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This article is reproduced here with the permission of the author.
In the first two decades of the twentieth century, an enormous amount of fossils was excavated from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits. Approximately 60 species have been identified, including saber-tooth cat, bear, lion, wolf, camel, bison, and mastodon. Also found were about a dozen human bones, as well as a number of artifacts such as milling stones and bone hairpins. These fossils and artifacts have been dated by scientists to the late Pleistocene or early Recent Period.
The conventional explanation for the abundance and diversity of this fossil material is that successive animal entrapment episodes had created an ever-growing clutter of bones at the bottom of the tar pools. An unwary herbivore such as a mastodon, for example, might step into a seemingly benign pool of water to get a drink. The herbivore would then become hopelessly ensnared in the sticky tar underneath the watery surface. Its distress cries would draw hungry carnivores, such as wolves, seeking an easy meal. These carnivores would themselves slip and fall into the pool, becoming, like their prey, inescapably mired in the tar. Although this theory is useful for explaining a lot of data, it does contain some serious weaknesses. This booklet uses the catastrophic flood model as an alternative explanation for the deposition of the fossils.
The fossil-bearing tar pits that would become famous during the first decades of the twentieth century were nowhere to be seen when geologists first visited the area. What they saw was an alluvial, grass-covered plain about 45 miles in circumference at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains. In the middle of this plain was an area of about 20 acres where black tar oozed from numerous springs amidst the sandy dirt an tufts of grass. Sometimes these springs formed volcano-shaped mounds that generally measured several inches above the surrounding level of the ground. Emerging at the apex of these miniature volcanoes were bubbles that made popping sound when they exploded. The following is a description of one such spring by geologist William P. Blake, who visited the area in 1853 (quoted in Merriam, 1912).
This spring was nothing more than an overflow of the bitumen from a small aperture in the ground around which it had spread on all sides, so that it covered a circular space about 30 feet in diameter. The accumulated bitumen had hardened by exposure and its outer portions were mingled with sand, so that it was not easy to determine its precise limits. It formed a smooth hard surface like a pavement, but toward the center it was quite soft and semifluid, like melted pitch.
The aforementioned "accumulated bitumen" is part of an extensive field of solidified petroleum, mostly covered by alluvial topsoil. Extending beyond the observable outpourings of the springs, it has been estimated that this field is somewhere between 160 to 600 acres. Although this layer is as hard as road pavement, it nevertheless develops fractures, which allow upsurging flows of oil to escape to the surface. In 1865 another geologist named J. D. Whitney wrote a description of what he saw (quoted in Merriam, 1912).
About 7 miles due west of Los Angeles is the most important of the numerous tar springs seen in the vicinity. It is from here that most of the asphaltum used in the town is obtained. Over a space of 15 or 20 acres the bituminous material, which, when seen by us, in the winter, had exactly the consistency and color of tar was oozing out of the ground at numerous points. It hardens on exposure to the air and becomes mixed with sand and dust blown into it, and is then known as "brea." The holes through which the bitumen comes to the surface are not large, few being more than 3 or 4 inches in diameter. On removing the tarry substance from the holes, by repeatedly inserting a stick, the empty cavity was very slowly filled up again. . . . A very large amount of the hardened asphaltum, mixed with sand and the bones of cattle and birds which have become entangled in it, lies scattered over the plain.
Whitney's belief that the bones in the hardened asphaltum were the remains of recent birds and ranch animals had some validity, for the carcasses of birds, rabbits, squirrels, and other small animals have sometimes been seen lying partially submerged in the tar. Wandering cows and horses have occasionally been found immobilized by these sticky puddles. If no one came to rescue them, they would die from thirst or hunger.
The first scientist to realize that there were bones of remote antiquity in this area was a geologist from Massachusetts named William Denton (Merriam, 1912). In 1875 he came to Southern California to inspect oil prospects. At that time, the land comprising the tar springs was owned by Major Henry Hancock, who started an asphalt quarry business there several years before. His work force of 25 Chinese laborers dug out the asphaltum, processed it, and sent it to cities like San Francisco, where it was used for road pavement. The old quarry can still be seen at the park, now filled in with water and fenced off. Large bubbles of gas burst every minute or so on the oily surface of the pond. In the late 1960's, several live-size, fiberglass mammoths were placed around the shore, and a sinking mammoth was tethered to the bottom. Although this dramatic tableau creates the fearsome impression that the pond is a voracious maw of death, it is really just a harmless pool of scummy, malodorous water.
