THE SUN STANDING STILL.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3835, 31 October 1883, Page 4

THE SUN STANDING STILL.

A correspondent of Public Opinion draws attention to a way in Avhich tho account in Joshua x. can bo supported, not by Hebrew vowcl-poiuts, but by natural hiw, and that IaAV a fixed hiAV. Mr SamuelKinns, Ph.D., in his interesting and valuable book on "Moses and Geology," at page -175 thus refers to this account of the sun:—"This miracle is ridiculed by most infidel writers and speakers as being in direct opposition to astronomical facts, for they say that it implies that the sun goes round the earth. This is, indeed, their weakest argument, for they use precisely the same kind of phraseology every day of their lives when they say the sun is rising and the moon is setting. But Avhen that absurdity is pressed home to them they shift their ground and say that the earth must then havo stood stilll to have produced the effects described ; and Colenso, in his work on the Pentateuch, enumerates, Avitli alarming eloquence, the direful catastrophes which would in such cases havo happened. Thero is uo mustiu the ninttcr._ Tho earth need not havo stood still, for the simple material IaAV of atmospheric refraction Avould entirely explain the event. You will notice that on p. 174 Captain Bedford Pirn, R.N., states that in the polar regions this refraction is sufficient to cause the sun to appear for ' several day' above tho horizon after it has really set. In these polar regions Captain Scoresby saw the inverted image of his father's ship above the horizon Avhen it was nearly twenty miles below it, and similar phenomena are continually happening all over tho Avorld. In December, 18G0, tho whole of Paris was seen in the sky ; and the mirage in the desert exhibiting to the weary travellers a beautiful country stubbed with shady trees, which, on their approach, vanishes into thin air, is caused by the sanio law of refraction. Let not sceptics, then, talk any more nonsense about tho necessity in Joshua's case for the earth to bo stopped iv its course, and to cease rcwolving upon its axis. Tho circumstance Avas doubtless a miracle, but not at all contrary to known natural hiAVf. On p. 474 Captain Bedford Pirn, R.N., is quoted thus: —'The refraction is increased by cold, the sun being for several days visible iv the frigid zones Avhen he is as much as 1 deg. below the horizon.' These remarks hardly require any comment of mine, but I cannot refrain from pointing out that the Bible hero is its own witness, and seems to point to the law of refraction when it says, in the latter part of Joshua xi., 10 : ' They Avere more Avhich died Avith hailstonos than they Avhich the children of Israel sloav with the SAVord.' Do not the hailstones indicate the coldness of the atmosphere above, and does not Captain Pirn say, 'as already quoted, that refraction is increased by cold !-''