I. INTRODUCTION.
In approaching study of earth's past history, we should do so in the spirit of a coroner holding an inquest. By doing so we cannot fail to reach conclusion that earth at some time in the past must have experienced major cataclysm, or world catastrophe, by water.
2. HISTORIAL BACKGROUND.
a. Lyell the first geologist to travel.
b. His theory of uniformity assumed that past was like present.
c. His creed of uniformity was before railroads, geological surveys, etc., and denied possibility of a universal deluge.
d. MODERN OCEANOGRAPHY.
Modern knowledge of conditions at bottom of ocean show that no stratified deposits are now forming there. Works of Eduard Suess of forty years ago acknowledged this, and more modern work of Douglas Johnson and many others confirm this important truth.
4. EARLY MISUNDERSTANDINGS.
Early scientists, supported by Cuvier, Agassiz, and others, taught theory of many successive world catastrophes. Absurdities of this view prepared way for Lyellism, and thus eventually for Darwinian evolution.
5. SURFACE FEATURES OF EARTH.
a. Every region of earth's surface (except where covered by volcanic deposits) gives plain evidence of having emerged from a universal ocean. This evidence particularly impressive at high levels of each continent, for example, just east of the continental divide in Colorado. All mesas and buttes are further examples.
b. Old strand lines, or elevated shore lines, around all coasts of all lands ; high river terraces of all major rivers ; great interior basins of all continents, with high old shore lines around them—all these prove very different world conditions in the past.
c. How different? What were they like?
6. ABNORMAL CONDITIONS SHOWN IN STRATA.
a. Crinoids and brachiopods (deep-ocean animals) occur alternately with land plants in forming coal beds. Found on every continent.
b. Mollusks and brachiopods (both shell fish) give evidence of having been buried alive.
c. Fishes entombed in great numbers, abnormal in their well-preserved condition, and also in their abundance.
d. Conditions shows in a, b, and c wholly different from anything now going on anywhere in our modern world.
7. EXTINCTION OF LARGE LAND ANIMALS.
a. Dinosaurs. Found as fossils in America, Europe, Africa, Asia. "One of the most inexplicable of events is the dramatic extinction of this mighty race." (Charles Schubert.)
b. Megatherium, titanothere, and other mammals.
c. Rhinoceros, camel, elephant, etc., found as fossils in North America, but now living only in Old World. In other words, these animals were made locally extinct by some cause.
d. Elephants in Siberia and Alaska.
8. LYELL'S THEORY OF UNIFORMITY ABSURD.
Uniformity seems absurb in face of facts like these. Abnormal conditions must have prevailed at some time in past. A world catastrophe explains these conditions, and seemingly nothing else is adequate.
9. OBJECTIONS BRIEFLY ANSWERED.
Geologists admit very abnormal conditions, but claim these were only local. Moreover, they claim to be able to date them in a long series, some having taken place long before others. This differential dating is purely hypothesis. It is not proved and cannot be proved. A much better and more reasonable hypothesis is that all animals found as fossils lived together contemporaneously in same world, and were destroyed and buried by one great world catastrophe, the Flood. This one big world catastrophe explains all the major facts far better than Lyell's uniformity, and differential dating of fossils. "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." 2 Peter 3 :6.
REFERENCES
Common-Sense Geology, by Price (Pacific Press, 1946), Pp. 57-59, 228, 221, 168-173,137-140, 222-239.
The Geological Ages Hoax, by Price (Revell, 1931), pp. 28-37.
