Where Lehi Landed – Part III

Frederick G. Williams, the scribe of the Prophet Joseph Smith, from 1833-1837, jotted down on a piece of paper that indicated Lehi's party landed in 30 degrees south latitude in Chile. This proposed landing site of Lehi was found on the same sheet of paper with a known revelation regarding John the Beloved, and many presumed it, too, was a revelation. Much has been written by Mesoamerican Theorists and other theorists who claim other places, such as upstate New York, was the home of the Nephites, and all take the approach that this was not a revelation—obviously, because it does not agree with their models. Their arguments range far and wide to disclaim the statement as a revelation because it appeared on a sheet of paper with another revelation.
However, all this conjecture of trying to show it was not a revelation misses the point. Whether it was a revelation or not is immaterial—what matters is the location written down. What caused Frederick G. Williams in this case, and Joseph Smith in the case illustrated in the previous post where he said it was the landing site of the Lehi Colony, to choose the 30º South Latitude in the first place?

Forget about the revelation argument. It is immaterial to the point of why Joseph and Williams chose to indicate this particular spot on the Chilean coast of South America. In their day, not much was known about the west coast of South America—there was no internet and few families had an Atlas because of the cost. In addition, few people in New England had ever been to South America, let alone to the West Coast of Chile, and teachings in schools of the day did not include such detailed information on South America—whatever teaching of geography and history at the time centered in England, Ireland and Europe, for that is where the people who settled New England came from.

When one considers the very unique qualities of the area along the coastal strip of Chile exactly at the 30º South Latitude—a fact unknown until late in the 20th Century, that this area has the exact climate, precipitation, soil, soil group, temperatures, etc., as the Mediterranean zone—one of only five such places in the entire world, one must wonder how Joseph Smith and Frederick G. Williams stumbled on this particular location. And even so, how would they have known that the seeds Lehi brought from Jerusalem needed such a climate to grow abundantly and exceedingly? None of these men were travelers to other climatic zones, nor would they have known that about planting and harvesting in the Mediterranean or South America (or anywhere else outside New England).

Today, we have great knowledge of such matters, and if we personally do not know something, we can easily seek out the information from numerous sources—so much so that we sometimes forget that such knowledge was not always available. The younger a person is, the less likely he or she will have the experience of trying to find information without the internet, household books, well-read parents, teachers and extensive libraries. But such was not the case in 1830, especially to farmers who did not live within a city, but spent their lives working the fields and trying to eek out a living.

There are very few people today, even with all our modern technology and information, that know the circumstances that exist along this strip of Chilean coast in South America, nor that it is an area of temperate climate and arable soil suitable to plant and harvest abundant crops of seeds from Jerusalem that grew exceedingly—as the scriptures indicate.
After all, just a little to the north of this area is the Atacama desert, one of the driest deserts in the world, and just to the south of this strip the weather is far too cold for such planting and harvesting. And inland, beyond this strip, the land rises sharply into the Andean mountains where such crops cannot grow. But just inland from the Bay of Coquimbo is the La Serena valley, which has this Mediterranean Climate and where most of the crops of Chile are grown.

Indeed, Joseph and Williams must have been extremely lucky guessers to choose the 30º South Latitude—the only location in the Western Hemisphere from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego in South America, seeds from Jerusalem would have grown exceedingly and produced abundant crops.