When Denton visited the ranch, he and Major Hancock talked about fossils. Denton was shown a canine tooth that was found in the quarry. It was nine and a half inches in length and the breadth of the crown was three and a half inches wide. Denton had previously seen a similar tooth from a Machairodus, European saber-tooth cat, but the La Brea canine was substantially larger. he took the tooth and some other animal bones back to Massachusetts and wrote a report of his findings. In spite of the author's enthusiasm, the report failed to generate interest with the scientific community.
It was not until 1901 that anyone took a sustained professional interest in the fossils. While visiting the ranch to check out the prospects for oil production, petroleum geologist William W. Orcutt saw a curios mosaic of bones in a section of asphalt that was exposed after the drilling of a water well. Despite the lack of proper tools, Orcutt removed a patch of material from the asphalt and examined it. It was a piece of armored hide from an extinct ground sloth. Excited by this find, he obtained permission from the Hancock family to collect more fossils. Whenever he had time to spare, he prospected for fossils around the ranch. Finding them was not hard, but extracting these fragile specimens from the rock-like asphalt matrix was a painstaking, laborious process. Often a whole day was spent retrieving a single bone. His patience paid off, and after four years he possessed an enviable collection of fossils, including the only complete skull of a saber-tooth cat in the world (Orcutt, 1954).
In the latter part of 1905, Dr. John C. Merriam, vertebrate paleontologist of the University of California, Berkeley, learned about Orcutt's collection and began a correspondence with him. after seeing some of the fossils, Merriam agreed that they were significant. Representing the university, be obtained a permit from the Hancock family to conduct a scientific exploration of the ranch.
At this point the historical becomes a little obscure. Someone, we do not know who, made a momentous discovery. Several hundred yards northwest of the quarry was a pocket of densely packed bone material that was about eight feet wide and about seventeen feet deep (Stoner, 1913). Around the edge of the pocket was green clay, which in places was filled with coarse quartz grains. It was located in an area where, several decades previously (according to field excavation notes), Hancock's laborers had used dynamite to break through the hard bituminous layer to see if there was any commercial grade asphaltum underneath. What was so desirable about this deposit was its soft matrix of tar and sand. It was a relatively easy task to remove the bones, piece by piece, clean them up, and analyze them. This discovery brought to light for the first time the paleontological phenomenon that has since been termed "the La Brea Tar Pits." According to Wyman (1926, p. 9), the pits were originally created by blowouts of natural gas. Heavy fracturing in the subterranean shale rock allowed the pressurized gas to escape upward and penetrate the surface alluvial layer at numerous points. Oil followed the gas, which flowed into the cone-shaped holes.
As excavators removed the contents of the pit, they noticed that the tar had preserved the bones to a remarkable degree. Even such delicate features as the courses for nerves and blood vessels were discernable. Also found were various kinds of insects in all their minute detail, including wings and antennae. The pupae of blowflies could still be seen attached to bone marrow cavities. This was a tremendous boon for scientists, who were piecing together the life of animals and insects in the remote past.
The superior grade of preservation that characterized the individual specimens stood in stark contrast to the ravaged appearance of the fossil material as a whole. A majority of the bones were damaged in some way: sharp-edged brokenends, impact depressions, deep grooves, and/or heavy abrasions. Even the bodies of the insects had gone through some inexorable process of dismemberment. If several insect parts were found still hanging together, excavators considered themselves lucky (Pierce, 1946). In addition, the bones were in an entangled mass, closely pressed together, and interlocked in all possible ways. After separating out the bones, scientists could only guess how the bones of individual animals matched up to one another. They also noted the absence of skeletal parts. For example, after six years of digging in three separate pits, less than a dozen parts of the Megalonyx, an extinct ground sloth, were collected, including a left humerus, a left calcaneum, a single metapodial of the posterior foot and various elements of both anterior and posterior feet (Stock, 1913).
