The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-10-22
EARTH IS FLAT
 IN ZION CITY

Zion, ILL, Oct. 22.-Zion schools of which Wilbur Glenn Voliva, the over seer of the colony. is president. have adopted his new theories of a flat and the 1000 grade and high school pupils believe them implicitly, accord ing to their teachers.
 The public school maintained by the State Board of Education and at tended by the children of non-mem- bers of Voliva's Christian-Catholic Apostolic church still teaches, how ever, that the world is a globe nov it was the attraction of gravity which caused the apple to fall on Isaac New tons head.
 At the Zion schools the new course of study teaches that:
 The earth is a flat circular world, with a north pole in the exact center, no south pole, and surrounded by a wall of ice which keeps ventureSome mariners from falling off the rim.
 That the earth has no motion, but remains stationary in space.
 That the sun is not millions of miles in diameter and 91,000,000 miles miles across and only 5000 miles from the earth.
 That the law of gravitation is a fa11acy- and when objects are thrown the force which propelled them is ex- pended, and then fall back to earth because they are heavier than air.
 A standard map of the world, on Christopher's projection, is used in the schools to demonstrate the flat world theory. This. map, which is used by navigatCrs and scientists in making time and longitude ca1cula- tions, differs from the usual Mer- cator's projection familiar in other schools, in that it shows the earth as it would look to an observer di- reetly above the north pole. with the continents and seas protected on a fiat plane. As result the north pole is in the center, and instead of a south pole the Antarctic regions are indicated by 3. white ring about the outer circumference of the circle. This ring, according to Volta, is the ice barrier, which keeps mariners from falling off the edge of this fiat world
 The Christopher projection was covery of the south pole and before much was known abou the Antarctic regions, so only 8 bare outline of DOT tions of the southern ice land is Sh own.
 Miss Mary Thompson, principal of the Zion school system, and an ardent believer in the Voliva theories, has propounded a question which she be- lieves will trip scientists and naviga- tors. Showing on her fiat map that the tropic of Cancer, 43 degrees from the north pole, was much smaller circle than the troDic of Capricorn, 47 degrees farther away, MISS thompson says:
 ssNavigators on a globular earth would find if they were to sail com pletely around either of these tropics that they would be identically the same length. On a fiat earth, how ever, the tropic of Capricorn would be much larger than the troptc of Cancer, and would take much long CT to sail around, because on @ flat earth Cancer would be nearer the center, or north pole, Why don't some of the globular earth believers sailing around the two tropics and find out wether they or we are cor rect? The g1obu1ar people certainly can't prove curveture of the earth" ]"
 Miss Eva Baker, teacher of geogra- phy, demonstrates to her classes that the sun Is only tiny orb few thou sand miles away, instead of "orb" millions of miles in dianater and 91,- 100000 miles from the earth. If the sun was so large. she says. 1t would light up all the world. instead of con- f1ning its hottest rays to @ 5000 mile wide belt between the two tropics. Voliva himself. in recent sermon at Shiloh Tabernacle. said God certainly would not have made a sun to light the world and then placed 1t, so far | away.
 "A man would be fool the over-