The Land Northward was filled with many mighty cities (Ether 9:23) and people who had “spread over all the face of the land” (Ether 10:4). There were many spacious buildings (Ether 10:5), and the people became exceedingly rich in buildings (Ether 10:12) and these buildings were of every kind (Mosiah 8:8). The Jaredites built a “great city by the narrow neck of land” (Ether 10:20), and the “whole face of the land northward was covered with inhabitants” (Ether 10:21). In fact, they filled up the land from sea to sea on the north, east, west and south (Helaman 3:8).
The Jaredites were exceedingly industrious (Ether 10:22), and worked in all manner of ore, gold, silver, iron, brass, copper, and all manner of metals (Ether 10:23). Their workmanship was exceedingly fine and was of exceptionally curious workmanship (Ether 10:27). They had silks, fine-twined linen, and all manner of cloth (Ether 10:24). They made all types of tools for tilling the ground, and for plowing, sowing, reaping, hoeing and thrashing (Ether 10:25), and all manner of tools for their husbandry (Ether 10:26).
In the Great Lakes theory, where the Land Northward was in Canada, there is limited gold, though it is mentioned 43 times (not counting the 12 times it appears when stating the arrangement of Nephite money). However, the area covered by the Great Lakes, has very limited gold and silver though the latter is mentioned 25 time times in the scriptural record—not counting 10 times discussing Nephite money).
As stated by the experts, “While not a hotspot for the precious metal, the Great Lakes region has ‘glacial gold’ that today panned by hobbyists, that had originated in Canada. It can also be sluiced, and dredged” (Brian Bienkowski, “Searching for gold in Michigan’s rivers,” Great Lakes Echo, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, Michigan State University, East Lansing, September 20, 2011).
According to Mike Williams, a geologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, prospecting is not allowed in Illinois with all prospecting forbidden on state land. Ohio doesn’t regulate hobby prospecting—while there’s some gold in the northwestern part of the state, Williams put it in perspecting by saying: “on a really good day working sun up to sun down, someone might pay for the gas to get to the site.”
Sluicing in Michigan can only be done with a permit and during July and August. There are parameters set for the size of the sluice box, which is 52 inches long, 12 inches wide and 6.5 inches deep. There are no regulations for panning, and Prospectors must identify a 300-foot area where they will be sluicing.
To dredge, prospectors have to apply for a permit, much as they would have to for something like a boat slip, According to Todd Losee, wetland specialist with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, “Mechanical dredging is not allowed on state land.
The state agency is working with prospectors to mitigate any disruption to rivers or creeks. “We opened up prospecting on state land recently but there’s a number of sensitive areas where they can’t,” According Chad Fizzell, a state wetland GIS specialist who stated: “If there are endangered species, natural rivers…those are places they’re not allowed.” It is not like anyone is getting rich. According to those who monitor
According to Warren Bennett, President of the Michigan Chapter of Gold Prospectors Association of America, whose members are a diehard group, states: “It’s just like many
other hobbies in Michigan—a reason to be outside with friends, and like any other hobby, you just get into it.”
Obviously, then, the Great Lakes basically has very little gold, yet the theorists ignore this single disqualifier for their theory.
They also made all types of weapons (Ether 10:27), including steel swords (Ether 7:9), which cankered and rusted after long disuse (Mosiah 8:11), yet their copper and brass were preserved for a longer period (Mosiah 8:10). They made plates of pure gold for engraving upon (Mosiah 8:9), and were literate (Ether 4:1; 15:5) with a written language unknown to the later Nephites and Mulekites (Mosiah 8:11), and probably of the earlier Adamic language for it was not confounded or changed at the time of the Tower (Ether 1:35). They were mighty in writing ability (Ether 12:24), and were physically strong and mighty men (Ether 1:34; 13:15; 14:10; 15:26) wearing large breastplates (Mosiah 8:10). They were probably involved in husbandry, for when they left the area of the Tower, they gathered together their flocks of every kind (Ether 1:41; 2:1), and their herds (Ether 6:4), and were farmers for they had seeds of every kind (Ether 1:41). There were beekeepers among them (Ether 2:3), and carpenters (Ether 2:6,16-17), and metalsmiths (Ether 7:9).
