After entirely too long a time (I've been working on this on and off since August 2014), it is my pleasure to announce that a copy of the original 1849 pamphlet
Zetetic Astronomy : a description of several experiments which prove that the surface of the sea is a perfect plane and that the earth is not a globe! : being the substance of a paper read before the Royal Astronomical Society on the evening of Dec. 8, 1848 by Samuel Rowbotham is now
available for your reading pleasure at our
library.
To those not in the know, this pamphlet was Rowbotham's first attempt at laying down his model of the Flat Earth, which has then been expanded into the much more thorough book
Earth Not a Globe.
Previously, this resource was only accessible on microfilm in a small amount of high-profile libraries around the plane, many of which are only available to researchers. Bringing it back to public access where it rightfully belongs is a substantial achievement for our Society. Further work could include transferring the body of this document to a machine-readable format so as to allow for it to be searched and interpreted freely.
I would like to express my thanks to the US Library of Congress for their invaluable assistance in producing this resource.