Simple Canal Experiment Proves a Flat Earth
Curvature of the earth is never factor in by engineers, surveyors and architects when building their projects – which proves the earth is not a globe. Canals, roadways and rail tracts are always laid horizontally.
Surveyor T. Westwood wrote in 1896 stated, “In leveling, I work from Ordinance marks, or canal levels, to get the height above sea level. The puzzle to me used to be, that over 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. 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.”
A surveyor and engineer for 30 years wrote to Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 15 Feb., 1890 said, “I am thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of civil engineering. However bigoted some of our professors may be in the theory of surveying according to the prescribed rules, yet it is well known amongst us that such theoretical measurements are INCAPABLE OF ANY PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION. All our locomotives are designed to run on what may be regarded as TRUE LEVELS or FLATS. There are, of course, partial inclines or gradients here and there, but they are always accurately defined and must be carefully traversed. But anything approaching to eight inches in the mile, increasing as the square of the distance, COULD NOT BE WORKED BY ANY ENGINE THAT WAS EVER YET CONSTRUCTED. Taking one station with another all over England and Scotland, it may be stated that all the platforms are ON THE SAME RELATIVE LEVEL. The distance between Eastern and Western coasts of England may be set down as 300 miles. If the prescribed curvature was indeed as represented, the central stations at Rugby or Warwick ought to be close upon three miles higher than a chord drawn from the two extremities. If such was the case there is not a driver or stoker within the Kingdom that would be found to take charge of the train. We can only laugh at those of your readers who seriously give us credit for such venturesome exploits, as running trains round spherical curves. Horizontal curves on levels are dangerous enough, vertical curves would be a thousand times worse, and with our rolling stock constructed as at present physically impossible.”
“As an engineer of many years standing, I saw that this absurd allowance is only permitted in school books. No engineer would dream of allowing anything of the kind. I have projected many miles of railways and many more of canals and the allowance has not even been thought of, much less allowed for. This allowance for curvature means this – that it is 8” for the first mile of a canal, and increasing at the ratio by the square of the distance in miles; thus a small navigable canal for boats, say 30 miles long, will have, by the above rule an allowance for curvature of 600 feet. Think of that and then please credit engineers as not being quite such fools. Nothing of the sort is allowed. We no more think of allowing 600 feet for a line of 30 miles of railway or canal, than of wasting our time trying to square the circle”
“The distance between the Red Sea at Suez and the Mediterranean Sea is 100 statute miles, the datum line of the Canal being 26 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, and is continued horizontally the whole way from sea to sea, there not being a single lock on the Canal, the surface of the water being parallel with the datum line. It is thus clear that there is no curvature or globularity for the whole hundred miles between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; had there been, according to the Astronomic theory, the middle of the Canal would have been 1,666 feet higher than at either end, whereas the Canal is perfectly horizontal for the whole distance. The Great Canal of China, said to be 700 miles in length, was made without regard to any allowance for supposed curvature, as the Chinese believe the Earth to be a Stationary Plane. I may also add that no allowance was made for it in the North Sea Canal, or in the Manchester Ship Canal, both recently constructed, thus clearly proving that there is no globularity in Earth or Sea, so that the world cannot possibly be a Planet.” –David Wardlaw Scott, “Terra Firma”
“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. From The Age, of 5th August 1892, 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 Holtenau, on the south side of Kiel Bay, and joins the Elbe 15 miles above its mouth. It is 61 miles long, 200 feet wide at the surface and 85 feet at the bottom, the depth being 28 feet. No locks are required, as the surface of the two seas is level.‟ 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 allowances for the curvature of the earth.” –Thomas Winship, “Zetetic Cosmogeny”