Donut Shaped World Theory
From Plastic Tub
The controversial theory that the earth is in fact, shaped like a donut. Though allegedly proved wrong by cosmonauts in 1975, the theory continues to attract a surprising amount of critical inquiry. Posited by A.W. Slippers in such works as The Shipping Lane Aside, it proved popular with the simple-minded and adventurous alike, appealing particularly to prisoners, Unitarians, the insane and 27 members of the U.S. Congress.
Add Water
One follower, Johannssen Messerschmidt, urged people to spread the word. He was arrested one night walking around Philadelphia clad "with only a donut circl'd about that member which should not be mentioned in these halls," as it was put so eloquently by Senator Locust B. Burley of Vermont, when the matter of Slippers' proposal to voyage to the center of the hole in the Earth was discussed in the Senate. Burley was opposed to the venture and dismissed Slippers as a "charlatan....a flim-flam man of the lowest order...his proposals absurd and his theories are balderdash."
Break Bread
Nonetheless a secret expedition funded by foreign shipping magnate Xenophon Aliokrate did in fact set out to find the hole in the center of the world. The team was equipped with the most exceptional, acurate clocks and "chronickers," telescopes, bi-noculars, sextants, several chronographs and chronometers, and reams of notebooks and map-paper as well as numerous blank leather-bound notebooks. Each member was given a personal hourglass and a pewter pendulum as well as a very expensive gold pen. The ship was rigged with a plethora of modern astronomical instruments and measuring devices and had a separate galley loaded with endless charts and carto-bibliographies, Flamsteed's Atlas Coelestis, a fully functional grandfather clock, wet bar with servants and, of course, several Jules Verne novels. The rumours of a glass bottom seem typical of the exaggerations of the era.
Leftovers Again
The names of the crew and of the ship itself have been lost to history. While most scholars and historians discount the story as a Slander operation intended to embarrass Senator Locust B. Burley and cast him as an enemy of science and exploration, others are convinced that it was quite real, and, although they agree that the world is not in fact toroidal but was pretty much spherical, they still find endless fascination with the mysterious disappearance of the crew and the general zietgeist of the era. Occult detectives claim evidence that South American Adventures Of 1948 recovered the progeny of the crew on a deserted isle not far from the legendary Galapagos Archipelago. Easton W. Wunderkidd often hinted that he knew of the wherabouts of the ship and was the only one who knew the real story.
