Mr. Oseba's Last DiscoveryBell, George W. (George William)
Science
Mr. Oseba's Last Discovery
Bell, George W. (George William)
New Zealand -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
"I looked into the faces of the most intellectual, the least emotional,
and most observing people I have ever seen, and yet no pen, no brush,
no imagination could reproduce that scene. Considering the intelligence
and the unemotional character of this vast audience, the evidence of
surprise was really alarming. For once, these people acted almost like
we fools of the 'upper crust.'"
Humph! it makes me crawl.
"The sitting was adjourned."
I'm glad of it, for it makes me shiver. But it seems to me, considering
the cool intellectuality of the Shadowas, that Leo Bergin is drawing
that rather long. Let's see! These Shadowas are a very intellectual,
a very thoughtful, a very cultivated and civilised people. But let us
reason this out. They were utilitarian; amiable as their environment,
and learned, in what was necessary for their happiness, or within their
reach. Yes, but nine-tenths of the universe--of the outer world--was
shut off from them. They, for 21,000 years, had been on one side--the
inside--of a great tube. Practically back of them, the world lifted
abruptly up; front of them, they could but see above the rim of the
bowl of which they were well toward the bottom.
The field of observation was narrow, the visible facts of Nature were
few. At the near opening of the "tube" there was eternal ice and snow,
an endless expanse of frozen mystery; while at the other, there could
sometimes be seen many weird clusters of stars, but, usually, only
clouds and storms, and desert and mountains, and dangerous whirlpools.
They had no telescopes; their point of view was too narrow for the
study of astronomy, and, as all thoughts, all ideas, all conceptions
of all natural objects must be formed from observation--from sensuous
impressions--how could they draw anything like correct conclusions
regarding the outside worlds? Intellectuality does not always, if ever,
mean universal, or even very great, knowledge.
Well, then, maybe Leo was even drawing it mildly. Maybe, a vision so
strange, a view of a known thing from so surprisingly unexpected a
standpoint, at a time, too, when the public imagination was at a high
tension, presenting so strange a phenomenon, would affect the fine but
impressive mind more than it would the less thoughtful. Maybe, I say,
Leo is right, but it seems a little lofty.
But let's back to Leo's notes. He says:--
"After lunch"--that sounds familiar--"the meeting recommenced, and the
people, having conversed fully and freely over the matter, seemed in
their normal condition.
"Oseba turned the globe slowly, explained the nature of the earth and
of the sun, why the days were 'thusly'; then the 'outside' conditions,
and why it was not all eternal frost, as they had imagined. He showed
the map of land and water, how there were on the outside of our
planet, or Oliffa, 1,400,000,000 of people--a few of them very decent
fellows--and suggested the enormous importance of communicating with
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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