This chaotic intermingling of damaged and broken fossils seemed to indicate that some monstrous catastrophe had over- taken these creatures of the remote past. Of course, this interpretation was unacceptable to scientists dedicated to the uniformitarian philosophy. What was needed was a paradigm hat could fit these fossils within the realm of mainstream science, even if it had to ignore or explain away the numerous clues that indicated otherwise. It was under these circumstances that the animal entrapment theory was born. In October 1908, Sunset magazine printed an article by Dr. Merriam entitled "Death Trap of the Ages." The subheading read "Sabre-tooth tigers, giant sloths, mammoths, monster wolves, extinct camels, held fast in a huge tar pool near Los Angeles - tragedies of eons ago." Included inside the article was a picture of the water-filled quarry. Underneath the picture was a misleading caption identifying the quarry as the "death trap of the ages."
In 1913 Mr. G. Allan Hancock gave the County of Los Angeles the exclusive privilege of doing excavations on his ranch. For he next two years, county excavators dug test holes all around the 23-acre estate in a haphazard search for soft-matrix, fossil- bearing tar pits. Hampering this effort was the surface layer of asphalt, which was about one to two feet deep. The excavators attacked it with picks, shovels, hammers, wedges, and even dynamite. Since the location of these soft-matrix pits was unknown, they had to make a lot of educated guesses. They dug up the vents of active and inactive tar springs and dug trenches through outcroppings of bituminous material. A tunnel underneath the asphalt had to be abandoned, because the alluvial clay and sand had a tendency to cave in (according to field notes of excavations).
Out of a total of 96 test pits, seven had significant amounts of well-preserved bone material, and seven more had inferior material of lesser quantities. Some of the bones were badly deteriorated because they were adjacent to uprooted stumps or torn branches that were heavy with water. At Pit 4, one of the seven major pits, an excavator explained the presence of water- saturated wood with the following note: "The disposition of this brush and associated material as well as markings on the brush itself, indicate that this stuff was all washed in."
The seven major fossil-bearing pits were of various sizes. On average, they were about 15 feet in diameter and tapered down 25 feet to a hole several inches wide. The hole led down to the aforementioned beds of petroleum shale deep below the surface of the earth. One unusual pit was only four feet wide. Designated as Pit 16, it had vertical sides that went down 21 feet before it tapered three more feet to the typical three-inch-wide chimney. Somehow numerous animals including dire wolves, saber-tooth cats, coyotes, camels, bison, horses, and even the bulky mastodon had managed to squeeze themselves into a hole not much wider than a bathtub. Although Pit 16 was notable for being one of the seven major pits containing copious amounts of fossils, it is still hard to imagine it as one of "death traps of the ages."
Besides the constricted size of the pits, an additional difficulty for the entrapment theory is the transitory character of the tar itself. According to radiocarbon dates done at Pit 9, mentioned in Stock (1992, p. 9), the bones in the lower part of the pit were 38,000 years old and the bones in the upper part were 13,500 years old. Consequently, the tar in the pit had to remain in a semi-liquefied state for about 24,000 years. This conclusion contradicts what is known about the process of petroleum encrustation. When crude oil emerges from the ground, it begins to thicken as its more volatile constituents evaporate. Sunlight, heat, and oxidation are all factors in the hardening process (Barth, 1962, pp. 220, 593). Given this observable property of oil congelation, the existence of open pits of tar that could trap animals over a period of thousands of years must be regarded as highly improbable.
A mystery that has continued to baffle scientists since the discovery of the tar pits is the numerical preponderance of carnivores. Recent studies of wolf-to-deer populations in Ontario (Canada) and Minnesota (Mech, 1970, pp. 274) and lion-to-herbivore populations in Africa (Guggisberg, 1963, pp. 151-153) show that the ratio is typically 100 to 150 herbivores for every carnivore. What excavators at the La Brea Tar Pits found was an inverse ratio. Using a common skeletal part as a basis (for example, skulls in fairly good condition), distribution surveys consistently showed that carnivores outnumbered herbivores by a ratio of at least seven to one. Merrian was surprised to find 17 skulls of saber-tooth cat and 40 skulls of wolf in only two cubic yards of material. A nearby oval-shaped pit that was three to six feet wide and had a depth of eight feet contained 13 individuals of saber-tooth cat, wolf, and lion. The lopsided imbalance of these statistics can be seen in the bar graph below of the ten most common mammals.
The right four bars show that carnivores represent 85% of the total number of animals. The oddity of seeing so many meat-eaters among the mammals is reflected in surveys of the avian population, as seen in the bar graph below.
