Evidences of the Book of Mormon—Some External Proofs of Its Divinity: Part V. The Testimony of the Rocks

EVIDENCES OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.

SOME EXTERNAL PROOFS OF ITS DIVINITY.

Part V.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS.

We have already shown that there has lingered in the traditions of the native American races a dim remembrance of an overwhelming darkness, of a mighty cataclysm, of fearful convulsions of nature, of terrible earth­quakes that occurred in the far distant past, in which the destruction and attendant desolation were greater than on any other occasion in the world’s history, the universal deluge in the days of Noah alone excepted.

Col. J.W. Foster, in his “Prehistoric Races” says: “Passages from the ancient classics as to the existence of a Western Continent, coupled with certain traditions to be found in the Mexican records of a great catas­trophe, the combined result of earthquakes and inundations, by which a large area in Central America became submerged and a greater portion of the population destroyed, have re-opened the discussion whether Plato’s ‘Story of Atlantis’ does not belong to the sobrieties of truth. Among the most zealous of these advocates is the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, who has brought out these traditions in his translation of the ‘Teo Amoxtli,’1 which is the Toltecan mythological history of the cataclysm of the Antilles; and the late George Catlin published a little work2 in which this theory is vigorously maintained. Among the Indian tribes of North America Catlin found the tradition of such a cataclysm. The tribes further south relate that the waters were seen coming in waves like the mountains from the east, and of the tens of thousands who ran for high grounds to the west, according to some traditions one man only, and according to others, two, and still according to others seven, succeeded in reaching places of safety, and from these have descended the present race of Indians.

“From amidst ‘the thunder and flames that came out of the sea,’ whilst ‘mountains were sinking and rising,’ the terror-stricken inhabitants sought every expedient of safety. Some fled to the mountains, and some launched their rafts and canoes upon the turbulent waters, trusting that a favor­able current would land them upon a hospitable shore, and thus in this elemental strife this ancient civilized people became widely dispersed.”3

“The festival of ‘Izcalli’ was instituted to commemorate this terrible calamity, in which ‘princes and people humbled themselves before the Divinity and besought Him not to renew the frightful convulsions.’”

“The tribes in Central America and Mexico, in Venezuela, and in British and Dutch Guiana, distinctly describe these cataclysms—one by water, one by fire, and the third by the winds. The tribes nearer the vicinity of the terrible convulsions were cognizant of the whole effects of fire and winds, when the remote tribes were sensible only of the flood of waters which went to the base of the mountains.”4

This destruction “constitutes an epoch in the Mexican chronology, and is the fourth in order, of the catastrophes which had befallen the world. They kept every four years another fast of eight days, in memory of three destructions which the world has undergone; and accordingly when this period had arrived, they exclaimed four times, ‘Lord, how is it, that the world having been so often destroyed, has never been destroyed?”5

The descriptions, both prophetical and historical given in the Book of Mormon of the impenetrable darkness and succeeding devastating earth­quakes and hurricanes that desolated the American continents when Jesus, the Christ, was crucified, abundantly sustain the traditions of the Indians. As there is an inclination among some students to minimize the terrors of that divine judgment and of the consequent geographical and geological changes caused thereby, we deem it proper to give the passages in full, as they appear in the sacred record.

Nephi, the son of Lehi, was shown in vision more than six hundred years before they took place, the appalling catastrophes of that fateful hour. He writes: “And it came to pass that I saw a mist of darkness on the face of the land of promise; and I saw lightnings, and I heard thunderings, and earthquakes, and all manner of tumultuous noises; and I saw the earth and the rocks that they rent; and I saw mountains tumbling into pieces; and I saw the plains of the earth, that they were broken up; and I saw many cities, that they were sunk; and I saw many that they were burned with fire; and I saw many that did tumble to the earth, be­cause of the quaking thereof. And it came to pass after I saw these things I saw the vapor of darkness, that it passed from off the face of the earth; and behold, I saw multitudes who had fallen, because of the great and terrible judgments of the Lord.”6

