The Salt Lake Telegram
Salt Lake City, Utah
23 February, 1934

Ready to Prove Theory
_________________

Professor Gillilan Has Some Posers for
‘Bunch’

    Would you, to establish a theory, point a cannon westward, walk for a distance equal to that between Salt Lake and Garfield in the same direction, then allow someone to fire the cannon?
    Lewis M. Gillilan, 86 B street, would, and is confident the shell would miss him by a distance of 90 to 100 feet.
    That is just one of the many questions discussed periodically by “the Bunch,” a select group of old timers who gather as their feelings and desires dictate at the chamber of commerce to confer on topics of their own making.
    Scott M. Morris, Moritz Bamberger and William D. Rishel are some of the other members of the group Mr. Gillilan calls “The Bunch,” which meets to debate at irregular, unstipulated times. A Century dictionary and a huge globe are the proving  ground for practically all arguments between these men.
    “It is impossible to point in any given direction and travel in the same direction, expecting to reach a destination pointed at,” declared Mr. Gillilan. “A globe and a piece of grocer’s string will demonstrate that best and prove how the curvature of the earth’s surface makes it impossible.”
    Mr. Gillilan has been connected continuously for 40 years with the city school system. Of  the hundreds of Salt Lakers who know and love him, few know he is a brother of Strickland Gillilan, newspaper columnist and writer of verse.
    “Yes, I have two brothers who write poetry,” said the veteran educator. “While they write poetry, I act it,” he adds with a twinkle in his eyes.
    Then he proceeds to tell how he received a gold medal from a Philadelphia journal which conducted a nationwide contest in 1932 to discover unusual incidents of recent happening.
    Mr. Gillilan held a cup while a humming bird took a drink of water from it!
    That little scene, which he terms “poetic,” was enacted on a small farm Mr. Gillilan owns in Utah  county.
    But his most fascinating experiments are conducted with the globe representing the earth on which we live. Here is one he delights in puzzling you with:
    “Can the sun set due west of Salt Lake City and Mexico City, Mexico, provided they have the same longitude at the same moment?”
    “Yes,” says Mr. Gillilan. “It can occur just twice a year, happening at equinox. At that time the sun, being over the equator, is 90 degrees from every point on a given meridian.”

-	transcription by Kate Maynard, 2011