The Jaredites had records dating back to the time of Cain (Ether 8:15) which they brought with them (Ether 8:9), and when they arrived in the Land of Promise, they landed near the narrow neck of land, for their first settlement was in a land they called Moron, for it “was near the land which is called Desolaton by the Nephites” (Ether 7:6), and was considered by them “the land of their first inheritance” (Ether 7:16). This land of Moron, which was evidently up in the hills or mountains (Ether 7:5; 14:11), became their first “kingdom” (Ether 7:5,13), and was an area where all manner of fruit and grain grew (Ether 9:17). In this land of Moron there were all types of animals, including cattle, oxen, cows, sheep, swine, goats, horses, assess, elephants, and cureloms and cumoms (Ether 9:18-19).
The Jaredites were a warrior culture (Ether 7:9; 10:15; 11:4), hunters (Ether 10:19,21), and a stiff-necked people (Ether 7:24; 9:29; 11:2,13,22), though they had spiritual giants among them (Ether 9:22; 12:30; 13:4). They lived to an advanced age (Ether 9:24), and had numerous children (Ether 6:20), having children even into their old age (Ether 10:13). They descended from two mighty men, men favored of the Lord (Ether 1:34), believing they would be led to a choice land (Ether 1:38; 2:8,12), and were promised that a great nation would be raised up through them—a nation greater than any other (Ether 1:43).
They set out in their journey led by a man who was a spiritual giant (Ether 4:4), who could command mountains to move (Ether 12:30), who was the author of the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon (Ether 4:1,5), who talked with the Lord regularly (Ether 1:43), and had such faith, the Lord could not hold anything from him (Ether 12:20-21). Yet, with such a fantastic start, like the Nephites who followed them, the people degenerated into savagery, killing and taking delighting in killing (Ether 15:15).
Thus, the Jaredite nation fell,
leaving no one alive in all the land except for Coriantumr and Ether (Ether
15:29-30,33). As many as eight to ten million people (Ether 14:31; 15:1-2). So
many died that the entire face of the land was covered with the bodies of the
dead (Ether 14:21), their bones being found by Limhi’s 43-man expedition who stumbled
accidentally into the Land Northward many years later (Mosiah 8:8).
While it is true that the area
around the Great Lakes had plenty of Copper, it had almost no Gold and extremely
little silver. Canker is an eating, corroding, or corrosion
of iron and steel. Wood, of course, does not canker, and wood swords is what
was available to the warrior of North America
The New Georgia Encyclopedia has an article about the archaeology of the ancient Indians in the Georgia area entitled Indian Warfare. This article discusses weapons and describes "the atassa, which was actually a wooden sword shaped like a pirate's cutlass. In North America warriors had the atassa, a wooden broadsword that is one to three feet in length and is shaped like a European broadsword, or falchion, without a hilt. The atassa was the most prevalent form of war club in use in the protohistoric period
South American metal working developed in the Andean regions of modern Peru and Bolivia with gold being hammered and shaped into intricate objects, long before such workings existed anywhere else in the Americas. While the Great Lakes area or the Eastern United States region, did have precious ores and metals cut in objects, it was with the natural appearance as the metals came out of the ground. Actual metallurgy, that is, the “The science and technology of metals, their extraction from ores, purification and alloying, heat treatment, and working,” was first achieved, and to a very high degree, in the Andean area of South America long before anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere. Evidence for this type of metal work comes from the sites at Waywaka, Chavin and Kotosh, and it seems to have been spread throughout Andean societies by the Early horizon, that is from the 1000 B.C. to 200 B.C. period.
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