Nephi also quotes the words of an ancient Hebrew prophet, named Zenos, who prophesied: “The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel at that day: some with his voice because of their righteousness, unto their great joy and salvation, and others with the thunderings and lightnings of his power, by tempests, by fire, and by smoke, and vapor of darkness, and by the opening of the earth, and by mountains which shall be carried up; and all these things must surely come, saith the prophet Zenos.7 And the rocks of the earth must rend; and because of the groanings of the earth, many of the kings of the isles of the sea shall be wrought upon by the Spirit of God to exclaim, The God of nature suffers.”8 Nephi further prophesies regarding what should happen to the wicked at the time of the death and resurrection of the Redeemer. He declares: “Wherefore all those who are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as stubble; and they that kill the prophets, and the saints, the depths of the earth shall swallow them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; and mountains shall cover them and whirlwinds shall carry them away, and buildings shall fall upon them and crush them to pieces and grind them to powder; and they shall be visited with thunderings, and lightnings, and earthquakes, and all manner of destructions, for the fire of the anger of the Lord shall lie kindled against them and they shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall consume them, saith the Lord of Hosts. O the pain, and the anguish of my soul for the loss of the slain of my people! For I, Nephi, have seen it, and it well nigh consumeth me before the presence of the Lord; but I must, cry unto my God, Thy ways are just.”9

Nor was Nephi the only prophet on this land to whom the Lord revealed these things. Samuel, the Lamanite, only six years before the birth of Christ declares: “But behold, as I said unto you concerning another sign, a sign of his death, behold, in that day, that he shall suffer death, the sun shall be darkened and refuse to give his light unto you; and also the moon, and the stars; and there shall be no light upon the face of this land, even from the time that he shall suffer death, for the space of three days, to the time that he shall rise again from the dead; Yea, at the time that he shall yield up the ghost there shall be thunderings and lightnings for the space of many hours, and the earth shall shake and tremble, and the rocks which are upon the face of this earth; which are both above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time are solid, or the more part of it is one solid mass, shall be broken up; Yea, they shall be rent in twain, and shall ever after be found in seams and in cracks, and in broken fragments upon the face of the whole earth; yea, both above the earth and beneath. And behold there shall be great tempests, and there shall be many mountains laid low, like unto a valley, and there shall be many places, which are now called valleys, which shall become mountains, whose height thereof is great. And many highways shall be broken up, and many cities shall become desolate. And many graves shall be opened, and shall yield up many of their dead; and many saints shall appear unto many. And behold thus hath the angel spoken unto me; for he said unto me, that there should be thunderings and lightnings for the space of many hours. And he said unto me that while the thunder and lightning lasted, and the tempest, that these things should be, and that darkness should cover the face of the whole earth for the space of three days.”10

These are the prophecies, what then of the fulfillment? The inspired historian records chat on the fourth day of the first month of the thirty-fourth Nephite year, dating from the birth of the Savior, a great storm arose, such a one as never had been known in all the land, and so terrible were the lightnings and thunder that they shook the “whole earth as if it were about to divide asunder.”

After narrating the destructions that overtook several individual cities he continues: “And there was a great and terrible destruction in the land southward. But behold, there was a more great and terrible destruction in the land northward; for behold the whole face of the land was changed, because of the tempest, and the whirlwinds, and the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the exceeding great quaking of the whole earth; and the highways were broken up, and the level roads were spoiled, and many smooth places became rough, and many great and notable cities were sunk, and many were burned, and many were shook till the buildings thereof had fallen to the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were slain, and the places thereof left desolate; and there were some cities which remained; but the damage thereof was exceeding great, and there were many in them which were slain; and there were some who were carried away in the whirlwind; and whither they went no man knoweth, save they know that they were carried away; and thus the face of the whole earth became deformed, because of the tempests, and the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the quaking of the earth. And behold, the rocks were rent in twain; they were broken up upon the face of the whole earth, insomuch, that they were found in broken fragments, and in seams and in cracks, upon all the face of the land. And it came to pass that when the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the storm and the tempest, and the quakings of the earth did cease—for behold, they did last for about the space of three hours; and it was said by some that the time was greater; nevertheless all these great and terrible things were done in about the space of three hours; and then, behold, there was darkness upon the face of the land, and It came to pass that there was thick darkness upon all the face of the land insomuch that the inhabitants thereof who had not fallen could feel the vapor of darkness; and there could be no light be­cause of the darkness; neither candles, neither torches; neither could there be fire kindled with their fine and exceeding dry wood, so that there could not be any light at all; and there was not any light seen neither fire nor glimmer, neither the sun nor the moon nor the stars, for so great were the mists of darkness which were upon the face of the land.”11

We have given these extracts at so great a length that the reader may be the more fully impressed with the magnitude of the changes that took place during those mighty convulsions both upon the face of the earth and beneath its surface. But surely if there are no evidences still existing in the mountains and valleys of these continents of these mighty upheavals and depressions, of these fractures and contortions of this earth’s crust, then we may reasonably charge the historian with exaggeration, or throw a mist of distrust over the authenticity of the entire record, but for­tunately these evidences) are abundant; and by a pleasing coincidence, nowhere more so than in the region inhabited by the believers in the genuineness of the Book of Mormon. There is a fitness in such a people dwelling in a region where the evidences of the truth of their faith so far as the rocks can proclaim are the most conspicuous and most abundant.

