One More Time—Baja is not the Land of Promise, Part II

For the peninsula known as Baja California to qualify for the Land of Promise, the 15 points listed in the previous post as set out by Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni, must exist in this land.

Of Nephi’s points:

1. The winds and currents do not blow toward Baja from the Arabian Sea. By the time they hit the Peru/Ecuador border area along the bulge of Peru, they are driven back out to sea, and either curve downward in a loop to Polynesia, or back across the Pacific in the South Pacific gyre;
2. A ship leaving the Arabian coast that was “driven forth before the wind” could only go southward into the Indian Ocean and then into the Southern Ocean, pick up the West Wind Drift and the Prevailing Westerlies, which would deposit the ship at the 30º South Latitude along the coast of Chile (a place called the Bay of Coquimbo and La Serena)—no ship from the south could have reached Baja;
3. Seeds brought from the land of Jerusalem would only grow in another like Mediterranean Climate in 600 B.C. This climate exists around La Serena at the 30º South Latitude in Chile. The only other like climate would be in Southern California—Baja has an extreme desert (north) or a hot and humid tropical (south) climate where such seeds would not have grown in 600 B.C.
4. Gold, silver and copper as a single ore is plentiful along the coastal region of both Chile and Peru. According to the International Mining maps, none is found elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere—no gold has yet been found in Baja;
5. The ruins found in both Mesoamerica and the Andean area of South America are the only places in the Western Hemisphere where such magnificent buildings of antiquity are found—there are no ruins of any kind found in Baja;
6. The only area in the Western Hemisphere that was once an island is the area west of the present day Andes in South America. This area consisted of southern Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and western Bolivia—where all the Andean ruins are now found.

Of Mormon’s points:

1. The grains of quinoa and kiwicha are supergrains, perhaps the most nutritious grains grown on the planet. They have been grown in the Andean area since about 2000 B.C. and though forgotten between 500 A.D. and the time of the Inca, the Spanish considered them of great value when they arrived. These grains were unknown in America until late in the 20th century. No other unknown grains of value exist anywhere in the Western Hemisphere;
2. The only known natural cure for fever (malaria) is quinine taken from the cinchona tree, which only grew in the Andes until Europeans transplanted it in southeast Asia in the 19th century;
3. There is a magnificent wall a hundred miles across the Peruvian landscape called the Great Wall of Peru that archaeologists claim was built to keep invading armies from the south from gaining the northern lands. There are also numerous such defensive walls built across Peru—there are none in Baja;
4. In the island that was once the Andean area, the Bay of Guayaquil provides a narrow passage to the east of about 26 miles in width. No such narrow neck exists anywhere in Baja, which is a peninsula that is generally the same width from one end to the other;
5. In this area to the east of the Bay of Guayaquil in Ecuador is a narrow pass called the Pass of Huayna Capac after an Inca battle that took place there. This pass runs from the south to the north and is easily defended by a small force against a much larger one;
6. The Andean area west of the mountains has always been considered an island, even after the Andes rose up. This land as an island and even now is much longer than it is wide. This is the only feature consistent with the Baja peninsula in the scriptural record.

Moroni gives us even further information about this Land of Promise, especially the Land Northward:

1. The llama and alpaca are camelids and used for everything from transportation as beasts of burden to food to wool for clothing—perhaps one of the most useful animals for man that exists in the Western Hemisphere. These animals were unknown in the U.S. until the early 20th century. No such unknown animals exist in Baja;
2. This one is true of all the Western Hemisphere;

3. Baja as a peninsula has little to offer, let alone be a choice land (except for modern recreation along the beaches). Even today, the peninsula is not well populated (yellow areas on map show concentrations where some 90% of the population resides). That the peninsula is part of the Western Hemisphere it could qualify for that designation—but as a separate area of the Land of Promise as Rosenvall claims, there is nothing there to support a claim of a choice land above all other lands.