Geology and the Flood

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 11, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 43.

Geology and the Flood

THE Bible teaches very plainly that there was a universal flood in the days of Noah. At that time the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows on high were open, and the whole earth was submerged beneath the angry waters. The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep would mean terrific upheavals in the bosom of the earth. It would mean the breaking to pieces of a large part, if not all, of its surface. It would mean that these upheavals and the actions of the waters would sweep masses of the luxuriant foliage of field and forest in that time into great heaps, where they would be buried beneath the soil that would settle with the receding waters. Our immense coal-mines are in evidence to show that this was the case, for all agree that our coal is of vegetable formation.

One of our correspondents tells us of finding in a mine a piece of clay weighing one hundred fifty to two hundred pounds, that had become almost as hard as limestone. In breaking this apart with his sledge, he found that it was in regular layers, or sections, and it was full of the prints of leaves very similar to those of the cottonwood-tree. The same miner found the stump of a tree, preserved in perfect shape, standing right up out of the bottom of his mine. It projected to some five or six feet above the regular vein, and upon breaking it up he had over half a ton of coal.

Facts of this kind, which are furnished in great abundance by geological remains, prove conclusively to the unprejudiced mind that the Bible is correct in teaching that we have had a universal flood, which buried vast quantities of vegetation, and this has given us our modern coal-beds.