“This can only be described as an extraordinary book …. His
arguments are certainly plausible and ingenious, and even the
reader who does not agree with him will find a singular interest
and fascination in analyzing the ‘one hundred proofs.’… The
proofs are set forth in brief, forcible, compact, very clear
paragraphs, the meaning of which can be comprehended at a
glance.”—Daily News, Sept. 24.
“Throughout the entire work there are discernible traces of a
strong and reliant mind, and such reliance as can only have been
acquired by unbiassed observation, laborious investigation, and
final conviction; and the masterly handling of so profound a
theme displays evidence of grave and active researches. There is
no groping wildly about in the vagueness of theoretical
speculations, no empty hypotheses inflated with baseless
assertions and false illustrations, but the practical and
perspicuous conclusions of a mind emancipated from the prevailing
influences of fashionable credence and popular prejudice, and
subordinate only to those principles emanating from reason and
common sense.”—H. D. T., Woodberry News, Sept. 26, 1885.
“We do not profess to be able to overthrow any of his ‘Proofs.’
And we must admit, and our readers will be inclined to do the
same, that it is certainly a strange thing that Mr. Wm.
Carpenter, or anyone else, should be able to bring together ‘One
Hundred Proofs’ of anything in the world if that thing is not
right, while we keep on asking for one proof, that is really a
satisfactory one, on the other side. If these ‘Hundred Proofs’
are nonsense, we cannot prove them to be so, and some of our
scientific men had better try their hands, and we think they will
try their heads pretty badly into the bargain.”—The Woodberry
News, Baltimore, Sept. 19, 1885.
“This is a remarkable pamphlet. The author has the courage of
his convictions, and presents them with no little ingenuity,
however musty they may appear to nineteenth century readers. He
takes for his text a statement of Prof. Proctor’s that ‘The Earth
on which we live and move seems to be flat,’ and proceeds with
great alacrity to marshal his hundred arguments in proof that it
not only seems but is flat, ‘an extended plane, stretched out in
all directions away from the central North.’ He enumerates all
the reasons offered by scientists for a belief in the rotundity
of the earth and evidently to his own complete satisfaction
refutes them. He argues that the heavenly bodies were made solely
to light this world, that the belief in an infinity of worlds is
a monstrous dogma, contrary to Bible teaching, and the great
stronghold of the infidel; and that the Church of Rome was right
when it threw the whole weight of its influence against Galileo
and Copernicus when they taught the revolution of the earth on
its axis.”—Michigan Christian Herald, Oct. 15, 1885.
“So many proofs.”—Every Saturday, Sept. 26, 1885.
“A highly instructive and very entertaining work …. The book is
well worth reading.”—Protector, Baltimore, Oct. 3, 1885.
“The book will be sought after and read with peculiar
interest.”—Baltimore Labor Free Press, Oct. 17, 1885.
“Some of them [the proofs] are of sufficient force to demand an
answer from the advocates of the popular theory.”—Baltimore
Episcopal Methodist, October 28, 1885.
“Showing considerable smartness both in conception and
argument.”—Western Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, O., Oct. 21,
1885.
“Forcible and striking in the extreme.”—Brooklyn Market Journal