Part I:  The Extent of the Flood

     IT WOULD NOT be proper to omit from this paper all reference to the so-called Flood Geology, in spite of the fact that in some quarters the term is almost a "naughty word." Flood Geology is by some people classed with such fancies as the Flat Earth theory. But this is not altogether fair because the Flat Earth theory, now that the South Pole has been crossed, is totally indefensible, whereas the same kind of absolute disproof of Flood Geology may not yet have appeared. There are a number of variant forms in which Flood Geology is presented, but essentially this is what is believed to have taken place.
     At the time of the Flood, which was world-wide, great tidal waves swept back and forth week after week laying and relaying all the loose materials on the earth's surface in a series of layers in which were embedded the animals and plant life representative of each area.
     In the course of time these layers became hardened by pressure and heat until they took the solid form in which they are now found.
     Consequently, there are no great geological ages separating these layers. They were laid in rapid succession, and the living forms which were buried in them from the trilobites to the dinosaurs were contemporary with one another. These creatures had therefore inhabited the earth together during the interval between Adam and Noah.
     Part of the evidence said by its advocates to support this is the existence of a number of animal cemeteries in which are found indiscriminately mixed together in a tangled mass the bones of innumerable animals of different species. In all such cemeteries it is evident that the animals

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perished suddenly and simultaneously. Carnivorous and herbivorous species lie together, the latter showing no signs of their bones having been gnawed by the former, so that their deaths were presumably simultaneous.
     Moreover, the bones are so completely and forcibly mixed together that the destruction was evidently very violent.
     A water catastrophe best accounts for these cemeteries. Animal bones of various species from very different climatic conditions are found where such creatures no longer exist. This is clearly due to a change in climate occurring at the time of, or soon after, their destruction.
     Another line of evidence is believed to exist in the fact that the rocks are found in reverse order over considerable areas in certain parts of the world. Those rocks which evolutionary geology designates as most ancient lie above rather than beneath those which are designated as recent. Orthodox geology accounts for this fact by the overturning of sections of the earth's crust on a gigantic scale. Flood Geologists reject this explanation.
     A few years ago, I attended a conference of Christian scientific men in which the subject of Flood Geology was raised. It occurred to me that this question of upside down rocks could be settled very easily if they were examined carefully to see whether certain fossils which are normally fossilized feet down, as it were, in these rocks were fossilized feet up. If the latter were the case, then clearly the rocks have been turned upside down and the orthodox explanation of the reversed strata is valid. But if not, then the strata really were laid in the wrong order, and modern geology would have to do a lot of rethinking. I asked if the animals were found upside down. Those present did not take the question seriously. Yet it is obvious that this should be looked into and would be worth doing so, even if a research fund were necessary, because it would settle the issue once for all.
     A book has been published by Martin Gardner entitled Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science in which the author claims that this question of upside down fossil forms has in fact been investigated and the evidence sustains modern geological theory. (33) I'm not sure how true

33. Gardner, Martin, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Dover Publications, New York. 1957., p.129

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this is -- that is to say, whether the upside-downness of the fossils is found in every locality where the strata are reversed. It could be true of some -- but if it is not true in one single instance, the case is wide open.
     In order that the reader may pursue this point of view for himself, the short bibliography which follows lists some of the works of a serious nature which support Flood Geology, including one by George McCready Price, who is probably its best-known protagonist.

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1. Flood Geology

Clark, Harold W., The New Diluvialism, Science Publications, California, 1946, illustrated, full documentation, index, 222 pp.

Gillispie, Charles C., Genesis and Geology, Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1951. Useful as a historical background study of Diluvialism.

Morris, Henry and J. C. Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1961, 518 pp.

Nelson, Byron C., The Deluge Story in Stone, Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1931, 190 pp., illustrated, list of Flood traditions.

Price, George McCready, Common-Sense Geology, Pacific Press, Mountain View, Calif., 1946, 239 pp., illust.

Rehwinkel, Alfred M., The Flood, Concordia, St. Louis, 1951, 372 pp., illustration, full documentation, index.

Young, Davis A., Creation and the Flood, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1977. A critique of Flood Geology which presents a reasoned but by no means new alternative in which the days of Genesis are read as ages. Continental Drift is felt to be fatal to Flood Geology.

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2. Older Works of Value

Dawson, Sir J. W., The Historical Deluge, Religious Tract Society, London, 1892, 56 pp.

Edersheim, Alfred, The World Before the Flood, Religious Tract Society, London, undated, 190 pp.

Miller, Hugh, The Testimony of the Rocks, Shepherd and Elliot, Edinburgh, 1857, pp. 267-350, illustrated.

3. Transactions of the Victoria Institute

Le Riche, Philip J., "Scientific Proofs of a Universal Deluge," vol. 61, 1929, p.86-117.

Molony, F H., "The Noachian Deluge and Its Probable Connection with Lake Van," vol. 68, 1936, p.43-65.

Prestwick, Joseph, "A Possible Cause for the Origin of the Traditions of the Flood," vol. 27, 1893, p.263-305.

4. On the Ark

Bailey, Lloyd R., "Wood From 'Mount Ararat': Noah's Ark?" in Biblical Archaeologist, vol.40, no.4,
December, 1977, p.137ff. A useful scholarly critique of popular claims regarding the "beam" found by
Fernand Navarra.

Shea, William H., "The Ark-Shaped Formation in the Tendurek Mountains of Eastern Turkey," in Creation Research Society, September, 1976, pp.97-98. An excellent article with some superb photographs of the ark-shaped earth and rock formation that has frequently been presented as remains of the ark.

Tinder, Donald, "Whatever Happened to Noah's Ark?" in Christianity Today, 3 June, 1977, p.26. A useful and sober review bibliography of several volumes on the subject.

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