For the past four months, weekly advertisements have appeared in the CRIMSON describing Cosmography 1930, "a modern theory in the field of speculative philosophy." Paid for by a man named Thomas Maciver, the ads run concurrently in the Yale Daily News and the Daily Princetonian.

In an age of flying saucers, dianeties, and Velikovsky, a man who claims the earth is fixed in space above the sun demands to be heard.

Thomas Maciver, author of "Cosmography 1930," has sent this book to over 1900 libraries, including Widener. He is now paying to advertise his theories, but he warns his readers not to write to him.

According to Fred L. Whipple, professor of Astronomy, the author of Cosmography "simply ignores facts." Maciver's theories range from a revolutionary description of the solar system to a solution for the world's economic problems, and include a method for controlling whirlwinds, hurricanes, and typhoons.

Henry W. Riecken, Jr. '39, lecturer on Psychology, after examining Cosmography, said he found some of its passages interesting from a clinical standpoint. He made it clear, however, that he had no intention of attempting a mail-order psychoanalysis.

Maciver styles himself a sciolist (Webster: "One whose knowledge is superficial") and says he "has no craving for any other distinguishing appellation."

With neither colleagues nor collaborators, he wrote all his works and published them at this own expense.

Somewhere in the twenties, he says, he began to have doubts about the Copernican theory of the solar system. This got him started on Cosmography.

After experimenting with a globe and a spotlight he decided that the sun must be fixed in space below the earth. Neither astronomers nor his business acquaintances would listen to him, so he wrote all his theories down and waited.

In 1943 he tried to have his work published but was turned down by all the University presses he approached. Undaunted, he published "Cosmography 1930" that same year at his own expense and sent copies to college presidents for their libraries.

There is now a copy of "Cosmography 1930" in the New England Deposit Library which is located on Harvard land near the Business School. The book can be obtained through Widener.

No Conant Acknowledgement

Apparently it was relayed from President Conant's office, where the book was first received. Maciver complains that he got no acknowledgement from Conant.

As set down in his books, Maciver's theories dwell at random on physics, astronomy, chemistry, anthropology, economics, and religion. First and foremost he asserts "the energy ray of sun is supreme."

Astronomer Whipple has no objection to this assertion, but when it comes to defining the "energy ray" he and Maciver differ. Whipple says he receives on the average three cosmological theories from amateur scientists like Maciver every year.