THE MISTAKE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
By Jules Archer
If someone told you the world was flat you'd
laugh and call him a fool. But if he proved it—and
you believed him—who'd have the last laugh?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
September 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The man who discovered that the world was flat, after all, was an Australian hermit named Herbert Fitzgrone. He was a thoughtful man with a glass eye and a metal plate in his head, both obtained during the Boer War. In the bush shanty where he had lived for forty years, he studied the riddle of the universe.
One day, shortly after he had turned sixty, he made his astonishing discovery. He went to Sydney, and found his way to the office of the editor of the Sydney Sun. He opened the door and went in. "The world, sir," he said simply, "is flat."
Those historic words were the first inkling of the scientific storm that was to burst without warning on a complacently globular world. Unfortunately, the editor was not there to hear them. It was 11:00 A.M., Pacific time, and the Sydney pubs were open. Herbert Fitzgrone, a patient man to whom years were as seconds, sat down in the empty office to wait.