On the Third Day

place when all the Earth’s dry land and waters were separated! We simply cannot imagine what sweeping
changes took place when the Creator of all things formed the two billion United States acres, the world’s chains
of mountains with some of them 20,000 or more feet high (mountains may have been much lower in the
beginning of time), the widespread fertile valleys, etc.

We must not, of course, think that the land then looked exactly as it does today. Mountains have been formed
since creation day; rivers and lakes have changed immensely; some land has been raised; some has sunk
down; indeed continents may even have drifted apart. (Without doubt the world-wide flood of Noah’s day was a
huge factor in drastically changing the topography of the world from what it was at the end of the third creation
day.

Indeed, even today, after all of these many centuries of greed and sin, distrust and wastefulness on our part, we
can still see the grace, mercy, omnipotence, and omniscience of our God in every part of His separating the
waters from the land. What if there were no fertile soil ranging in depth from a few inches to many feet all over
the world? Then we and every creature on Earth would quickly starve to death. What if God had not placed
some 3,000 minerals into His earth? Then our present way of life would surely be at an end. What if He had
created all the land as one level surface? Then there would be no drainage, no rivers, but stagnant pools and a
monotonously flat surface everywhere. Isaiah well wrote long ago: “The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:
3).

Its strata, what I study in detail, like so many shelves, to unknown depths, are crowded with stores of all manner
of useful things for his (man’s) service. Here in storage are minerals and metals, to be used to improve his living
conditions, provide better health, and extend his civilization. Here are beds of granite to supply him with building
materials that will defy the force of time and tide; marble of every grain and shade of color for his temples,
palaces, or statuary; limestone to improve his soil and cement his walls; slate to cover his roofs or lay his floors;
gypsum, white as snow, to finish and adorn his apartments; the hardened grit to grind his corn; sand to make his
glass; and clay to fabricate his wares; chalk, basalt, porphyry, sandstone, and a multitude of other minerals all
convertible by ingenuity and industry into various useful and important ends. In the great cellars below we also
find laid up ready to his hand an abundant stock of coal; wherewith he may warm himself, and multiply the
strength of his arms a million fold. We only will mention the oil, salt, gas, to let you extend their importance.

Among the strata of the rocks, in their joints and fissures, and interlacing their solid masses, are also provided
and laid up for man, metals of different qualities, and adapted to all the various purposes of life. Here are to be
found the precious, beautiful, and necessary for computers success metals of gold and silver. Every metal and
mineral that comes to mind has a use today. The aerospace industry has shown use for those we thought were
just museum curios! LSI