m. at one station A will correspond
to 5 p.m. at a station B sufficiently to the west. If, therefore,
it is sunset to the observer at A, the hour of sunset will not yet be
reached for the observer at B. This proves conclusively that the
time of sunset is not the same all over the earth. We have, however,
already seen that the apparent time of sunset would be the same from
all stations if the earth were flat. When Ptolemy, therefore,
demonstrated that the time of sunset was not the same at various
places, he showed conclusively that the earth was not flat.
As the same arguments applied to all parts of the earth where Ptolemy
had either been himself, or from which he could gain the necessary
information, it followed that the earth, instead of being the flat
plain, girdled with an illimitable ocean, as was generally supposed,
must be in reality globular. This led at once to a startling
consequence. It was obvious that there could be no supports of any
kind by which this globe was sustained; it therefore followed that
the mighty object must be simply poised in space. This is indeed an
astonishing doctrine to anyone who relies on what merely seems the
evidence of the senses, without giving to that evidence its due
intellectual interpretation.
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