BYU Studies<\/em>\u00a037\/3 (1997-1998)<\/a>:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the common themes that can be found in almost all accounts of explosive volcanic eruptions is the darkness created by the fall of ash. \u00a0This darkness may last for a few hours or a few days, and the historical descriptions mimic the terminology used in the Book of Mormon. . . . \u00a0[T]he darkness is referred to as \u201cthick,\u201d \u201cimpenetrable,\u201d \u201cprofound,\u201d and \u201ctotal.\u201d \u00a0It is also described as a \u201cdarkness that might almost be felt.\u201d \u00a0Some accounts even record that fires cannot be lit or can only be started with great difficulty. \u00a0(176)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Professor Kowallis draws from two letters sent by Pliny the Younger, an eyewitness of the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, to the Roman historian Tacitus:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. \u00a0I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. . . . \u00a0We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Sgt. Larry Gamache of the Yakima County Sheriff\u2019s office reported that, in the middle of the afternoon, it was \u201cjust like midnight.\u201d \u00a0During the eruption of Bezymianny Volcano in eastern Russia, witness say that everything was \u201cso impenetrably dark that one could not see his own hand, even if brought up to the very face.\u201d \u00a0The cloud of darkness was \u201cvery thick and almost tangibly heavy.\u201d \u00a0When Mount Tambora blew up in 1815, it was reduced in height by over four thousand feet. \u00a0Witnesses recalled that \u201cthe darkness occasioned in the daytime by the ashes in Java was so profound, that nothing equal to it was ever witnessed in the darkest,\u201d making it \u201cimpossible to see your hand when held up close to the eye.\u201d \u00a0\u201cThere was total darkness by day for three days within 200 miles of the volcano.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1341,8834,56,8841,8844,8529,8520,1356,1353,8526,8556,1350,4640,8838,1050,1369,8837,8831,1347,3838,8825,8828,3178,8531,8822],"class_list":["post-83562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-3-nephi","tag-bart","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-burial","tag-buried","tag-cataclysm","tag-catastrophe","tag-christ","tag-destruction","tag-devastation","tag-drought","tag-earthquake","tag-fire","tag-flood","tag-geology","tag-jesus","tag-kowallis","tag-lightning","tag-seismology","tag-storm","tag-tempest","tag-thunder","tag-volcanism","tag-volcano","tag-whirlwind"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>