
"It Knocks the Globe Theory Clean Out"
Map of the Square and Stationary Earth Four Hundred Passages in the Bible that Condemn the Globe Theory, or the Flying Earth, and None Sustain It. This Map is the Bible Map of the World.
- Author: FERGUSON, Orlando
- Publication place: Hot Springs, South Dakota,
- Publisher: Louis H. Everts & Co. Litho,
- Publication date: 1893.
- Physical description: Double-page lithographed map, with contemporary hand-colour in part, laid down on archival tissue.
- Dimensions: 563 by 816mm. (22.25 by 32.25 inches).
- Inventory reference: 22620
Notes
Orlando Ferguson, self-styled "professor", "doctor" and bath-house operator, was a proponent of a the "flat-earth" theory. However, his extraordinary map of the world appears to have been projected on a surface very similar to that of a roulette table, complete with spindle, turret, balltrack, and even a ball – disguised as a globular earth hurtling through the cosmos.
For unbelievers, Ferguson has included quotations from "Scripture that condemns the globe theory" beneath the image, AND if you send him just 25c he will send you a "book explaining the square and stationary earth". This is Ferguson's ' The Latest Discoveries in Astronomy: The Globe Theory of the Earth Refuted' (1891).
Ferguson was not (is still not?) alone in his thinking, and has borrowed elements from Alexander Gleason, who, on his 'New Standard Map of the World' (1892), also includes Angels at each of the four corners of the globe, referencing 'Revelations' 7:1: "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree".
The Mapmaker
Orlando Ferguson (1846-1911) was originally from Illinois, but in the early 1880s he moved with his ever increasing family to Dakota Territory, settling in Hot Springs at the foot of the Black Hills, where he built and operated the Catholican Hotel, until it burnt down. This was reborn from the ashes as the Siloam Springs and Sanitarium, a hotel and thermal bath house, and was followed by other bath houses in Wyoming, and San Diego in California.
Ferguson's other works include 'The Square World: Why People Are Being Deceived on Astronomy and Religion' (1897), the monthly 'The Square World' (1895-1896), which garnered him enough celebrity to be lampooned in the press of the day: 'Omaha [Nebraska] World Herald' (May 24th 1891): "I am a wair it takes some nerve and backboon to condem a therry practest by the whole world of ever nation, but nevertheless I am compelled to do it from the fact that I know the globe therry is not true which I can prove it in many wayes…"
Rare: only four institutional examples are known, at the Library of Congress, Boston Public Library-Leventhal Map Center, and Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; three further in private collections.
For unbelievers, Ferguson has included quotations from "Scripture that condemns the globe theory" beneath the image, AND if you send him just 25c he will send you a "book explaining the square and stationary earth". This is Ferguson's ' The Latest Discoveries in Astronomy: The Globe Theory of the Earth Refuted' (1891).
Ferguson was not (is still not?) alone in his thinking, and has borrowed elements from Alexander Gleason, who, on his 'New Standard Map of the World' (1892), also includes Angels at each of the four corners of the globe, referencing 'Revelations' 7:1: "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree".
The Mapmaker
Orlando Ferguson (1846-1911) was originally from Illinois, but in the early 1880s he moved with his ever increasing family to Dakota Territory, settling in Hot Springs at the foot of the Black Hills, where he built and operated the Catholican Hotel, until it burnt down. This was reborn from the ashes as the Siloam Springs and Sanitarium, a hotel and thermal bath house, and was followed by other bath houses in Wyoming, and San Diego in California.
Ferguson's other works include 'The Square World: Why People Are Being Deceived on Astronomy and Religion' (1897), the monthly 'The Square World' (1895-1896), which garnered him enough celebrity to be lampooned in the press of the day: 'Omaha [Nebraska] World Herald' (May 24th 1891): "I am a wair it takes some nerve and backboon to condem a therry practest by the whole world of ever nation, but nevertheless I am compelled to do it from the fact that I know the globe therry is not true which I can prove it in many wayes…"
Rare: only four institutional examples are known, at the Library of Congress, Boston Public Library-Leventhal Map Center, and Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; three further in private collections.
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