It contains all the continents and principal islands and rivers of the world, also, all the principal cities of the earth. The map is finely executed and printed in six colors.

“We have prepared A NEW MAP OF THE WORLD AS IT IS. Late in the work he announces and describes his new map: There he marshals Scripture, quirky interpretations of physical science, shoddy observation, and dollops of “common sense” to argue that the Earth is flat, stationary and the center of the cosmos. To make sense of all this one must refer to Gleason’s Is the Bible from Heaven? Is the Earth a Globe? (Buffalo: Buffalo Electrotype and Engraving Co., 1890, with an enlarged 2nd ed. Things get weird, though, with the “Descriptive Key” on the back of the map, which ends with the sentence “The demonstration has reference to either considerations: the earth a globe or a plane-take your choice.”

It all looks perfectly reasonable-the projection has a long and distinguished history, and the arms seem useful enough. Only the fourth known example of Alexander Gleason’s 1892 New Standard Map of the World, an important example of the migration of flat Earth thought from England to the United States.Īt first look Gleason’s map is visually striking but otherwise innocuous: a north-polar azimuthal equidistant projection, enlivened by a bright-red horizon ring, with two rotating “indicator arms” to be used for determining the times at different locations.

Flat earth map