There are two distinct features in this overwhelming judgment—the devastating storm and the appalling darkness. Of course, we can prove nothing from the rocks regarding the darkness; when that disappeared and the longed-for light again returned, all traces of its unwelcome com­ing disappeared also. It has been a favorite theory with many that the darkness that attended the crucifixion of the lord of life and glory did not extend far beyond the neighborhood of Jerusalem; the meagre tradi­tions of the Indians alone bore witness that it extended to this continent. One argument for believing that the unnatural darkness was only local is derived from the fact that so few ancient historians mentioned it. Stress is laid upon the fact that Pliny says nothing about it; but if Pliny ignores it, Celsus, Thallus, Phlegon, Origin, Eusebius, Tertullian and others, some Christians and some pagans refer to it.12 And in this relation we draw attention to a strong incidental testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon. Nephi refers to a martyred Israelitish prophet named Zenos, and quotes from his prophecies. In them, as already quoted, Zenos states that because of the darkness, the rending of the rocks and their attendant horrors, “Many of the Kings of the Isles of the sea shall be wrought upon by the Spirit of God to exclaim, The God of Nature suffers.” We inquire: Whoever heard of Zenos and his prophecies before the Book of Mormon revealed his existence and his work? Yet the extracts therein from his prophecies and his parables prove him to have been one of the greatest of prophets.

Is there any testimony that these words of Zenos were confirmed? Yes, sufficient has been found to prove their truth; doubtless many others, yet unnoticed, exist. History informs us that Dionysius, the Areopagite,13 “although eight hundred miles distant, as he beheld the sun hide its face, witnessed the bursting of the rocks, and felt the earth tremble under his feet, exclaimed, ‘Either the God of nature suffers or the universe is falling apart!’”14 Another account states that Dionysius was at Heliopolis, (the Old Testament On,)15 in Egypt, “when he beheld that remarkable eclipse of the sun, as he terms it, which took place at the death of Christ, and exclaimed to his friend Apollophanes, ‘Either the Divinity suffers, or sympathizes with some sufferer!’”

From Egypt we journey to Ireland, an island of the sea, mark you! It is related of Bacrach, chief druid to Conchobbar Nessan, king of Ulster, that when the darkness that occurred at the death of Jesus overspread that island, he described to the monarch in such touching and eloquent terms the passion and death of the Redeemer, that the king unable to restrain his indignation against the Jews, drew his sword, rushed into a neighboring wood and commenced to hack and hew the trees in order to wear out his intense fury, and to give evidence of the manner he would treat the offending children of Judah were they within the reach of his arm. Some traditions say that his excitement brought on a fever of which he died; others deny this latter portion and assert that he died quietly in his bed fifteen years later.16

Now permit the question to be asked, which of you, attentive readers, knew anything of Dionysius, or of Bacrach, or Conchobbar Nessan, or of the manner in which they brought to pass Book of Mormon prophecy, or how many of you believe that the unlettered Joseph Smith, in 1828, knew anything, outside of divine revelation, of Zenos, of his life or prophecies or how they were fulfilled? If we, with our better educational advantages know so little, what can we believe of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery and their intimate associates? Our only reasonable conclusion can be that what they knew of these matters God revealed to them. This prophecy of Zenos is an incidental testimony to the genuineness of the Book of Mormon which we regard as of much value.

