New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-09-01
rur FgRG USoNJAN UNIVERsE.


Orlando Ferguson, of Hot Box-no, of Hot Springs,
s. D., in so many words as a thirty-page pamphlet
u;u hold. with bue-green or grecn-blue cover,
showing this earth OF ours, "as seen by The
ortbors Of the pamphlet. So here we are, back
inst where we were 174l years ago, for instance
when c. p Ptolemy, OF Egypt, first reorganized as
tronomv on a safe dividendpaying basis. once
moro we have a fixed EARTH in the middle of re-
yolving universe. But whereas Ptolemy's earth
might have been of the obsolete globe pattern with
ont interfering with the working Of the Ptoe-
maniac, system, what Ferguson claims as his I'M
movement is a fixed earth. as shown in the dla-
pram: round without being globular, like Dowl
unset in O basin set up on slab. AT least, such
is Ferguson's description, writ short, yet TO eyes
confused il may be by the glare Of the false lghVS
Of the old astronomy, the thing that DulgeS' 30
70 speak, from the middle of the earth or basln'
more nearly resembles batter pudding Deiore lts
fall and the whole arrangement suggests the sort
of complicated bamboo hat worn on their arrival
from China by the first builders of the Ccntral
Pacific Railroad of California (more recently Oh
kentucky and only discarded on their discovery
Of the cheap Danbury-bult Paris felt "h:ci al
vides with The French heel' of Lynn the honors
OF the attractive costume worn by the polished
hoodlum Of the Slope"
At tho top Of the bowl where the batter Is most
deceitful, or where the hard, indigestible nubbln
Is that forms the focus Of every hat Of the grass
family, rises the dear old North Pole. Here, at
last. and at least one is on familiar ground. In
the hollow below the kat band, where batter meets
basin, turks the palpable equator. Thence pro-
ceeding outward or southwark, the basin or nat
brim rises TO an enclrcling rim that forms the
outer or southern boundary Of the Fergusohan
EARTH completely replacing the imaginary oou'h
Pole Of the eiTcte globe system. What prevents
the water in the seas from stopping over Ihls
exposed rim, after the well-lInown manner Vi
basins, Ferguson does not say. Possibly ralSeu
edge is formed by froStbitten spray or by inc
freezing Of escaping steam from the central SUD-
terranean steam-heatng apparatus. Inc adFah'
tage and economy Of getting rid of the superhuouS
South Pole tor poles, If you believe in the duplex
SYSTEM will be readily recognized.
SO long as the selfish and narrow partisan
policy of Astronomy for Astronomers was SUI
leTed to prevail in sidereal circles, 50 long nave
the onlceholdcrs in all Observatories taken, or
pretended to take, delight IN helping the attacks
Of the old geological ring on the literal inter
probation, strictly construed, of tho disputed
passages in the English translation Of the Greek
and Hebrew scriptures. Not so Ferguson. Hence
his marble slab for his basinic earth TO rest on,
its four corners hamOnzing perfectly with the
scrptuTal four corners of the earth," but the
scale Of the diagram IS too small to enable us to
Judge whether the starboard eastern rim is
or is not nicked or nOtchcd to indicate the utter
most parts of the morning." The windows OF
heaven" which were opened for the deluge are Of
course not shown; their position would come
distance above the basin, perhaps on the sides
Of the batter pudding
All these things and more, Ferguson knows
lie knows them because he has travelled and
kept his eyes open and has seen them. Like all
great wOrkmen his tools have been Of the simplest
No costly and absurd thcodolitcs, zenith tele-
scopes tcanstS, comet seekers lenses, clocks and
chron0graphs, used in secret and in darkness in
round towers when and where man see.
None OF your mlion-dollar telescopes for Fergu-
son, in or through which no man not an emplOyc
of the Astronomical Trust, and no woman save,
perhaps Maria Mitchell, ever really saw anything
but his or her eyebrows No, Ferguson goes and
gets his stick, simple, straight stick, his car
pchterS square, his surveyors level, goes out in
the back lot of a proper night and there he
Is When some agent Of the astronomical ring
comes where Ferguson is, talking up sun Ill 1-2
times bigger than the earth, and %, 100000 miles
away, Ferguson, who has caught the gang rails
ing it a million" all the way up from ninety-one,
simply calls, so to speak lie doesn't ttOp at
crying Think of 70" Just think Of it," though in
his Just indignation he does that TOO. Ferguson
just levels his stick somewhere in the city limits
of Chicago, sets up his square, points it toward
the sun at noon the 21st of March; finds the
shadow of the raised sixteen-inch side cuts the
recumbcnt side at just sixteen inches knows Chi
cago is $500 miles sideways! from the equator;
thus proves, yes proves that the sun would be
$500 miles above from the equator, were it
not for the buges and hoows Of the batter in the
basin. For these he allows 500 miles Result,
5000 Therefore the sun is 5000 miles from the
equator and little further, say, from Chicago-in
the springtime Of the year.
or this system, Ferguson must be regarded rs
the pcrfector rather than the originator Nearly
fifty years ago 1t practised by Professor John
Phoenix, in his celebrated survey Of a route for
q Pacific railroad from Mission Dolores to Pre-
sdo San Francisco When the Professor backed
his transit bearing cart into the plane OF the true
meridian, preparatory to taking the sun" across
the bars Of the United States gridiron, he was I'M
consciously paving the way for those later and
greater discoveries that submerge the Phoenician
system in the Fergusonian. So of that practical
scientist to whom it is accredited, on the au-
thorty Of the treatise Three in Norway" that
in three short hours, by sitting down and pa
tently watching, he completely disproved the al
legged movement Of glaciers. Going further, he
even poked the glacier with his stick 1t didn't
move an inch
Similar but how much greater, was the equa-
torial work Of Ferguson, wherein by pacing off
fifteen miles on each side Of the imaginary line,
beyond which distance he found the sun at noon
ceased to he vertical, he became satisfied" that
the sun is actually thirty miles in diameter in
stead Of 8ss, $40 miles, the ring has been pre-
tending. Again Ferguson takes his straight stick
down the wharf, levels 1t, trains it on the de-
parting ship of our schoolbooks Subsidized by
the astronomers, and looks along the edge till the
hull disappears, as in the picture, and the yards,
if any, are about TO follow suit. Then does Fer
guson sit on the string-picce with his mouth
open, ready 10 swallow the rest Of the yarn?
Not he. Up he climbs 10 the agents office, Dor
rows the agents cheap working telescope uncaps,
hdgets for focus. and there--look the hnll amin