4. If Earth were sphere that would mean that some rivers are running uphill

“Rivers run down to sea-level finding the easiest course, North, South, East, West and all other intermediary directions over the Earth at the same time. If Earth were truly a spinning ball then many of these rivers would be impossibly flowing uphill, for example the Mississippi in its 3000 miles would have to ascend 11 miles before reaching the Gulf of Mexico.”

Dubay does not understand what elevation above sea level is

I don’t know where Dubay got his 11 mile figure from since he does not explain it, but I presume that it is to do with the curve of the Earth creating a hump over which the water has to travel.

Imagine a line from one location on Earth to another.  On a spherical Earth the mid point has a “hump” above the line caused by the curvature of the Earth’s surface.   Eric Dubay thinks that this hump is equivalent to elevation and that you would need to travel up hill as you moved over the hump.



This is not how elevation works.

Gravity exerts a force towards the centre of mass which means that Earth’s gravity exerts its force towards the centre of the Earth.  This means that “Down” always points to the centre of the Earth.  To travel “Up”, i.e. rise in elevation you must travel further away from the centre of the Earth.

When a river travels over the “hump”, it is simply following the curve of the Earth, and remains at all times the same distance from the centre of the Earth. Therefore it remains horizontal.  It does not flow uphill at any point.


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