And now to the rocks and the mountains for our testimonies, for they are spread far and wide all around us in this inter-mountain region. Let us away, for instance, to Southern Utah, our Dixie, pass over the rim of the basin either on the road to St. George, Kanab, Cannonville, Escalante or elsewhere in that vicinity, and how soon we find ourselves confronted with evidences innumerable that just such convulsions have occurred as the Book of Mormon affirms. Here are huge mountains riven asunder disclosing the beauties of their interiors, gorgeous in bright crimson, or pink, or violet, or white, or parti-colored sandstone; yonder are vast streams of lava running along the tops of the highest hills, here and there suddenly cut off by intervening chasms that make one imagine that some stupendous knife had descended upon them and severed one part from the other. Later streams of lava, from the numerous now extinct volcanoes, course through the valleys,17 showing that they must have been vomited forth from their several craters since the time when their predecessors were, by the mighty throes of nature, upheaved from the valley beds to the hill tops; for surely no one will imagine that they originally ran on the tops of the precipices rather than in the valleys below. Such a fancy would be to imagine something contrary to every known law of nature and be more difficult to believe than that the present crests of the cliffs and the hills were once the recesses of the valleys and the beds of moun­tain streams. Then again we come to places where there is a sudden perpendicular descent for hundreds and, in some cases thousands, of feet; the side of the mountain is laid bare, the bottom has apparently fallen out in vast tracts of country, leaving low valleys surrounded, almost entirely, by upright walls. On these walls, and on the edges of neighbor­ing 'heights the results of the immeasurable strength of the forces of nature, when convulsed as the Book of Mormon describes, are clearly shown; seams and rents appear, rocks are twisted, the strata is contorted and involved, or, to use the Book of Mormon expression, the land has been deformed. In some places, if the theories of geologists are true, whole ranges of mountains must have been overthrown, turned upside down; for the older formations are on the top and the newer underneath, or the base is of sandstone and the peaks are of granite.18

The Book of Mormon tells us that at this eventful period many cities were covered by the waters of the ocean, and others were buried in the depths of the earth. Evidences of the truth of this latter statement have been found all over the land; the remains of man or of his workmanship have been dug out of the earth at varying depths, to even as far as a thou­sand feet below the surface of the ground.

We will now draw attention to a few of these finds, and our readers will notice that they extend all across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and are not confined to one section of the country, showing how universal the convulsions must have been:

“Not long since as some workmen were engaged in excavating a well, about two miles north of Round Grove, in this county, they came on the remains of an old well about thirty-seven feet below the surface. The mouth of this ancient pit was covered over with earth; and, removing this, they found it walled around with a stone and lime wall about eight feet deep. There was about five feet of water in the bottom, which was found to be pure. What increases the mystery is the fact that the ground seemed perfectly solid from the mouth of the well to the surface of the ground. The material removed was stiff blue clay closely compacted.”19

“While some hands were digging out a cellar in Botetourt County, Va., they came upon a quantity of coin, consisting of some eight pieces, in an iron box about fourteen inches square. The coin was larger than a dollar, and the inscription in a language wholly unknown to any person in the vicinity. Upon digging some sixteen inches lower, they came to a quan­tity of iron implements of singular and heretofore unseen shape. Several scientific gentlemen have examined into the matter, and have come to the conclusion that the coins, together with the other curiosities, must have been placed there at an extremely early date, and before the settlement of this country.”20

We extract the following from various American newspapers:

“A gentleman exhibited to us a piece of cedar, the history of which is as follows: In digging a well on the property of Smith Brothers and Co., at Bunker Hill, Illinois, at the distance of fifty-three feet beneath the surface, they came to a cedar log embedded in the earth, and extending across the well. It was cut off, was found to be five or six inches through, and was in a state of perfect preservation. The town of Bunker Hill, as many persons know, is situated in the middle of a large and level prairie; and the gentleman who has it in his possession, who is a bit of a Yankee, wants to know how that log got there.”

“In digging a well in Cincinnati, the stump of a tree was found in a sound state, ninety-nine feet below the surface; and in digging another well at the same place in 1820, another stump, three feet in diameter, was found ninety-four feet below the surface, which had evident marks of the axe; and on its top there appeared as if some iron tool had been consumed by rust.”21

“A copper kettle has been found seventeen feet below the surface, near Altoona, Illinois, imbedded in a vein of coal. It was found on Buffalo Rock, on the Illinois River.”

“Mr. Butterfield, who is running a tunnel in Table Mountain, near Sonora, California, has given the editor of the San Francisco Herald a description of a discovery made by his company in the course of their excavations. They have got their tunnel in a distance of three hundred feet. Here one hundred and ten feet from the surface of the ground, they found the trunk of a pine tree, twenty-two inches in diametre, in a good state of preservation and with its bark on.”

“In the shaft of J.L. Duncan & Co., on the ridge between the middle and south Yubas, in this county, at the distance of one hundred and seventy-six feet below the surface of the ground, was found, on the twenty-sixth of December, a curiously fashioned glass jar or bottle, which was dug up in hard cement. After removing the reddish coating, an eighth of an inch thick, which attached to the outside, and thoroughly washing it, it was found to be of a light color and perfectly transparent. It somewhat resembled a small-sized pickle jar, but has a long neck and a flat bottom. It must have been lying in the silent spot where it was found for many hundred years.”22

“The editor of the Marysville Express has been shown some pieces of bark taken from a cedar tree about sixteen inches in diameter, which tree was struck in a tunnel at Monte Cristo, six miles from Downieville, [Cali­fornia] at a distance of nine hundred and eighty feet from the upper sur­face. There were twenty of these trees lying within a few feet of each other, and imbedded from one to two and one-half feet above the bed rock. The earth around them had formed a sort of cement almost the consistency of rock. Both above and below the trees was found pay dirt. The wood appeared natural, but was rather soft.”

