Answering a Reader’s Eastern U.S. Land of Promise – Part XVIII

-->Continuing with our final response in this series to David McKane’s comments on our blog and his maps and claimed area for the Land of Promise in the Great Lakes area.     McKane writes: “The St Lawrence seaway is used today for traffic today given the description of the Bro Jared’s ships and how they were driven. The lord could easily allow winds to blow their ships of the ST Lawrence seaway. From what it sounds like they were driven by the winds of large storms that happened during their voyage that included floods it sounds like they were built specifically to travel up the ST Lawrence Seaway.”
    Response: It is always a cop out for theorists to rely on the Lord doing something he normally would not do—like cause winds to blow upward along the St. Lawrence River, which it never does. If we are going that route, just pick up the ship in Arabia and set it down in the Land of Promise.
    The problem with your above scenario is:
1. The St. Lawrence Seaway is only from Montreal to Lake Ontario, an area until the Corps of Engineers and the Royal Army Engineers dug the channel around Montreal, there was no shipping beyond that point;
2. The traffic today is a result of widening, new channels and numerous locks that did not exist before 1824;

Tremendous obstacles to normal navigation, let alone a vessel driven forth before the wind

3. The St.Lawrence River contains, at one point, an area called The Thousand Islands Section, which is an archipelago of 1,864 islands downriver from Lake Ontario, ranging in size from one square foot above the water level to over forty square miles—if by some miracle the Jaredite barges or Nephi's ship reached that point, the ability of a wind-driven vessel to negotiate this obstacle course to sailing would be impossible (the river at this point has so many shoals and nearly hidden rocks that even today vessels sailing upriver must use maritime pilots to help them travel through the hazardous waterway);
4. The Jaredites had no ships—they had barges, which were submersible and had no power of their own, being driven strictly by the wind-blown ocean currents;
5. Winds of large storms do not cause current to move, but to circle in turmoil. Strong winds, like trade winds, move currents—they are constant and governed by gravitational pull and numerous of natural factors;
6. There were no floods involved. The word “flood” mentioned in Ether 2:20, is the swamping or flooding of the barge with the hole open to the sea; In 2:24, the Lord is telling the Bro of Jared that he was the cause of the winds, rains and floods that so recently had inundated the earth; In 2:25 the Lord is referring to the winds, rains, and floods that will come forth effective the barges the Jaredites fashioned; In 3:2 the Bro of Jared is referring to the waters that are overwhelming the barges, i.e., submersing the barges into the depths of the ocean. Keep in mind that the word “flood” means “The flowing of the tide; the semi-diurnal swell or rise of water in the ocean; opposed to ebb. The ship entered the harbor on the flood Hence flood-tide; young flood; high flood,” also “A great quantity; an inundation; an overflowing; abundance; superabundance” also “A great flow of water; a body of moving water; particularly, a body of water, rising, swelling and overflowing.“
    Many words have multiple meanings and this is one of those. It does not only mean the flooding of a deluge, like Noah’s Flood.

