Proof #15:
The idea that, instead of sailing horizontally round the Earth, ships are taken down one side of a globe, then underneath, and are brought up on the other side to get home again, is, except as a mere dream, impossible and absurd! And, since there are neither impossibilities nor absurdities in the simple matter of circumnavigation, it stands without argument, a proof that the Earth is not a globe.
I was reading the 100 Proofs and came to the conclusion that Rowbotham was either uneducated or an idiot. Taken as written, Rowbotham doesn't appear to understand that 1) his hypothetical ship only made it halfway around the Earth and 2) he seems to think there is an up/down on the globe. Given his usual lack of detail, one can only assume the "down" portion is with gravity and the "up" portion is against. This implies he has no clue how gravity works. If he isn't referring to gravitational issues, he doesn't seem to understand that by going all the way around a globe, one can indeed arrive back at their starting point.
Rowbotham - uneducated, idiot, or terribly lazy writer?