More Comments from Readers –Part V

Here are more comments from our readers:
    Comment #1: “You keep using the term New World, but that is an invention of modern historians” Rudy K.

Response: Not so. First of all, Amerigo (Américo) Vespucci (left) the Italian explorer for whom the Americas are named, was a financier, merchant, navigator and cartographer, and one of the many European explorers during the Age of Exploration, or Age of Discovery, which took place from the mid-1400s to mid-1500s. Born on March 9, 1454, in Florence, Italy, he became part of the prominent Vespucci family who were friends with the powerful Midicis, who ruled Italy for more than 300 years.
    After being educated by his uncle, Vespucci himself worked for the Medicis as a banker and later supervisor of their ship-outfitting business, which operated in Seville, Spain. He moved to Spain in 1492, and nine years after Columbus’ discovery, he led an expedition across the Atlantic and discovered present-day Brazil. Reaching the tip of South America for the first time in 1501, he was the first to recognize that South America was a new continent rather than the eastern extremities of Asia as had previously been thought (prior to Vespucci's discovery, explorers, including Columbus, had assumed that the lands were part of Asia).

The New World was a term applied to the earliest maps, particularly after the voyages ofAmerigo Vespucci

Consequently, realizing it was a separate, and unknown continent to Europe, Asia and Africa, Vespucci named it the “New World,” a term that stuck and has been used for the past 525 years.
    Comment #2: “One note on the distance—Mosiah 24:23 says that the Lord told them at the end of their first day of fleeing from the land of Helam that He would stop the Lamanites in the valley of Alma so they wouldn't pursue them anymore. So the last 12 days of their journey was not a high adrenalin situation because they knew nobody was chasing them. A group of hundreds of people, with their flocks and children, could not walk 2.4 mph for 14 hours straight with no breaks for 12 or 13 straight days. That would be extremely difficult, if not physically impossible, on flat, open land, let alone mountainous wilderness. 2.4 mph is quite a brisk walking pace too. Try it on a treadmill for an hour and see if you think you could go another 13 hours without stopping. Plus, with nobody chasing them they wouldn't have been in such a rush. Also, if Nephi had fled 1500 miles into the mountains the Lamanites would not have found them. Needle in a hay stack. Just speculation though. Thanks for addressing it” P.D.
    Response: In answer to your three comments: First: an average man can walk one mile in 20 minutes at an easy pace, that is 3 miles per hour—if they are in shape (not sedentary) they can maintain this for several hours. I would think that the Nephites were probably in better shape, being an agrarian society used to hard work in the fields, etc., rather than our people of today who are more sedentary and far less active.

Soldiers “marching” along a road in the field at route step—where the soldier is not at attention (like regular marching) and does not remain “in step” though they retain their normal distances. Most army units can cover 25 to 30 miles a day, covering about 3 to 3.5 miles an hour for eight hours

Speaking militarily for comparison, the Roman soldier were required to complete 20 Roman miles (18.4 modern miles) with 45-pound packs in five “summer hours,” which was called “the regular step” or “military pace” (summer hours were the division of daylight into twelve equal periods). In the U.S. military, a soldier uses a 30-inch step, with normal marching cadence at 120 steps per minute, which equals 3.4 miles per hour or a 17.64-minute mile. Double Time is essentially a jog that uses a cadence of 180 steps per minute, which is 5.1 miles per hour. In addition, in long marches, the method is "route step" (a style of marching in which troops maintain prescribed intervals  but are not required to keep in step or to maintain silence), covering 3 to 3.5 miles in 50 minutes, then rest 10 minutes, then commence again, alternating between 3 miles and 3.5, for hours on end.
    While 2.4 mph for 12 to 13 straight hours without rest would be extremely difficult, resting 10 minutes per hour has proven to increase distance tenfold (the average speed of troop movement is 2.5 mph for extended foot movement—and that is with a 90 pound pack, canteen, ammo belt, etc., and carrying a rifle).

A military example is found in (left) General Lucian Truscott (founder of the U.S. Rangers) of the 3rd Infantry Division during the Allied invasion of Sicily called Operation Husky. He trained the 3rd Infantry Division to a very high standard before leading in the assault on Sicily in July 1943. His training paid off when the division covered great distances in the mountainous terrain at high speed. The famous 'Truscott Trot' (this evolved into what used to be called “half march” and in later times was called “quick march”) was a 4 mph marching pace that always began at five miles per hour over the first mile, thereafter four miles per hour, much faster than the usual standard of 2.5 miles per hour (actor Audie Murphy, and politicians Daniel Inouye and politician Bob Dole served under him).
    His famous coverage of 100 miles in 72 hours to arrive in Palermo saved numerous lives; as did General Patton’s movement of up to 125 miles in two days, moving his forces, 2/3 of which were infantry (on foot) to save the 101st Airborne troops at Bastogne, were both magnificent examples of moving large numbers of people with heavy equipment (not wheeled) over great distances covering very difficult terrain in times of great anxiety.
    A few years ago, a friend was filming movies in Peru and caught a Peruvian woman on film using a sort of shuffling trot as she traveled along one of the old roads. He said most of the women and men out in the country walked that way—a fast paced, but leisurely stroll that must have been around 4 to 5 mph, maintaining that gait for long distances.
In addition, we have written in these pages numerous times about the distance one can cover in normal walking—mostly in connection with the day and a half journey, which was meant by Mormon to illustrate a distance and, therefore, most likely using a normal person’s ability.
    Second: The example of distance covered by Alma’s band, when the Lord told Alma: “Haste thee and get thou and this people out of this land, for the Lamanites have awakened and do pursue thee; therefore get thee out of this land, and I will stop the Lamanites in this valley that they come no further in pursuit of this people” (Mosiah 24:23), I think the term “haste thee” might suggest that Alma and his people were under some suggestion to hurry along the way, and though the Lord would stop this group from following, Alma had been chased twice before by surprise groups that sought his life, and probably did not dally around during the following 12 days in the wilderness until they reached what they thought was safety (land of Zarahemla).

Terrain limits where groups of people can travel. Following such groups would not prove too difficult if time and distance were not a concern, since often there is only one way through the terrain in which a group could travel

Third: As for the needle in a haystack comment, we have tried to show that ancient travel in the Land of Promise, especially when considering Chile and Peru (and also Ecuador), followed available landfall and terrain. One would have to be there to really get a clear view of this, but travel routes are very limited, i.e., you go where the land allows you to go, even pretty much today. When Nephi’s brothers followed, other than perhaps seeing tracks or residue of Nephi and his people where they earlier passed, were still limited in their choices of possible paths Nephi could have taken. Though it might have involved a few blind turns, and sending out runners to find their trail from time to time, the path would have been much easier to find than one might think.
    Comment #3 “Thank you for all your work. I have enjoyed reading all your blog from start to finish…what an education. It was great. Now I’m starting on your books and can’t wait to learn all you know” Molly Z.
    Response: Thank you. I’m glad you have enjoyed them.
    Comment #4: “Doesn’t Isle of Sol in lake Titicaca suggest that the Inca and early Peruvians worshipped the sun?” Dion D.
    Response: The Isle of the Sun is a modern name, just as the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon at Pachacamac. It is just as likely that the island could have been called in pre-Inca times as the Isle of the Son since a temple was built there. Archaeologists today, normally not steeped in religious beliefs or attitudes, tend to make everything about nature and nothing about God in ancient peoples.