Circumnavigation – Only East or West
The facts and experiments already advanced render it undeniable, that the surface of all the waters of the earth is horizontal, and that however irregular the upper outline of the land itself may be, the whole mass, land and water together, constitutes an IMMENSE NON MOVING CIRCULAR PLANE.
If we travel by land or sea, from any part of the earth in the direction of any meridian line, and towards the northern central star called “Polaris,” we come to one and the same place, a region of ice, where the star which has been our guide is directly above us, or vertical to our position. This region is really THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH, and recent observations seem to prove that it is a vast central tidal sea, nearly a thousand miles in diameter, and surrounded by a great wall or barrier of ice, eighty to a hundred miles in breadth.
If from this central region we trace the outline of the lands which project or radiate from it, and the surface of which is above the water, we find that the present form of the earth or “dry land,” as distinguished from the waters of the “great deep,” is an irregular mass of capes, bays, and islands, terminating in great bluffs or headlands, projecting principally towards the south, or, at least, in a direction away from the great northern centre. If now we sail with our backs continually to this central star, “Polaris,” or the centre of the earth’s surface, we shall arrive at another region of ice.
Upon whatever meridian we sail, keeping the northern centre behind us, we are checked in our progress by vast and lofty cliffs of ice. If we turn to the right or to the left of our meridian, these icy barriers beset us during the whole of our passage. Hence, we have found that there is a great ebbing and flowing sea at the earth’s centre, with a boundary wall of ice, nearly a hundred miles in thickness, and three thousand miles in circumference, that springing or projecting from this icy wall, irregular masses of land stretch out towards the south, where a desolate waste of turbulent waters surrounds the continents, and is itself engirdled by vast belts and packs of ice, bounded by immense frozen barriers, the lateral depth and extent of which are utterly unknown.
How far the ice extends…. how it terminates…. and what exists beyond it, are questions to which no present human experience can reply. All we at present know is, that snow and hail, howling winds, and indescribable storms and hurricanes prevail, and that in every direction human ingress is barred by unsealed escarpments of perpetual ice, extending farther than eye or telescope can penetrate, and becoming lost in gloom and darkness.