11) A surveyor and engineer of thirty years published in the Birmingham Weekly Mercury stated, “I am thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of civil engineering. However bigoted some of our professors may be in the theory of surveying according to the prescribed rules, yet it is well known amongst us that such theoretical measurements are INCAPABLE OF ANY PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION. All our locomotives are designed to run on what may be regarded as TRUE LEVELS or FLATS. There are, of course, partial inclines or gradients here and there, but they are always accurately defined and must be carefully traversed. But anything approaching to eight inches in the mile, increasing as the square of the distance, COULD NOT BE WORKED BY ANY ENGINE THAT WAS EVER YET CONSTRUCTED. Taking one station with another all over England and Scotland, it may be stated that all the platforms are ON THE SAME RELATIVE LEVEL. The distance between Eastern and Western coasts of England may be set down as 300 miles. If the prescribed curvature was indeed as represented, the central stations at Rugby or Warwick ought to be close upon three miles higher than a chord drawn from the two extremities. If such was the case there is not a driver or stoker within the Kingdom that would be found to take charge of the train. We can only laugh at those of your readers who seriously give us credit for such venturesome exploits, as running trains round spherical curves. Horizontal curves on levels are dangerous enough, vertical curves would be a thousand times worse, and with our rolling stock constructed as at present physically impossible.”
13) In a 19th century French experiment by M. M. Biot and Arago a powerful lamp with good reflectors was placed on the summit of Desierto las Palmas in Spain and able to be seen all the way from Camprey on the Island of Iviza. Since the elevation of the two points were identical and the distance between covered nearly 100 miles, if Earth were a ball 25,000 miles in circumference, the light should have been more than 6600 feet, a mile and a quarter, below the line of sight!
14) The Lieutenant-Colonel Portlock experiment used oxy- hydrogen Drummond’s lights and heliostats to reflect the sun’s rays across stations set up across 108 miles of St. George’s Channel. If the Earth were actually a ball 25,000 miles in circumference, Portlock’s light should have remained hidden under a mile and a half of curvature.
15) If the Earth were truly a sphere 25,000 miles in circumference, airplane pilots would have to constantly correct their altitudes downwards so as to not fly straight off into “outer space;” a pilot wishing to simply maintain their altitude at a typical cruising speed of 500 mph, would have to constantly dip their nose downwards and descend 2,777 feet (over half a mile) every minute! Otherwise, without compensation, in one hour’s time the pilot would find themselves 31.5 miles higher than expected.