Comprehensiveness of the Flood

Before any conclusion is reached, the following chapters, at least, must be studied: Genesis 6 to 9. Particular attention should be given to Genesis 6:5-7, 13, 17; 7:4, 21-23; 8:11. From these verses it appears that the objects of God's wrath were man and dry-land animals. Man had willfully lost God's image, and the land animals appear to have been the special victims of Satan's diabolical experi­ments in breeding, until the earth must have been filled with monstrous hybrids. (See "Spiritual Gifts," Vol. III, p. 75.)

Noah's ark was a large boat and contained three stories of cages, but obviously Noah did not have to provide room for whales. A careful reading of the Genesis record seems to indicate that only dry-land animals and birds were taken into the ark. Such forms as fishes, whales, porpoises, manatees, and ancestors of all the other multitudinous forms of fresh and salt water animals, possibly many of the amphibians or even the natatorial forms, in­cluding seals and walruses, were obviously left outside the ark. Some of each created kind were miraculously preserved in their native element, just as the ark itself and the living forms inside it were preserved only through the manifestation of supernatural power. (See "Patriarchs and Prophets," p. 100.)

Thus the limited space in the ark was re­served for representatives of those dry-land forms which God had created. A study of blood relationships and breeding possibilities in the modern animal world shows us that through variation in numerous stems—such as that so evident in the doglike kind, the catlike kind, or the bearlike kind of animals—the almost endless varieties of animals now populating the earth could have descended from a comparatively few ancestral stocks at the time of the flood. An illustration of this almost unlimited variation within the kind is seen in our one hundred nine "kinds" of dogs today, almost all of which have sprung up in the memory of a few generations of men. Study along this line leads to the conclusion that Noah had abundance of room in his ark for all necessary forms of animals, and still had a great deal of room to spare for the storage of food.

There is no reason to assume that this decree for total destruction of all animal life on the dry land except righteous men, and rep­resentatives of the kinds of dry-land animals which He had created, included the destruc­tion of all plants. Such expressions as "every living substance that I have made will I destroy ["blot out," margin] from off the face of the earth" (Gen. 7:4), are explained by verse 23, which defines just which "living substance" is meant. In each case it includes only dry-land animals. Plants are evidently not included, at least not extensively. Thus a careful comparison of text with text in these chapters would indicate that the plants shared in the destruction of the world, but, as in the case of water animals, in multitudinous in­stances they survived the deluge even though they were outside the ark.

What is the record of the rocks on this question? In the case of dry-land animals, only rarely do we now find, in any given area, the fossil forms of the animals which are now living above them in the flesh. For ex­ample, only rarely do we find elephants now living in areas where elephant remains exist as fossils. Dry-land animals had to move out over the earth from the mountains of Ararat, and in many instances, for various manifest reasons, have not repopulated the parts of the earth which they once populated. On the other hand, it is a fairly common rule, rather than an exception, to find in any given area fossil forms of such plants as oak, hickory, or elm, and these very same trees growing above them.

Being better acquainted with the Great Plains area (from the Rockies to the Missis­sippi River) than elsewhere, T will use this region as an illustration of this fact. To date, at least one hundred twenty-one genera of fossil plants have been recognized in this area. Of these one hundred twenty-one genera, forty-five are now growing in this same re­gion. A few of these are as follows: bitter­sweet, dogwood, hickory, walnut, sycamore, oak, prickly-pear cactus, black locust, honey locust, willow, arborvitae, linden, elm, cherry, ash, hawthorn, maple, hackberry, pine, spruce, cottonwood, and trailing arbutus. (See "En­vironment and Life in the Great Plains," by Clements & Chaney, 1936.)

In view of both the Written Record and the record of the earth, it appears that at least most plants remained outside the ark, and that the same power which preserved fishes and whales for us also preserved some of the antediluvian vegetation. Plants which were buried too deep became coal in some instances, and some that were left on the surface died. But the reproductive parts of those in favor­able locations lived and became the ancestors of our modern forms.

We know that before Noah left the ark, his pet dove brought back to him a leaf from an olive tree that had chanced to survive the water, and had found proper rooting. (Gen. 8:11.) It is not improbable also that Noah preserved some of his favorite and most use­ful plants in the ark in the form of seeds, roots, or other propagules. Much of modern vegetation has spread far from original post-flood centers of survival. But many other forms are indigenous to the areas they now inhabit, and all are but the pitiful survivors of the magnificent world, which, being over­whelmed with water, perished.