If the Earth were a globe, it would certainly have to be as large as it is said to be—twenty-five thousand miles in circumference. Now, the thing which is called a “proof” of the Earth’s roundness, and which is presented to children at school, is, that if we stand on [
12]the sea-shore we may see the ships, as they approach us, absolutely “coming up,” and that, as we are able to see the highest parts of these ships first, it is because the lower parts are “behind the earth’s curve.” Now, since, if this were the case—that is, if the lower parts of these ships were behind a “hill of water” at all—the size of the Earth, indicated by such a curve as this, would be so small that it would only be big enough to hold the people of a parish, if they could get all round it, instead of the nations of the world, it follows that the idea is preposterous; that the appearance is due to another and to some reasonable cause; and that, instead of being a proof of the globular form of the Earth, it is a proof that Earth is not a globe.