Some charge that Mrs. White's statements regarding the cause of
volcanoes reflected the myths and fanciful thinking of age-old theories. Her
writings contain eight relevant concepts [1] that have been debated since they first appeared
in 1864. [2]
This list includes: (1) Formation of coal beds is linked to the Flood;
(2) Coal produces oil; (3) Subterranean fires are fueled by the burning of both
coal and oil; (4) Water added to the subterranean fires produces explosions,
thus earthquakes; (5) Earthquake and volcanic action are linked together as
products of these underground fires; (6) Both limestone and iron ore are
connected with the burning coal beds and oil deposits; (7) Air is involved in
the super heat; (8) Deposits of coal and oil are found after the subterranean
fires have died out. [3]
Many theories abound as to the causes of volcanoes and earthquakes and
the formation of oil and coal. Most earth scientists base their ideas on the
plate-tectonic theory. Nothing in Ellen White's comments rules out that theory.
Further, nothing in her writings states that all volcanoes are the
product of burning coal fields or that all earthquakes are caused by
subterranean fires. When she links earthquakes and volcanoes together, one
immediately thinks of the Pacific Ocean "ring of fire" and its high potential
for disasters from both.
However, notable scientists have confirmed Ellen White's observations.
Otto Stutzer's Geology of Coal documented that "subterranean fires in
coal beds are ignited through spontaneous combustion, resulting in the melting
of nearby rocks that are classed as pseudo volcanic deposits."
[4] Stutzer listed
several examples of such activity, including "a burning mountain," an outcrop
that "lasted over 150 years," and "the heat from one burning coal bed [that]
was used for heating greenhouses in that area from 1837 to 1868."
[5] Modern confirmation
exists for the igniting of coal and oil with its sulfur constituent "seen
around the eruptions of hot springs, geysers, and volcanic fumaroles."
[6]
References to rocks "which overlie the coal [and] have suffered
considerable alteration because of the fires, being sintered and partly
melted," correlate with Ellen White's statement that "rocks are heated,
limestone is burned, and iron ore melted." [7] Further research in the western United States
has produced conclusions and language very similar to Mrs. White's writings of
a century earlier: "The melted rock resembles common furnace clinker or
volcanic lava." [8]
One last charge has been that melted iron ore is not found in connection
with burning coal and oil deposits. However, a United States Geological Survey
paper records the discovery of hematite (an iron ore) that had been "formed in
some way through the agency of the burning coal." [9]
The suggestion that Ellen White was wholly dependent upon existing
sources for her scientific information is without merit, because some of this
verification only became known many years after her death. Further, "It is much
more unlikely that she resorted to the published ideas of contemporary
Creationists on the subject, since their views were relics of wild cosmological
speculations." [10]
[1] See Warren H.
Johns, "Ellen G. White and Subterranean Fires, Part 1," Ministry, August
1977, pp. 9-12.
[2] Spiritual
Gifts, vol. 3, pp. 79-80 (1864); see also The Spirit of Prophecy,
vol. 1, pp. 82, 83 (1870); Signs of the Times, Mar. 13, 1879;
Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 108, 109 (1890); Manuscript 21, 1902, cited
in Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, pp. 946, 947.
[3] Johns, "Ellen
G. White and Subterranean Fires, Part 1," Ministry, August, 1977, p.
6.
[4] Otto
Stutzer,Geology of Coal, translated by Adolph Noe (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1940), pp. 309, 310, cited in ibid., p. 19.
[5] Johns, "Ellen
G. White and Subterranean Fires, Part 2," Ministry, October 1977, p.
20.
[6] Ibid. See also Thomas
Gold, Profesor Emeritus of Astromomy at Cornell University, "Earthquakes,
Gases,and Earthquake Prediction" (1994), at www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/Earthq.html
[7] Stutzer, Geology
of Coal, p. 310; Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 108, cited in Johns,
"Ellen G. White and Subterranean Fires, Part 2," p. 20.
[8] E. E. Thurlow,
"Western Coal," Mining Engineering, 26 (1974), pp. 30-33, cited in
ibid., p. 21.
[9] G. Sherburne
Rogers, "Baked Shale and Slag Formed by the Burning of Coal Beds," U. S.
Geological Survey Professional Paper, 108-A (1918), cited in ibid., p.
21.
[10] Johns,
"Ellen G. White and Subterranean Fires, Part 2," p. 22. "The coal mines of
Germany have become a veritable gold mine in a study of Ellen White's
scientific declarations, indicating the intermingling of the divine and human
in a unique way" (ibid.).
[Adapted from Herbert E. Douglass, Messenger of the Lord: the
Prophetic Ministry of Ellen G. White (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press
Publishing Association, 1998), pp. 492, 493.]