EXPO VIRTUAL TOUR

Display 3 – RAPID SEDIMENTATION – for more information see pamphlet 281

Modern geologists do not look at a rock built up in layers and say those layers took millions of years to form. The video sequence demonstrates that such layers can be laid down in the laboratory in minutes before our eyes. Whole fossil trees can be found upright through many layers of rock. If these strata had really been laid down over millions of years, the tops would have rotted away. We see a fish that was buried in the act of swallowing a smaller fish. in the middle of the fish course, both had their chips! Shells of living bi-valves are held tightly together by a muscle. Once dead that muscle relaxes and the shells open. But the fossilised bivalve is shut showing it was buried alive by sediment laid down rapidly. Living Crinoids fall apart soon after death, but fossil ones are intact. This shows that they were buried alive quickly. A picture shows twenty five feet of finely layered rock laid down in only hours during volcanic activity at Mount St Helens in Washington State on June l2th, 1980.

Rock strata could not have taken millions of years to build up.

Display 10 – BOMBARDIER BEETLE – for more information see pamphlet 233

The bombardier beetle could hold the key to explaining the world-wide stories of fire-breathing dragons. This beetle defends itself when threatened by a predator, a spider maybe, by shooting boiling noxious gases out of two nozzles at its rear end. The explosive blasts come at 500 bursts a second and make a loud crack. “How?” we ask. In special chambers it makes hydrogen peroxide and a quinol, as used in liquid fuel rockets. At the moment of danger it adds a sophisticated catalyst which results in a spectacular explosive volley. Fortunately for us, the beetle is only an inch long. Consider! This defence had to be right from the start. It could not evolve gradually. Too weak an explosion and the predator would eat the beetle. Too strong and the beetle would blow itself up!

Interestingly some dinosaur skeletons have chambers in their skulls resembling those in the beetle. In fact tubes lead down from the crest on their heads to their nostrils. No wonder there are stories of fire-breathing dragons world-wide.

Display 11 – CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY For more information see pamphlet 284 & 387 also books by Nelson Broadberry & Wang in our shop

The Chinese picture language we see on takeaway shops goes back 4,000 years. Many of its words tell a story which is hotly disputed in the West today. The story of Creation and the Flood as told in the ancient book of Genesis is also found in the Chinese characters. Their word ‘first’ embodies the statement that God made Man from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. With the characters ‘life’. ‘dust’ and ‘man’ we read ‘first’ in Chinese. Adam needed a wife. Put the character for ‘two’ with the character for ‘persons’ and we have the word ‘beginning’. The word for ‘covet’, meaning to want something a lot, is specially interesting. Take the Chinese character for ‘woman’. Eve ate the forbidden fruit and by disobeying God missed the reward of the second tree. Two trees figure in Eve’s and Adam’s downfall. The ancient Chinese knew about this history. We find the story of Noah in the Chinese character for ‘boat’. This part means ‘vessel’, this part means ‘eight’ and this means ‘mouth’ or person. Noah and his family numbered eight people on the boat which survived the great Flood.