“A short time since (1891) a telegram from Leadville, Colorado, stated that a man named John Sunger had brought to that city an arrow head, made of tempered copper, and a number of human bones, which were found in a mine, four hundred and sixty feet below the surface of the earth, imbedded in a vein of silver-bearing ore. Over one hundred dollars' worth of ore clung to the bones when they were removed from the mine. The arrow head is four inches long and one and one-half inches wide at the widest part. The shank is one and one-half inches long, and has a hole pierced through the center by which the shaft was fastened to the spike. The ore clung to it when taken from the vein, and was with some difficulty removed. One of the bones is a portion of the head of the femur or thigh bone.”

“When excavating the foundation of the gas works at New Orleans, at the depth of sixteen feet the skeleton of a man was found. The head lay under the roots of a cypress tree, all belonging to the fourth forest. There are ten similar growths buried below the present upright forest. … In July, 1868, in digging a well for the Union Pacific Railroad, four hun­dred and fifty miles west of Omaha, the workmen, at the depth of sixty-­eight feet, came upon a deposit of human bones."

These extracts are probably sufficient to satisfy the unprejudiced that wide-spread convulsions, such as the Book of Mormon describes, have dis­turbed the Americas at no very remote period of the world’s history; at any rate, at a period when men, measurably advanced in the arts and civil­ization, were scattered over its entire extent; and certainly nothing has been advanced which proves that these convulsions did not occur at the time and under the circumstances stated in the Book of Mormon.

Geo. Reynolds.

• 1. “Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique,” and “Sources de l’Histoire Primitive du Mexique.”
• 2. Catlin, “The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America.” London, Trubner and Co., 1870.
• 3. It would appear from these extracts that the Indians in their traditions mixed together two great cataclysms—the deluge and the convulsions that announced the crucifixion of our Lord.
• 4. The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America, p. 145/
• 5. American Antiquities.
• 6. I Nephi 12:4, 5.
• 7. Zenos. A Hebrew prophet, often quoted by the Nephite servants of God. All we are told of his personal history is that he was slain because he testified boldly what God revealed to him. That he was a man greatly blessed of the Lord with the spirit of prophecy is shown by that wonderful and almost incomparable parable of the Vineyard, given at length by Jacob, (Jacob, chap. 5). His prophecies are also quoted by Nephi, (I Nephi, 19:10, 12, 16), Alma, (Alma, 33:3, 13, 15), Amulek, (Alma, 34:7), Samuel, the Lamanite, (Helaman, 15:11), and Mormon, (III Nephi, 10:16).
• 8. I Nephi 19:11, 12.
• 9. II Nephi 26:4, 7.
• 10. Helaman 14:20–27.
• 11. III Nephi 8:11–22.
• 12. Dionysus, the Areopagite, according to Suidas, was an Athenian by birth, and eminent for his literary attainments. He studied first at Athens and afterwards at Heliopolis in Egypt. He details further that, after Dionysius returned to Athens, he was admitted into the Areopagus, and, having embraced Christianity about 50 A.D., was constituted Bishop of Athens by the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:34). Aristides, an Athenian philosopher asserts that he suffered martyrdom—a fact generally admitted by historians; but the precise period of his death, whether under Domitian, Trajan or Adrian, is not certain.
• 13. Areopagite. A member of the Athenian court of Areopagus which originally exercised authority in all matters, in later years had jurisdiction in cases of life and death and in religious concerns. Its sessions were held on Mars Hill, where Paul, the Apostle, preached.
• 14. We would give the exact Greek words used by him if we had the necessary type.
• 15. Genesis 41:45.
• 16. See Toland’s History of the Druids. London, 1718.
• 17. A stream of lava in Idaho, through which the Snake River cuts its way, its four hundred miles long, one hundred miles wide and from three hundred to nine hundred feet thick.
• 18. For instance, the Pine Valley Mountains north of St. George.
• 19. From Fulton City, Ill., Investigator.
• 20. From New York Despatch.
• 21. From Morse’s “Universal Geography.”
• 22. From the Nevada Journal.