The flesh-eating birds are about 70% of the total number of individuals. The uncontested leader is the eagle. It is puzzling why eagles would be so vulnerable to entrapment. Not only are they quite rare when compared to such teeming populations as pigeons and doves, but they are also larger and more muscular and thus less likely to be victimized.
Perhaps, as some might suggest, a carnivore was more susceptible to entrapment, because it could not resist the sight of ensnared prey flopping helplessly in the tar. Thus a single captive bird or animal could lure many predators to their deaths. This line of reasoning loses its force when one compares the La Brea statistics with those of a modem tar pit.
In 1934 A. E. Borell, a wildlife specialist employed by the Grand Canyon National Park Service in Arizona, noted that birds were getting caught in a tar pit that had been left by a road construction crew several years before. Borell found carcasses in all stages of decomposition from skeletons to those that had recently died. An examination of the contents of the pit revealed that there were 123 individual birds of 13 different species. Six of these birds were hawks. Borell made a repeat visit thirty days later and found that eight more birds had died in the tar pit, none of which were hawks. Thus the ratio of 131 to 6, or 22 to I, reflects the expected balance in nature (Borell, 1936). This evidence shows that there are no specific phenomena that would augment a tar pit's allurement to any particular kind of creature.
Another statistical anomaly is the predominance of land birds over water birds. The total percentage of water birds is 8%. This low percentage has puzzled scientists, since wading birds such as ducks, geese, and coots have a profile of characteristics that make them the most likely candidates for entrapment (Miller, 1910; Howard, 1955, pp. 38-39). Yet, as it turned out, the largest category of victims among the non-predacious types was the turkey, a land-roving bird.
Taken together, the physical and ecosystemic features that characterize the tar pits present a formidable challenge to the entrapment theory: (1) the broken and fragmented condition of the bones, as well as their chaotic disarrangement; (2) the predominance of the carnivores; (3) the predominance of the land birds over water birds; (4) the tight dimensions of some of the pits; (5) the transient nature of liquid petroleum; and (6) the water-logged stumps and brush that bore signs of having been washed in. Since the entrapment idea cannot adequately account for these circumstances, what follows is an alternative theory.
While studying geologic formations in England, Professor Joseph B. Prestwich (1812-1896) found caves and rock fissures filled with animal bones, including wolf, hyena, wild boar, deer, horse, and rabbit (1895, pp. 25-26). The bones were broken into fragments, and no skeleton was complete. What was odd about the herbivore bones was the absence of carnivore teeth marks. Why were the herbivores congregating with the carnivores, which chose not to devour them? After analyzing the evidence, Prestwich began to realize that some great danger had alarmed these naturally incompatible animals and had driven them to seek refuge in the same place. Were they fleeing from a major flood?
Prestwich was a professor of geology at Oxford. A close friend of Charles Lyell, the father of uniformitarian geology (1797-1875), Prestwich was himself a uniformitarian. Soon after his friend's death, Prestwich's observations of fossil accumulations in England created doubts in his mind regarding the efficacy of a theory that discounted all evidence of water catastrophism. Keeping these doubts to himself, he mad) several trips to France and various places around the Mediterranean Sea to collect more data.
One of the most intriguing places that he investigated wa Montague de Santenay. A small, isolated mountain near the center of France, it rose 1030 feet above the surrounding plain. Its sides were steep and on top was a nearly level platform. Close to the summit were limestone fissures packed with broken bones. Unlike other bone deposits that Prestwich had seen, this ossiferous mixture was notable for its prevalence of carnivores, especially wolves. As in other places, there were no teeth marks on the herbivore bones.
Based on his experience with other such bone accumulations, Prestwich believed that the carnivores and herbivores had converged on Santenay to escape a great flood. The rise in water was slow enough for them to get there, yet the height was not sufficient for them to escape. When they perished, their bloated bodies formed a huge mat of carcasses on the surface of the water. Since there was no current to carry them away, some of the decayed and detached parts fell back on Mount Santenay. When the water began to subside, the upper elevations of the mountain were exposed to divergent currents. Unlike the advancing waters which had little erosive power, the effect of the retreating waters was devastating. The presence of broken angular rocks embedded in yellow or brownish earth indicated that waves had washed over and partially eroded the mountain. Wave action also smashed the bones into rock formations re-emerging above the watery surface. Some of the scattered bones were swept into the aforementioned limestone fissures. "Added to this," Prestwich wrote, "was the fall (caused by the earth tremors inevitable with such movements) of fragments of rock, some of large size, from the sides of the fissures, so that very few bones escaped whole" (1894, pp. 936-938).
