A VISIT TO GLEN ROSE TEXAS
For the past five years we have read about, and have had reported to us stories of man and dinosaur tracks in the same strata in Glen Rose, Texas. These tracks have been strongly emphasized, especially by various creationist groups who feel that if the principles of geology are true, the accuracy of the Bible is threatened. The major concerns are over the issue of the age of the Earth and the geologic time scale. Because their theological view is that the biblical age of the Earth is around 10,000 years they have attempted to show that the assertions of the geologist that the Earth is many millions of years old is erroneous. Their chief evidence of what they believe to be the fallacies of geology has been these tracks in Glen Rose, Texas.
There is no question that the finding of man and dinosaur tracks in the same layer of rocks would have terrific impact upon geology. Geologists believe that millions of years elapsed between the time that dinosaurs lived on the Earth and the time of man, and if they lived at the same time geologists would have to admit their entire dating system to be in error.
In our lectureship work, we have taken the position that the age of the Earth is not a biblical issue. We have stated that even if the Earth were proven to be billions of years old, and even if dinosaurs lived 200 million years before Adam, the message of the Bible would not be altered in any way. This position has been repulsive to some and as a result we receive material from time to time attempting to prove Bishop Usher's technique of dating the Earth to be correct. The Glen Rose tracks are almost always a part of such material.
It is one thing to hear about something like this and quite another to study it for yourself, so on July 17 I spent the day studying the Glen Rose area. Ted Ware and his son Wayne were my companions on the trip; Ted being a most capable evangelist for the Lord in Waco, Texas. This report of the trip is given to help those of you interested in this matter, and will be given in two senses — as a travelogue and as a scientific report on what is there.
Glen Rose is about 65 miles northwest of Waco, and southwest about the same distance from Fort Worth. It is a small town with very beautiful surroundings, located on the Paluxy River. If you visit the town your first stop should be as ours was, at the museum on the north side of the town square. Jean and Robert Mack operate the Museum (Sumervell County) and are literally bubbling over with information. Robert is the more objective of the two, but you could not find a more congenial pair anywhere. The museum contains numerous artifacts, including plastic dinosaur footprint casts, fossils, Indian relics, and pioneer tools. On the west wall hangs a 22 inch plaster cast of a human shoe print with order forms for two books on the human tracks in Glen Rose. (One is called Giant Man Tracks by Fredrick P. Beierle and the other is called Valley of the Giants; by C. N. Dougherty.) After paying $5.00 for the two books of 52 and 35 pages and examining the articles in the shop, we followed Mrs. Mack's directions to the home of Jake McFall.
Jake McFall owns the land on which the majority of the footprints in Glen Rose have been found and where the Creation Research Society's film Footprints in Stone was filmed. Jake is an elderly man, living in austere conditions. We paid him $2.00 for the tour of the prints after hearing him complain about our not buying our books from him, and also hearing his complaints about not receiving any money from the film made on his land. He lives just past the park entrance and has numerous signs up to attract visitors. He is a bitter man and has driven off unwelcome guests such as the state park geologist, with a shotgun.
After visiting several sites on Mr. McFall's place we drove back toward town on Highway 205 to the park where we looked up Laury Mosely the park geologist. We spent an hour in the park studying both dinosaur tracks and what were identified by the park ranger as the “original” man tracks. Nearly everywhere we went both in and out of the park, the man tracks had been painted in or around so there was no doubt as to whether we were looking at the proper tracks or not.
It was a beautiful and interesting trip, and I strongly encourage our readers to visit the Glen Rose area. The town is striving for tourist business, and excellent facilities exist for camping. If you like the out-of-doors and the beauty of God's creation you will enjoy Glen Rose. So much for the travelogue — now how about the tracks themselves?
