Book contents
- Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Contents
- CHAPTER I FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER II GEOGRAPHY
- CHAPTER III ASTRONOMY
- CHAPTER IV FROM “SIGNS AND WONDERS” TO LAW IN THE HEAVENS
- CHAPTER V FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY
- CHAPTER VI THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, EGYPTOLOGY, AND ASSYRIOLOGY
- CHAPTER VII THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN AND PREHISTORIC ARCHÆOLOGY
- CHAPTER VIII THE “FALL OF MAN” AND ANTHROPOLOGY
- CHAPTER IX THE “FALL OF MAN” AND ETHNOLOGY
- CHAPTER X THE “FALL OF MAN” AND HISTORY
- CHAPTER XI FROM “THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR” TO METEOROLOGY
- CHAPTER XII FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
CHAPTER II - GEOGRAPHY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Contents
- CHAPTER I FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER II GEOGRAPHY
- CHAPTER III ASTRONOMY
- CHAPTER IV FROM “SIGNS AND WONDERS” TO LAW IN THE HEAVENS
- CHAPTER V FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY
- CHAPTER VI THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, EGYPTOLOGY, AND ASSYRIOLOGY
- CHAPTER VII THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN AND PREHISTORIC ARCHÆOLOGY
- CHAPTER VIII THE “FALL OF MAN” AND ANTHROPOLOGY
- CHAPTER IX THE “FALL OF MAN” AND ETHNOLOGY
- CHAPTER X THE “FALL OF MAN” AND HISTORY
- CHAPTER XI FROM “THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR” TO METEOROLOGY
- CHAPTER XII FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
Summary
THE FORM OF THE EARTH
Among various rude tribes we find survivals of a primitive idea that the earth is a flat table or disk, ceiled, domed, or canopied by the sky, and that the sky rests upon the mountains as pillars. Such a belief is entirely natural; it conforms to the appearance of things, and hence at a very early period entered into various theologies.
In the civilizations of Chaldea and Egypt it was very fully developed. The Assyrian inscriptions deciphered in these latter years represent the god Marduk as in the beginning creating the heavens and the earth: the earth rests upon the waters; within it is the realm of the dead; above it is spread “the firmament”—a solid dome coming down to the horizon on all sides and resting upon foundations laid in the “great waters” which extend around the earth.
On the east and west sides of this domed firmament are doors, through which the sun enters in the morning and departs at night; above it extends another ocean, which goes down to the ocean surrounding the earth at the horizon on all sides, and which is supported and kept away from the earth by the firmament. Above the firmament and the upper ocean which it supports is the interior of heaven.
The Egyptians considered the earth as a table, flat and oblong, the sky being its ceiling—a huge “firmament” of metal.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1896