Prestwich believed that the submergence of the European continent was short in duration, since there was an absence of marine sedimentation. He could not say what caused the flood, yet he was prepared to defend his views that it had in fact occurred. In a letter to a friend in 1880, he wrote "I think I am now in a position to show that the south of England, France, and possibly the greater part of Europe, have been submerged during the early human period, and that Paleolithic man was thereby destroyed (in great part). It revives in a curious way the tradition of the Noachian deluge. I have long had cause to suspect this, but hesitated even to mention so unexpected a result until I was sure of the facts I obtained in the Channel Islands" (1899, p. 311).
On December 15, 1892 he submitted an important paper on the subject to the Royal Society of London. It was a bold challenge to uniformitarian doctrine. In a letter written to a friend two weeks prior to submitting the paper, he said, "I am aware that I must expect opposition, as it touches upon questions which geologists and physicists must differ. . . The votaries of uniformitarianism are, I fear, apt to consider their doctrines as infallible, and to act accordingly. For my part, I believe that in another half century geologists will wonder that a doctrine so unphilosophical was ever held" (1899, p. 367). Prestwich underestimated the longevity of uniformitarianism, yet he was right in attacking its "unphilosophical" approach to science.
Prestwich died in 1896. Twelve years later, the fossils of the La Brea Tar Pits became known to the world. Had he lived and read the early reports, he would have recognized patterns similar to what he saw in Europe. The bones were fragmented and packed into an irregular mix with no complete skeletons. The herbivore bones showed few, if any, signs of carnivore teeth impressions. There were even indications of water deposition in the woody debris. With the exception of the petroleum factor, there was nothing in these reports that would have set them apart from his own investigations of bone accumulations in Europe. The only circumstance that might have surprised Prestwich was the implication that the great flood that had swept over Europe had also reached California.
As mentioned in the introduction to this article, the date assigned to the deposition of the bones in the tar pits was late Pleistocene. Prestwich would have recognized here a correlation with his date of the flooding of Europe, which he believed took place sometime between the end of the Ice Age and the beginning of the Recent Period or 10,000 years ago. In the decades following his death, improved methods of dating by observation of erosion and sedimentation processes required a revision of geologic dates. Velikovsky (1955, pp. 148-164) mentions a number of scientists who went on record stating that the beginning of the post-glacial period should be re-dated to approximately 4000 to 5000 years ago. If these new methods of dating have any validity (and in the author's opinion, they do), then the concurrence of the post-glacial period and the continental flood spoken of by Prestwich line up more with Biblical chronology, which puts Noah's flood at 4300 years ago.
Let us now take the evidence of the tar pits and reconstruct what happened based on a catastrophic flood model. Just as in Europe, the animals and birds in California were seeking refuge from water that was rising higher and higher. They would have been attracted to the Santa Monica Mountains, which rises to an elevation of about 1200 feet above the plain. As the water climbed up the sides of the mountain, the last remaining land surface continued to shrink. Under such circumstances, the stronger and larger creatures would have kept back the weaker ones. It was a survival of the fittest with the wolves and saber- tooth cats fighting for preeminence on the ground, and the eagles fighting for preeminence in the trees.
Just as the carnivores were predominant on the mountain of Santenay, so they were predominant on the mountains of Santa Monica. Meanwhile, turkeys and a variety of other small birds and animals were finding refuge in hollows and cavities that were inaccessible to the larger animals. It is quite probable that the great herds of herbivores had drowned earlier on the plain below. Where the bones went is a matter of conjecture, yet it is possible that they might have been buried under the water-borne sand and clay which now forms the alluvial plain at the foot of the mountains.
After the last animals and birds on top of the ridge had perished, their floating carcasses became a temporary breeding habitat for insects. Blowflies went into exposed cavities to lay their eggs. As the carcasses decayed and fell apart, their remains were scattered over the underwater mountains and plains below. At last the waters subsided, and wave action proceeded to smash the bones on re-emerging land formations. At the same time, disturbances within the earth allowed natural gas and oil to seep up and create underwater blowholes. Some of the blowholes became receptacles of the water-driven bones. After the land had at last dried out, flowing oil covered the bone-laden ground with a lake of pitch. When the lake dried out, it formed a protective matrix that preserved the bones both within and below the asphalt crust.
