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Finally, some believe there is a way to figure out the approximate altitude at which the ark
came to rest. Notice: From the time the ark first grounded until the entire Flood experience was
over is commonly calculated out as being 221 days. This is based on a total of all the days and
dates mentioned in the Genesis account. We noted earlier that the commonly held understanding of
Genesis 7:20 and 8:4-5 implies the Flood waters receded at the rate of 15 cubits in 74 days. This
works out to be 4 inches a day. Now this would be 884 inches for the 221 days. If you divide this
by 12 to get the number of feet, you will end up with a figure of 73 FEET as the elevation at which
the ark came to rest! Of course this is, at best, only a rough estimate. But when you realize that 15
cubits of water (23 feet) came down from the skies and was added to by "all the fountains of the
great deep," then 73 feet may not be too far wrong!

Fausset's Expository Bible Encyclopedia concludes that the difficulties surrounding a uni-
versal flood (covering the highest mountains) "make a partial [or regional] one possible." The In-
terpreter's Bible states that a universal flood would be a "physical impossibility." The erudite
Hasting's Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics says: "The belief in a universal Deluge has long
been abandoned by well-informed writers." Werner Keller adds:

...we are provisionally obliged to say that ever since the 5165 metre peak [of Ararat] has been in existence
and men have inhabited the earth, no scientifically recorded inundation in the world has risen high enough
to carry up to such an altitude any kind of floating construction of the nature of the ark. The terrain around
Mount Ararat during this period has not undergone such spectacular changes that the ark could have been
deposited there at a time when perhaps the summit was lower than it is today (The Bible As History, p.
57).

And we have to concur with this when we understand what the Bible REALLY says!

Further Evidence of a Regional Flood

At the beginning of this article we mentioned Sir Charles Woolley's amazing discovery of
the Flood layer at the ancient Ur of the Chaldees in Mesopotamia. Archaeologists have noted that
the Tigris-Euphrates flood (which they have dated to around 2,900 B.C.) occurred at the end of the
Jemdet Nasr period in ancient Sumer, but the Early Dynastic I period that immediately followed
the Flood did not have a population shortage. Many people undoubtedly died in the cataclysm, but
many, many more survived, especially in areas that had little or no flood damage. According to ar-
chaeologist Max Mallowan, "no flood was ever of sufficient magnitude to interrupt the continuity
of Mesopotamian civilization."

Later, we touched on evidence recently discovered in the Black Sea -- indicating a cata-
strophic flood in times contemporary with Noah.

The Black Sea:

Prior to Noah's flood the Bosporus portal to the Black Sea was at such a height that the
Black Sea was completely isolated from the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, and was freshwater
in nature. As the torrential rains of Noah's flood account fell on the hapless earth, the Mediterra-
nean Sea began to rise and soon stood poised to invade the Bosporus valley and plunge into the
Black Sea lake five hundred feet below. Driven by the relentless tide, the waters finally breached
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