As the
Wisconsin Ice Age drew to a close, the
melt
water along the front of the
retreating glacier pooled into the depressions that had been formed
by the
weight of the ice. Enormous bodies of water, much
larger than the present Great Lakes, began to form. Wherever it was freed
from the weight of the glacier, the land began to rise or rebound, causing
dramatic changes in the size, distribution and drainage patterns of the
glacial lakes. With each new shift, or uplift, the lakes spilled out in new
directions. Thus, the Great Lakes experienced a number of changes during
their long history. During such changes, a small inland sea was left ponded
in the flat plains of western New York between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie,
just one of many small lakes formed during the period of receding ice.
D’Agostino, one of the first to research the various stages of the long-life
of Lake Tonawanda, found no evidence to suggest when her greater waters
actually went dry. He speculates that the last land uplift may
have been a
determining factor in draining the lake. However, since the uplift was slow
and spanned centuries, just recently considered completed, the life-span of
Lake Tonawanda must have extended right through both the Jaredite and
Nephite eras, for as D’Agostino explains, “Lake Tonawanda is not actually an
extinct lake, and only when the present swamps become totally filled or
drained will Lake Tonawanda’s existence be ended.”
But, of interest to Book of Mormon studies is the uncanny similarities
between this small inland sea and the sea that divided the lands mentioned
in the Jaredite account, a sea which stretched across the Niagara frontier
for 58 miles and was 6 miles wide. (The Sea of Galilee
was only 12 miles
long by 7 miles wide.) Both sides of the lake were well suited for
habitation, for the lake was full of fish and the swamps were filled with
all manner of small animals and waterfowl. Moreover, to the south was the
Allegheny Plateau, a land of rich forests and plentiful game.
The Batavia Moraine created a natural passageway right through the seabed
from one side of the sea to the other. Frank Leverett tells us the moraine
“rises into a stout till ridge 30 to 50 feet in height, which has a
well-defined crest and gently undulating surface...” This natural barrier
correlates remarkably well with the narrow neck of land described in Alma
63:5; a neck of land high enough to rise above the lake’s waters, which
D’Agostino informs us was 35 ft. deep in its western basin, and 20 ft. deep
in its eastern, and of ample thickness to provide dry passage for those who
wished to cross from one side of the sea to the other.
What could describe the narrow ridge which extended through Lake Tonawanda
(the sea that divided the lands) better than the terms the scribes used in
the Book of Mormon, i. e., the narrow neck of land (Alma 63:5), the narrow
pass (Alma 50:34), the narrow passage (Mormon 2:29) and the small neck of
land (Alma 22:32). Looking for something far greater than was intended by
that very precise description has led many astray. The narrow neck was just
that, a small neck of land leading from the lands to the south of the sea to
those to the north, nothing more.
The Wetlands to Either Side of the Narrow Neck
Extensive wetlands still exist to either side of the narrow neck although
the most impressive are situated to the east, and called Oak Orchard Swamp,
a nickname the Iroquois Indians gave it after planting groves of
Oak trees
in the swamp—the swamps themselves considered by all to be one of the last
remnants of old Lake Tonawanda. The impressive Oak Orchard Swamp is a
seventeen-and-a-half-mile wetland which sprawls out along the southeastern
borders of the hundred-square-mile eastern half of Lake Tonawanda’s old
seabed. D’Agostino claims these wetlands existed as low-lying swamps even in
ancient times, thus, they too must have been highly prized as hunting
grounds, especially for waterfowl. Over 266 species of birds have been noted
in the refuge. White-tailed deer, muskrat, mink, rabbit, raccoon, red fox,
gray fox, coyote, and beaver are among the refuge’s thirty-three species of
mammals. Today a triad of wetlands in the old lakebed are protected as a
National Wildlife Reserve. Poisonous serpents also exist in these wetlands.
Thus, we can suppose these very swamps were the breeding ground for the
serpents which hedged up the way into the land southward during the reign of
the Jaredite King Lib. (See Ether 9:33.)