambers's?
From the "Atlas of Physical Geography," by the Rev. T.Milner, M.A., I extract the following:
"Vast areas exhibit a perfectly dead level, scarcely a rise existing through 1,500 miles from the Carpathians to the Urals, South of the Baltic the country is so flat that a prevailing north wind will drive the waters of the Stattiner Haf into the mouth of the Oder, and give the river a backward flow 30 or 40 miles."
"The plains of Venezuela and New Granada, in South America, chiefiy on the left of the Orinoco, are termed llanos, or level fields. Often in the space of 270 square miles THE SURFACE DOES NOT VARY A SINGLE FOOT."
"The Amazon only falls 12 feet in the last 700 miles of its course; the La Plata has only a descent of one thirty-third of an inch a mile,"
Is this perhaps another Victorian-Era or older book? The style of writing suggests that it is, and using "Reverend" as part of the author's name for a book on geography kind of supports this. If this is correct, there has been a lot more detailed mapping since the time it was written.
"perfectly dead level, scarcely a rise". If there is
any rise at all, it's not
perfectly dead level. Self-contradictions like these show lack of rigor in the work, which means all details are suspect unless verified. Take the rest of the contents with some skepticism.
Think for yourselves, people!
An area of 270 square miles could be a square about 16.4 miles on a side, or a circle with radius less than 10 miles. "270 square miles" sounds impressively large, but on the scale of the Earth, it's tiny. 270 square miles is about four
millionths of 67 million square mile surface area of the spherical Earth. Tiny. Even so, "THE SURFACE DOES NOT VARY A SINGLE FOOT" is difficult to believe. Did the reverend have a
detailed topographic survey of the entire 270 mi
2 area, or is this simply more of the supposition you could get away with back when this seems to have been published? See above about lack of rigor.
You are getting better about providing the sources for your quotes, so thank you for that.
These extracts clearly prove that the surface of the earth is a level surface, and that, therefore, the world is not a globe.
These prove nothing of the sort. In fact, the extract you
didn't provide unequivocally states that it
is a globe. Your extracts
might be considered evidence upon cursory reading, but only before even the most basic examination or thought. After that, the "evidence" is seen to be faulty.
And when we come to consider the surface of the world under the sea, we shall find the same unformity of evidence against the popular view. In " Nature and Man," by Professor W. B. Carpenter, article " The Deep Sea and its Contents," pages 320 and 321, the writer says :
"Nothing seems to have struck the "Challenger" surveyors more than the extraordinary FLATNESS (except in the neighbourhood of land) of that depressed portion of the earth's crust which forms the FLOOR OF THE GREAT OCEANIC AREA. . . . If the bottom of mid-ocean were laid dry, an observer standing on any spot of it would Jind himself surrounded BY A PLAIN, only comparable to that of the North American prairies or the South American pampas The form of the depressed area which lodges the water of the deep ocean is rather, indeed, to be likened to that of a FLAT WAITER or TEA TRAY, surrounded bj- an elevated and deeply -sloping rim, than to that of the basin with which it is commonly compared."
Changes in depth to the sea floor is at most a few miles in thousands. A profile drawn with no vertical exaggeration would be barely distinguishable, if at all, from a straight line. The author says as much on p.120. This is what the description is trying to convey: the oceans aren't nearly as deep as they are usually depicted, and have little topography compared to their size. Note that this description ignores the mid-ocean ridges (undiscovered or unrecognized at the time), which have very significant topography, usually not in the vicinity of land (although they are sometimes high enough to form islands like Iceland, the Canaries, etc.).
This remarkable writer tells of thousand.s of miles, in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the great Southern Ocean beds being a plane surface, and from his remarks it is clear that A FLAT SURFACE IS THE GENERAL CONTOUR OF THE BED OF THE GREAT OCEANS FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES.
Did you know that a square 200 miles on a side has an area of 40,000 mi
2? "Tens of thousands of square miles" isn't large at all compared to the area of the oceans. Given the amount of sediment being more or less uniformly deposited on the ocean floor, it isn't surprising at all that it's relatively featureless (i.e. "flat") over comparatively (in human scale) large areas.
He says it's a plain, not a plane. You're making this mistake again. They're different.
In addition:
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 Hollenau, on the south side of Kiel Hay, 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."
OK. So? The water in the canal simply follows the mean sea level geoid.
Haven't we seen this before?
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[nb]Unless it's RuSpinningAround?, but you could argue whether or not 'practical' applies in that case.[/nb], 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.
The datum for surveys is the geoid or another level a constant height above (or perhaps below) it. No specific allowance for curvature need be made, because the elevation changes from datum have it built in.
Alpha2Omega, your "explanation" for "1 foot fall of the Nile in a thousand miles" FET argument is nothing but a hand waving "argument"!
I never claimed there was a "1 foot fall of the Nile in a thousand miles". You did. I can't find any part of the Nile 1,000 miles long that has less than a few hundred feet of grade. Apparently you can't either, which begs the question why you brought it up in the first place. And, no, even if the Nile
did have such a feature, it would follow the curvature of the Earth, not a straight-line chord. [See below]
Do you remember this very sentence in the context of "Polaris" argument:
"Secondly, size and distance make no difference whatever." You can read it once more here: http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=62346.msg1647054#msg1647054 if you want...