The evidence of water catastrophism at the La Brea Tar Pits dovetails with Prestwich's hypothesis regarding the submergence and re-emergence of Western Europe. While he was gathering his data, he became intrigued with the way the evidence was confirming the Genesis account of the universal flood. He then proceeded to see how far the evidence went. When he journeyed as far as the coastlines of the Mediterranean Sea, he still had not found its limits. As a careful geologist, he stayed within the bounds of the evidence observed and would only commit himself to the idea of a continental flood. However, by applying the insights of his research to the phenomenon of the La Brea Tar Pits, we get a broader picture of the worldwide effects of the Genesis flood.
Barth, Edwin J. 1962. Asphalt, Science and Technology. Gordor and Breach, New York and London.
Borell, A. E. 1936. A modem tar pit. Auk, 53:298-300.
Field notes of excavations, kept by the George C. Page Museum.
Guggisberg, C. A. W. 1963. Simba, the Life of a Lion. Chilton Books, Philadelphia, PA.
Howard, H. 1955. Fossil birds, with especial reference to the birds of Rancho La Brea. Science Series No. 17, Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, CA.
___. 1962. A comparison of avian assemblages from individual pits at Rancho La Brea, California. Contributions in Science, 58:1-23.
Marcus, Leslie. 1960. A census of the abundant large Pleistocene mammals from Rancho La Brea. Contributions in Science, 38:1-11.
Mech, L. D. 1970. The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species. Natural History Press, New York.
Merriam, J. C. 1912. The fauna of Rancho La Brea. Pt. 2, Canidae. Memoirs of the University of California 1912, l(2):201-213.
Miller, L. H. 1910. Wading birds from the Quaternary asphalt beds of Rancho La Brea. Bulletin of Southern California Academy of Sciences, 5(30):439.
Orcutt, Mary Logan. 1954. The discovery in 1901 of the La Brea fossil beds. Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, 36r4):338-341.
Pierce, W. Dwight. 1946. Fossil arthropods of California. Bulletin of Southern California Academy of Sciences, 46(3): 136-137.
Prestwich, J. B. 1894. On the evidence of a submergence of Western Europe, and of the Mediterranean Coasts, at the close of the Glacial or so-called Post-glacial Period, and immediately preceding the Neolithic or Recent Period. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1893, Series A (1894):936-938.
___. 1895. On Certain Phenomenon Belonging to the Close of the Last Geological Period and on Their Bearing on the Tradition of the Flood. Macmillan and Co., London.
___. 1899. The Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Prestwich, edited by his wife Lady Grace Prestwich. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London.
Stock, C. 1913. Nothrotherium and Megalonyx from the Pleistocene of Southern California. University of California Publications, Bulletin of the Department of Geology, 7(17):343-358.
___. 1992. Rancho La Brea: A Record of Pleistocene Life in California, seventh edition, revised by J. M. Harris. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
Stoner, R. C. 1913. Recent observations on mode of accumulation of the Pleistocene bone deposits of Rancho La Brea. University of California Publications, Bulletin of the Department of Geology, 7(20): 3 87-3 96.
Velikovsky, 1. 1955. Earth in Upheaval, Dell Publishing Co., New York.
Wyman, L. E. 1926. Notes on the Pleistocene Fossils Obtained from Rancho La Brea Asphalt Pits. Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art.
And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
Genesis 7:7-10
And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Luke
17:26-27
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with ear, prepared an ark to the saving of this house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
Hebrews 11:7
And [God] spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.
II Peter 2:5
For this [the scoffers] willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
II Peter 3:5-7
Jesus saith unto him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. "
John 14:6
For the -wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6:23
"Sirs, what must I do to be saved? "And they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. "
Acts 16:30b-31
Verity, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
John 5:24
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
John 1:12
For more information on obtaining
booklets, contact the author at:
Weston Publications
10291 D'Este Dr.
Anaheim, CA 92804
Map of the La Brea tar Pits. The first discovered fossil-bearing tar pit was the one designated by the University of California as 2050. In 1912 the university began excavating a nearby pit designated as 2051. The other numbered locations were fossil-bearing pits found by the County of Los Angeles during the period of 1913 to 1915.
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