Curiosities Of Occult Literature Scholars Choice Edition PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIII. "THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS IT IS." Lv the "Horoscope" (1841), I had read some articles upon astronomy, plainly written, and calculated for the comprehension of persons who, like myself, had little mathematical knowledge. In one of these articles (No. 3), the moon was described, and an account of her transit through the zodiac --showing, and, according to the statement of the writer, proving, "that the moon does not move round the earth." A figure was introduced to show that the moon cannot move round the earth, which had been alleged by Mr. Graham Hutchinson--because "a body cannot move in two opposite directions at the same time." It was alleged to be physically impossible for a body to move in two opposite directions at the same time; and for the moon to move round the earth, from east to west, at the same time that she moves round the sun in an opposite direction, or from west to east, in common with all heavenly bodies. The writer alleged that the moon, "never distant from the earth more than 237,000 miles, appeared to move round the earth from east to west, because the observer on earth is not conscious of his own motion through space while observing the moon." In fact, that the result of the apparent motion of the moon was "an optical delusion exactly similar to that which makes the objects on shore seem to recede when viewed from a vessel sailing down a river." As I am not a mathematician, I could not take much interest in this question, but the argument seemed to be sensible, and worthy of notice upon the part of persons who really had pretensions to mathematical knowledge. I heard nothing more upon this subject until the latter part of the year 1856, when Lieut. Morrison showed me a large plan, or sketch, pointing out...