McKane writes: “For the winds have gone forth out of my mouth and also the rains and floods have I sent forth.”
    Response: Keep in mind that in the time of the Jaredites, other than with the patriarchs, God’s abilities were not always well known. The Lord here is telling the Bro of Jared of his powers and that he controls heaven and earth and all things involved therein. While even today we do not know how this is done, the Lord’s power controls the gravitational forces of the planets, including those in our own Solar System, and also controls winds, rains, etc. It is through the forces He controls that all things take place. Here the Lord is reminding the Bro of Jared, whom he is preparing to go on a year-long voyage enclosed in a water-tight vessel without windows or ability to see outside, and in which sometimes would be submersed in the ocean depths, that he will take care of them.
    McKane writes: “The boats were light upon the water like water fowl and driven by wind.”
    Response: The Jaredites were not in boats, they were in barges, which were at times submersible—and they were not steerable like we think of steering a boat or ship today. To travel nearly 1000 miles upriver (even if it could have been done) would have been impossible for barges being driven by winds and currents, sometimes violently. At times they would be driven into one shore and then the other in such a narrow confines as a river.
    To correct the statement about wind—they were not driven directly by wind since they had no sails (they were submerged in the ocean from time to time). The correct understanding is that they were driven by currents and waves, which were driven by the wind
    McKane writes: “The narrow neck is between Lake Huron and Lake Erie.”
    Response: This area is 50 miles wide, north to south, all the way across its 50 mile length, west to east. This area is as flat as a pancake, and would require a sizable military force armed with arrows and swords to control movement through it. Hardly what Mormon describes. Including the area to the west, and Lake St. Clair, which is part of this narrow area, a more or less “triangle,” about 50 miles long at its bottom (along Lake Erie) and about 80 miles long along the Michigan border, with two entirely different and separate points of entry, doubling the force needed to block egress through it, seems far from Mormon’s intent. In addition, even traveling at the extreme pace of 25 miles per day, it would take two days to cross at its minimum width, not 1½ days as Mormon indicated.
(Image E – The Canyon through which the Niagara River flows. Getting across this deep abyss during B.C. times would have been impossible
    McKane writes: “The narrow pass is between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.”
Response: Having been to Niagara Falls and driven this area on Queen Elizabeth Way (98) and U.S.I-190, and 405, as well as inland on 406 and all about, this area is 24 miles across (north to south) at its narrowest, 27 miles wide along the U.S. side and 40 miles wide along the Canadian side, and 53 miles east to west. It is flat as a pancake, except for the canyon that splits it from lake to lake.

Left: Aerial view of McKane's narrow pass within the yellow circle; the white arrow shows movement from the Nephite lands through the narrow pass to the Land Northward, which means they would have to cross over the Niagara River canyon and Falls area; Right: the flat country of the narrow neck,which is approximately 30 miles wide and about 50 miles long, there is no area within this entire breadth of land between the two lakes that has a narrow pass--the only area of difficulty is the river canyon, which runs north and south and does not provide a pass between the two flat areas

 

    Tell me, where is your narrow pass?  To get from one area to the other, as you have indicated, it would have to run east and west. Now I drove that entire length, from Buffalo to Stella Niagara and there is only a canyon where the Niagara River flows where it would have been almost impossible to have crossed in B.C. times. And from Stella Niagara to Old Fort Niagara the canyon and width of the river continues, and the river is about 2000-feet across along this length (narrows point is at Stella Niagara, about 1500-feet). And if you are going to say it was different in the past, which all my study of geologists says it was not other than were the falls themselves were located, show your facts with support.

Photos of the Niagara River canyon which splits the land from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario--this canyon runs north and south and would have to be cross to gain access through this area, something that would not have been possible by an army, let alone women and children in Nephite times

    McKane writs: “The Hopewell Indians Extended from the Great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The Hopewell had gold we know this by their gold and silver artifacts.”
    Response: Gold exists almost everywhere except in the continent of Antarctica. Every early culture had some gold artifacts. That is not the point. The importance is the over-abundance of gold, silver and copper mentioned throughout the scriptural record and told to us that the Nephites had it in abundance. There are few places in the world that have abundant gold, and the U.S. does not east of the Rocky Mountains, though we do in the West and Alaska. Of those three ores, no place in the Western Hemisphere even comes close to what Chile and Peru have, with each of these two country areas leading the world in one or the other.
    David, you write things that are simply not true and are inaccurate, yet you seem either not to care about accuracy or you do not understand how wrong you are. That is why you have elicited the ire of so many of our readers. They keep telling you facts and you keep responding with your mantra of opinions, which you think are supported by the scriptural record, but as we have pointed out they do not.
    Like others have told you, give it a rest. You don’t have a leg to stand on and it is so obvious anyone with just a little knowledge of the scriptural record can point out.
    This concludes the comments and questions you have posted on our website. Following are the brief answers to y0ur 24 points.
    (In the following two posts, we will answer McKane’s demand that we answer his 24 questions and comments in brief wordage for our normal answers are “Long drawn out [and] painful to read.” While learning comes from supportive evidence to statements, we will answer his questions briefly)