Modern
flat Earth hypotheses originated with the English writer
Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1884). Based on his conclusions derived from the
Bedford Level experiment, Rowbotham published a 16-page pamphlet,
Zetetic Astronomy, which he later expanded into a 430-page book,
Earth Not a Globe, in which the Earth is a flat disc centred at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice (
Antarctica), with the
Sun and
Moon 3,000 miles (4,800 km) and the "cosmos" 3,100 miles (5,000 km) above Earth. He also published a leaflet entitled "
The inconsistency of Modern Astronomy and its Opposition to the Scriptures!!", which argued that the "Bible, alongside our senses, supported the idea that the earth was flat and immovable and this essential truth should not be set aside for a system based solely on human conjecture".