The Earth's Interior by A. Smith

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 23, 1915

The Earth's Interior

By A. Smith

Is It Water or Fire?

By A. SMITH

SOME scientists have asserted that the earth in the beginning was an intensely heated molten mass, thrown off from the substance of the sun by the rapid rotation of that luminary, and that the earth's interior is now a molten mass.

But the Bible declares of the earth that God "spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast" (Ps. 33:9), and that "He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods." Ps. 24:2.

At the time of the Deluge, the rocky foundation of the earth's superstructure, enveloping the vast internal reservoir of water, was broken up by the power of God, and the waters rushed to the surface with overwhelming force. See Gen. 7:11-24. This, united with the water rained down from heaven, covered the whole earth. The event was certainly a supernatural one. At the subsidence of the Flood, much of the water returned to the interior of the earth; but three fourths of the earth remained covered.

In the beginning only one seventh of the earth's surface was covered with water, beautifully diversified and distributed, as the following quotation shows: "Upon the third day Thou didst command that the waters should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth: six parts hast Thou dried up, and kept them, to the intent that of these some being planted of God, and tilled, might serve Thee. . . . Upon the fifth day Thou saidst unto the seventh part where the waters were gathered, that it should bring forth living creatures, fowls and fishes: and so it came to pass." 2 Esdras 6:42, 47.