Re: Flat Earth?

> My only point here is that at any given time, there was probably no
> single view, and to seek one to ascribe to the period is
> problematical.

Related to this is that for most of history we have no direct evidence
as to what the average peasant thought about anything.

>>If true, this must rank as one of the most outrageous "historical
hoaxes" of the last 200 years - willfully permitted to persist by the
academia! Can anyone recommend other references on this topic?<<

I think I recall that Washington Irving was responsible for the myth
about Columbus setting out to prove the earth was round. This would
put the roots of the hoax more in popular culture than in academia,
from whence it is hard for academia to uproot it.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections Building
Department of Biological Sciences
Biodiversity and Systematics
University of Alabama, Box 870345
Tuscaloosa AL 35487-0345  USA