It is difficult to make generalizations about all the tracks, because they are different in different places. Some are bare feet and some are with shoes. Some are deep impressions and some are surface indentations in the rocks. Dinosaur tracks abound in the area and are all very deeply impressed in a calcareous shale with incredible detail — especially in the park where even a tail track is very clearly visible. One thing the human tracks all have in common is that they are very large. The smallest human track I saw was an inch longer than mine (size 10½), and most were 19 to 22 inches in length. In Dougherty's book purchased in the museum, he asserts that Adam was 16 feet tall, King Og was 14 feet tall, Noah was 12 feet tall, and Goliath was 10 feet tall. This is based upon Genesis 6:4 and the work of Keil and Delitzsch on Deuteronomy 2:10, 11, 20, 21; 3:11; Joshua 13:3, 12; 15:8; 17:15; 18:16; Job 40:15 – 17; 41:1, 8, 25, 33; and Psalms 17:13; 104:26 (p. 51, as well as Beierle's book pages 33 – 34). I will leave the aspect of correct biblical interpretation and the exaggeration of biblical statements to the reader.
The tracks themselves are found in a rock which contains numerous large fossils of clams and large rocks. In many places you could see these fossils and rocks popping out of the rock leaving large holes. Some of these holes had already eroded, leaving elongated potholes in the surface. The rocks on Jake McPall's land were not the same as the rocks in the park. I was allowed by the park officials and Mr. McPall to bring samples of the rock the tracks were found in home with me. The park rock with the tracks in it is a very thick calcareous shale — almost a siltstone. It is poorly leached, very hard with no layers at all in it. The rock from McFall's place is a very thin, brittle, totally leached limestone with numerous marine fossils in it. Even the human footprints in the park are in a block limestone, two to three feet above the dinosaur tracks.
It is very obvious to me and others living in Glen Rose that the human tracks and probably the dinosaur tracks on McPall's place have been “helped along.” In Dougherty's book, page 48, we are told that in 1974 the tracks were located on a “ledge about fifteen feet above the river bed.” The tracks we were shown (and we covered the length of the exposure on his property) were two feet above the water in most places and six feet at the highest place. The tracks also cut across at least nine layers of limestone, a rock that is never soft. In addition, the tracks of the dinosaur and the man were of exactly the same depth (five inches average). Mr. McFall showed us what he called an “Indian track” in the top layer. We found over twenty identical impressions in the area caused by water marks. He showed us what he said were bobcat tracks in the same formation. Upon looking closely at these tracks, I discovered pebbles similar to a bobcat foot still embedded in the rock and one which had come out leaving the same print but unweathered as the bobcat tracks were.
In other places we were shown shoe prints (l8 inches long) where the heel and the foot line were off line by some 60 degrees (see drawing A) instead of in a straight line as is shown in B. We examined over 25 “human tracks” but saw none that were very convincing or consistent with a common sense examination of the area.
I am convinced that what has happened here is that rocks imbedded in the Paluxy stream channel have popped out of the bedrock, leaving a hole. The river has then eroded that hole leaving an elongated depression (see diagram). You can see this happening now in the river, and I can show you the same shapes in numerous streams in Indiana caused by the same process.
People not acquainted with the process have logically concluded they were footprints and have incorporated this into their theology. Then the opportunists have come in, written books, made films, carved tracks, and other enhancing activities to solidify the argument, and are conducting tours. Every clear barefoot track I have seen was a carved track. Others even in the area of Glen Rose are aware of these problems. Robert Mack stated he doubted the man tracks, but not the dinosaur tracks (to his wife's dismay). The park people verified to the letter the carving of tracks and opportunism. Ted Ware summarized his observations with “It takes a lot of imagination to see anything human in the tracks.”
We did not see every track in the Glen Rose area. Every time I am in Texas in July it rains as if the flood was about to be re-enacted, and this time was no exception. A creationist group was moving in as we left, and with high water and new digs there are and will be tracks we have not seen. Ted plans to return regularly as do I, for I want to remain open to new evidence. Based upon my study of the Glen Rose tracks I see no way one can intelligently challenge the geologic evidence that God created man a long time after he created the dinosaurs.