SCIENTIST AND CRANK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7949, 26 January 1906, Page 7

SCIENTIST AND CRANK.

Various proofs of the fact that the earth is round are drilled into us at school,.but there are still some people who adhere resolutely to the flat earth theory. In bis recently published autobiography, Dr Alfred Russell Wallace tells in full the remarkable story of the encounter he had with a particularly obtuse adherent of this belief. John Hampden, an Oxford man, offered in the year 1870 to stake £SOO against the sucoesa of an experiment to prove a sheet of inlaud water to be convex, and Dr Wallace, after consultation with Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist, who expressed the hope that it might "stop these foolish people" to have tne roundness of the earth shown them, accepted the challenge. Seconds and t» referee were appointed, and a-six miles stretch of a Norfolk canal was selected as the testing place. The test was simple. A telescope and two objects were so arranged that if the surface of the canal was a flat plane for six miles, the three would be in line, but if the surface were convex, the object midway would be several feet above the two. The experiment showed conclusively that the surface was convex, but Hampden and his second declined to accept the test. The referee decided in favour of Dr Wallace, but made the mistake of notifying Hampden that unless better reasons were adduced to show why he should not do so, he would hand over tho money to Dr Wallace on a certain day. Money lost iu betting cannot be recovered, but the loser can reclaim his money at any time before the stake-holder has paid it over to the winner, and five yeart* afterwards Dr Wallace had to pay back the £SOO, because the referee had given Hampden an opportunity to demand it back. Hampden, contending in the teeth of the evidence that the experiment proved bis theory, poured a flood of abusive communications upun the referee, calling him liar, thief, and swindler, and then attacked Dr Wallace. The climax came when Mrs Wallace received a letter which ran as follows:—"If your infernal thief of a husband is brought home sorre day on a hurdle, with every bone in bis head smashed to pulp, you will know the reason. Do you tell him from me he is a lying, infernal thief, and as sure as his name is Wallace be never dies iu his bed." This resulted in Hampden beirg bound over to keep tho peace, but he kept up his persecution for fifteen years, in spite of the fact that he was compelled to publish apologies and spend certain terms in gaol.