格致鏡原 (Gezhi Jingyuan: Mirror of Scientific Origins) 100 Volumes

...and it does not sink because energy fills its center. The sun circles the polar star, setting in the west and returning to the east without entering the Earth. Jin Shu, Commentary on the Armillary Sphere: It says Heaven is like a chicken egg, and Earth is like the yolk inside the egg, isolated within Heaven. Heaven is large and Earth is small. Both the inside and outside of Heaven have water. Heaven and Earth each ride upon energy to stand and are carried by water as they move. The entire Heaven is 365 and one-quarter degrees. If you divide this in the middle, half covers the Earth and half circles below the Earth. Therefore, the twenty-eight mansions are half-visible and half-hidden. Heaven turns like the rotation of a wheel hub. Wang Chong's Lunheng: Heaven is flat and square, no different from Earth, like an overturned basin. Yao Xin's Xintian Lun: Heaven is like a tilting carriage cover, high in the north and low in the south. Jin Shu, Astronomical Treatise: Heaven rotates sideways like a grinding stone, half above the Earth and half below. The sun and moon travel east by nature, while Heaven rotates west, entering the sea and pulling them westward, like an ant walking on a grinding stone; when the stone rotates left, the ant moves right. The stone moves fast and the ant moves slowly; the ant cannot help but move west. Jin Shu: The Han dynasty official Qie Meng recorded that his former teacher passed down the saying that Heaven has no physical substance. If you look up at it, it is high, distant, and limitless; your eyes become dazed and your vision cut off, so it appears deep blue. It is like looking sideways at distant yellow mountains, which all appear blue, or looking down into a thousand-fathom deep valley, which appears dark. The blue is not a true color, and the dark has no physical body. The sun, moon, and stars naturally float in the void; their movement and their rest all depend on energy. Therefore, the seven luminaries sometimes depart, sometimes stay, sometimes follow, sometimes reverse, appearing and disappearing without constancy; their advancing and retreating differ because they are not rooted or tied to anything, so each is linked by energy. Juye Lu: Zhu Xi said that Heaven is rotated by rigid wind, keeping the Earth inside so it does not sink. Bo Qi said the great atmosphere lifts it. Shao Zi said Heaven depends on form and Earth attaches to energy; Heaven and Earth mutually depend on each other. These three theories are all refined and appropriate. Lihai Lu: The color of Heaven is deep blue, but people call it the "cinnabar sky" or "crimson sky." The Milky Way is called the "crimson river." This is because when observing Heaven, one uses the North Pole as a standard, and what one sees by looking up is all to the south of the North Pole; therefore, one borrows the southern color as a metaphor. Yuli Tongzheng Jing: The body of Heaven is 307,000 7,000 sic li in diameter from east to west and north to south. Every square is 89,250 li. From the Earth to the top is 80,000...