The Leavenworth weekly times. [volume] (Leavenworth, Kan.) 1870-1880, 1879-01-09
DOES rue EARTH BUDG z /,
jert The Appropriation Commitieo
as. Bulge Hunters.

as 1SuISe hunters
n. V. D. in Cincinnati Gazet,el
WAsHINGIoy, Janu,ry L. nder a pre-.
tense that 1t can accomplish wonderful
reform in the methods Of our national sur.
veys, a very quiet bnt exceedingly energetic
movement is On foot TO ret our present Con
gre~s to hunting for a certain supposed
bulge in the surface OF the earth. II the
members Of the House Appropriation Con.
mit,ee should report librral sum to search
for Symmes' Hole, the ma ter would be un
derstood but the proposition they are nov
considering, 10 turn The Land Office and the
various national surveys over to the Coast
Survey, and charged it with ignoring ali
former lines. and prosecuting . geonetiC
survey OF the United ater, will
hardly be understood by general reader,
a. a pro- ct 10 assist in q search for the
earlh's bulge. The members Of the cou.
mit,ee themselves do not probably under
stand it. ! he matter has been disguised to
them under various high sounding terms
They have ben approached with great
shreSdness. The advance has ben one
covering the whole year. The Academy Of
Sciences worked in secret on the m sitter, be-
ing requested TO take it into consideration
by spontaneous resoulatiou written ND
snd handed to Mr.. Hewitt to introduce.
The committee of the Academy brooded
over the great def Of the subject in secret.
The Academy itself considered and acted
upon it in secret, and made report to Con-
grees,-in which the real end in view-the
sscertaining Of the bulge-was carefully
concealed. Ard now the Committee of Ap
preparations is wrestling with 4 bill which
its innocent members suppose to De mea-
sure of great economy, and one that will
establish this Congress As to the patron Of
science. 1t 10 however, simply a bill to
prosecute an exploration for the bulge. The
constituents Of these gentlemen should bear
this in mind when the grave question OF
denomination next arises.
This problem Of the bulge is capable of
being stated in several wsya As elucidated
BY a member of the Academy, it il thus ex-
pressed perhaps the equator itself is not
a circle, and the earth's figure, therefore,
not precisely a spheroid of revolution about
its polar axis, but more nearly an ellipsoid
of three axes" But, perhaps, with due
rspect to the Academy, the matter may be
placed in clearer light. If small boy
should BIT down carefully for few moments
on sphere Of putty it would soon assume
the form Of an oblate spheroid, such as the
earth has for some time been supposed to
be, and up to tue time when the theory of a
bulge began TO excite the scientific world
Thus far, in the search after scientific
knowledge if the pressure exerted by the
su.all boy on the putty has been moderately
even, the "oblate spberoid" OF revolution
will have been produced. If the boy will
Lay out the equator on his fattened globe
according to existing theories, and
seat himself thi, time in the
plane of the equator for a few moments
he will have before him the "ellipsis OF
three axes" over which certain scientific
gentlemen are loosing good deal OF sleep
To sum the matter up in plain language
the new theory Is that the earth, in addi-
ton to being fa,tened at the poles, buIges
out unevenly at the equator. And 80 the
earth, when seen in profile by the eye OF
academic faith, has the outline Of an alder
man with full stomach. The great aues
ton now is, Where is this bulge? Does the
United States possess il? Does it bravely
bear the sage deserts upward toward the
skies? Or are the depressed plains of Ar.
iona its counterpart, and 80 the bulge it.
self an enduring feature of autipodal re-
gions In other words does the earth
stand with its back to our beloved coun-
try? These are the questions which the
Of Sciences and the Coast Survey
intend, by the grace Of the House Appro-
priation Committee, to settle if it takes all
The naming summers Of our national his
tory, and requires as it progresses the
transfer of all other departments OF the
government to the Coast Survey.
Another question which is closely re-
lated to that OF the bulge, and dependent
u pom il for more accurate solution, q that
81 the wobbling-to spesk with unscientifc
the axis Of tn. esrth Will the
bulge, il die rvered and ascertained, account
for any OF the Irregularities in the wob-
bling? OF course, when this comes up 10
The Acade my for discussion, it will be men
Toned a. the subject u nItation, and the
Procession of the fauinoxes, and this inf
lei term webbing" will be left to the Use
Of those who speak Of the earth as beiog
bulged," instead of being a possible eel
lipsoid of three axis" To find the Acade-
ny Of Sciences engaged NJ on the and cor
related subjects snd problems, liz to discover
it about ills legitimate business, but it is
both refreshing and unusual to find Dem
ocratic Committee Of Appropriations fur
nishing the legislation and the money ne
,esssary to a twenty-five years e1 termination
INTO the momentous question whether the
.arth bulges, or has q dent in it anywhere
n the United States.