Flat Earth Society library (library.tfes.org): Lady Blount, Flat or Spherical? (1905) and other historical PDFs
Visit: 2026-10-10 (STEP I run 1). The Chrome tab on https://library.tfes.org/ returned an error page ("Frame ... showing error page"), and https://www.tfes.org/library gave 404. The directory index is blocked or missing. The individual PDFs downloaded by curl from URLs that Google indexes (query site:library.tfes.org Blount OR Zetetic OR Hampden).
The site belongs to the Flat Earth Society, an interested party. The documents themselves are historical zetetic publications (priority 1: the movement's own work).
Files downloaded (research/files/)
| File | Source URL | Content |
|---|---|---|
| tfeslib-Flat_or_Spherical_-00-_Intro.pdf | http://library.tfes.org/library/Flat%20or%20Spherical%20-%2000%20-%20Intro.pdf | Lady Blount, Flat or Spherical? (1905): front matter and contents (11 pp.) |
| tfeslib-Flat_or_Spherical_-08-_Collapse_of_the_Globular_Theory.pdf | .../Flat%20or%20Spherical%20-%2008%20-%20Collapse%20of%20the%20Globular%20Theory.pdf | "Collapse of the Globular Theory": Lady Blount's own account of the 1904 Bedford Level photograph, with reproductions (4 pp.) |
| tfeslib-The_Zetetic_(Volume_1_Number_1)_July_1872.pdf | .../The_Zetetic_(Volume_1_Number_1)_July_1872.pdf | The Zetetic, vol. 1 no. 1, July 1872 (8 pp.; no text layer, needs OCR) |
| tfeslib-Earth_-_Monthly_Magazine_51.pdf | .../Earth%20-%20Monthly%20Magazine%2051.pdf | The Earth monthly magazine no. 51 (10 pp.; no text layer). Lady Blount edited Earth c.1900-1904 per Schadewald |
Also indexed but not downloaded: Experimental_Proofs.pdf (Rowbotham 1870; the same work was obtained from WKU), samuel_rowbotham_-_earth_not_a_globe.pdf, "Sea-Earth Globe", "Adrian Galilio", and other parts of Flat or Spherical? (01 The Romance of Science, etc.).
What the Blount account says [web: tfeslib-...08...pdf, pp.1-2]
- Title: "The Surface of ALL Standing Water Proved to be Absolutely LEVEL." It gives "two reproductions of the photograph taken on the Bedford Level".
- Apparatus: "Dallmeyer's latest pattern Photo-Telescopic Camera ... placed in position less than two feet above the ground-level by the expert operator from Dallmeyer's". That operator, "Mr. Clifton, being a globularist", had "to lie down in order to manipulate the instrument, close under Welney Bridge, a distance of six miles from Bedford Bridge".
- The screen and "its reflection in the water below it" near Bedford Bridge. A dark chimney marked "A" is said to stand midway, three miles from each bridge.
- Bearing on claim 1: this is the inventor-side primary description of the 1904 test, including camera height, distance and the operator's stance. A reviewer can compute the expected hidden height with and without refraction from it. Clifton's own letter is said to be "printed below" in the full pamphlet, and the part saved may hold it (OCR is rough; read pp. 2-4).
Next run
OCR the Zetetic 1872 and Earth no. 51 PDFs (Step 0 tooling). Fetch the remaining Flat or Spherical? sections. Retry the library index in Chrome.