Refraction Ītmospheric refraction can produce the results noted by Rowbotham and Blount. One of these, by Clement Stratton on the Ashby Canal, showed a dip on a sight-line only above the surface. These controversies became a regular feature in the English Mechanic magazine in 1904–05, which published Blount's photo and reported two experiments in 1905 that showed the opposite results. Lady Blount published the pictures far and wide. The photographer, Edgar Clifton from Dallmeyer's studio, mounted his camera 2 feet (0.61 m) above the water at Welney and was surprised to be able to obtain a picture of the target, which he believed should have been invisible to him, given the low mounting point of the camera. Īdvocates of a flat Earth, however, were not deterred: on Lady Elizabeth Anne Blount, who would go on to be influential in the formation of the Flat Earth Society, hired a commercial photographer to use a telephoto-lens camera to take a picture from Welney of a large white sheet she had placed, the bottom edge near the surface of the river, at Rowbotham's original position 6 miles (9.7 km) away. Picture of the Bedford Level: "Carried out in misty and very unsatisfactory weather, on May 11th, 1904, before Lady Blount and several scientific gentlemen". This version of the experiment was taught in schools until photographs of the Earth from space became available. When viewed through a theodolite, the middle pole was found to be almost 3 feet (0.91 m) higher than the poles at each end. In 1901, Henry Yule Oldham, a reader in geography at King's College, Cambridge, reproduced Wallace's results using three poles fixed at equal height above water level. Wallace, who had been unaware of Rowbotham's earlier experiments, was criticized by his peers for "his 'injudicious' involvement in a bet to 'decide' the most fundamental and established of scientific facts". The same court ruled that the wager had been invalid because Hampden retracted the bet and required that Wallace return the money to Hampden. Several protracted court cases ensued, with the result that Hampden was imprisoned for threatening to kill Wallace and for libel. Hampden subsequently published a pamphlet alleging that Wallace had cheated and sued for his money. To add a pole in the middle that could be used to see the "bump" caused by the curvature of the Earth between the two end points.ĭespite Hampden initially refusing to accept the demonstration, Wallace was awarded the bet by the referee, John Henry Walsh, editor of The Field sports magazine.To set a sight line 13 feet (4.0 m) above the water, and thereby reduce the effects of atmospheric refraction.Wallace, by virtue of his surveyor's training and knowledge of physics, avoided the errors of the preceding experiments and won the bet. The naturalist and qualified surveyor Alfred Russel Wallace accepted the wager. Rowbotham repeated his experiments several times over the years, but his claims received little attention until, in 1870, a supporter by the name of John Hampden offered a wager that he could show, by repeating Rowbotham's experiment, that the Earth was flat. The view through Wallace's level as reproduced in his autobiography