Not really, so I had to look that up, so thanks for providing the link. It's in red in that post, but that doesn't make it correct.
It had also been answered in a
previous post. Would you please read the replies you get instead of mindlessly bringing up already disproved stuff over and over again? Please.
If you have specific questions about the rebuttals, by all means, ask. Doing so in a timely fashion after they've been given, if possible, is best.
Same with "1 foot fall of the Nile in a thousand miles" FET argument: It doesn't matter if it is only 1 foot, or 100 foots, as long as it is MUCH less then 200 km high bulge which is our hypothetical reference point in the middle of our 1000 miles section of Nile along which Nile falls but a foot!
Does this mean you can't find any actual reference to verify your claimed "one foot in 1,000 miles"? I suspect this is the case because such a feature doesn't actually exist; you may want to check these things before parroting them here, or did you just make this one up - especially if you hate retracting arguments as much as you seem to.
If "it doesn't matter", then why did you bring it up in the first place? I happen to agree that it doesn't matter (but wasn't the one that brought it up) because that "bulge" you are asserting also doesn't exist. "Level for 1,000 miles" means "a constant elevation relative to the geoid", not a straight-line chord through the globe you want the Nile to follow. The middle of that chord would be the 200 km you claim (I haven't checked this) below level. It really is that simple.
If the Earth were a globe, curvature of the Earth would produce this huge hypothetical bulge by necessity, and in whatever manner (geometrically) you observe this bulge (you can even turn it upside down), the Nile must overcome this obstacle by going upward/uphill. In another words, our hypothetical bulge would cancel out this (1 foot / 100 foots) difference, this difference would be of no significance if the Earth were a globe.
Are you
sure you're not joking here?
"Level" is a constant height relative to the geoid. Period. The water in the Nile is moving from higher elevations (further from center of earth) to lower elevations (closer to center) as it flows (always downhill, even if it's only slightly downhill).
I have played with you just one little game (giving you my ironic Christmas present), and you still can not get over it, how convinient for you, cause you play your little games with me all along since the first day when i came here to enlighten your deluded minds.
You'd be better off to just admit you're wrong when you do realize you're wrong. After several pages unsuccessfully trying to defend an absolutely preposterous claim, you must have finally realized you made an elementary error and then claimed it was just a joke. Your claims here are equally preposterous; we keep bringing up the "tell us this is not a joke" thing because we want to foreclose that type of shit. Man up.
Alpha2Omega, how about "Tsunami" (avalanche) argument? No words from you about that?
You mean this? I guess I never did bother with it because it had already been answered.
If the Earth were a globe, tsunami waves would get stronger and bigger/higher with every mile as they DESCENDED DOWN the Slope, so that the final results of most of typical tsunamis would be so disastrous that we would witness to similar consequences (as we had seen in "tsunami 2004." case), almost - ON DAILY BASIS!!!
If the Earth were a globe, the mechanics of every minor tsunami would be very similar to the mechanics of a typical avalanche (in mountain region), that is to say, oceanic coastal regions would be practically uninhabitable.
1 mile distance = 20 cm inclination
2 miles distance = 80 cm inclination
4 miles distance = 320 cm inclination
8 miles distance = 1280 cm inclination
16 miles distance = 5120 cm inclination
32 miles distance = 20480 cm inclination
64 miles distance = 81920 cm inclination
128 miles distance = 3,27 KM inclination
Now, The distance between Padang Sumatra and South Africa is more then 5000 miles. What value of inclination should we take into account regarding that distance (on a supposed globe)?
5000 miles distance = 5000 KM inclination which is equivalent to 568 Mount Everests in a row!!!
There's no inclination. All those distances are at sea level. No "Everests" at all here. None, nada, zero, zip, nil, null, {}. Sea level is an equipotential surface, so it
defines level on a spheroidal earth. Why in the world would you think a tsunami would be falling downhill like an avalanche? Which way would be "down"? Away from the epicenter? South? Toward the bottom of the page the map is drawn on? What would happen if you turned the paper upside down? Why would any of these be "down" when other directions aren't?
This is at least as obviously wrong as the assertion you now claim was "just a joke".
How about "geographical" argument regarding "lack of any Tsunami impact on Australian western coast" which is allegedly more then TWICE closer to the earthquake epicentre then South African eastern coast?
Didn't you read any of my replies? They are
here,
here, and
here.
In summary:
Most of the energy in the tsunami traveled westward across the Indian Ocean, toward India and Africa. Relatively little went southward toward Australia. This was explained in more detail in the
ABC article you linked.
The map you present shows the effect of the tsunami on people. In addition to the height of the wave (which depends in part on sea-floor topography near shore), it also depends on the number of people at low elevation near shore.
South Africa is roughly twice as far from the epicenter as Australia. That's why it took roughly
twice as long for the waves to get there according to
your animated gif image.
Any words about that?