Ark Capacity
Ark Capacity
I am only going to deal with a few of the insurmountable hurdles surrounding the literalist interpretation of the Noah’s ark story. I won’t deal with construction problems, wooden boat size limitations, animal care challenges, geological problems, post-flood problems, or any of the other issues. I am going to focus on the space issues that arise from Jacks proposed 30,000 animals (average size of a Sheep – much smaller than the mean computed by none YE analysts
http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie027.html ).
http://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/livestock/sheep/sheepupdate/summ02i.html
This link discusses a sheep feedlot in Canada. It is 56 acres, 43,560 x 56 = 2.439 M ft^2, and has the capacity for 25,000 sheep. This area is the equivalent to 72.27 ark-sized decks (obviously not possible on the 45’ high ark). Unlike the ark situation, the food and water for these sheep is brought in from outside on a regular basis. When the lot is full they require up to14 people to handle the sheep for the “short period” that they are there, and they have all the advantages of modern technology to supply food, water, and waste transportation.
http://resource.lawlinks.com/Content/Legal_Research/US_code/Title_49/title_49_805.htm
US Code Title 49, Chapter 805 states that sheep must not be confined during transportation longer than 28 contiguous hours (an additional 8 hours is allowed if the 28 hour mark occurs in the night). They then must receive 5 hours for water, feeding and rest. Without this, many sheep would die in the extremely tight quarters used in rail transportation. Thus, it would have been necessary for the Ark to provide some exercise area (consuming additional floor space) as they couldn’t unload and reload the animals.
Dealing with raw volume is misleading and an oversimplification when approaching this issue. We are not talking about a cargo ship transporting inanimate objects packed tightly into easily stackable shipping containers, but an ancient wood boat transporting living animals. The animals obviously could not be packed into the ark like dominoes in a box. They required room to move and lie down. But for time-sake (optimizing horizontal space would be a logistic nightmare for even a modern architectural engineer) and to appease Jacks strong preference for dealing in volume, I’ll stick to volume.
Assuming an 18” cubit, the overall volume of the ark is 450’ x 75’ x 45’ =1.51875 M ft^3.
Access paths (walkways, stairs or ramps, etc.) large enough for the human caretakers to transport food, water, and waste to and from the animals would consume volume. I won’t bother with stairs or ramps, but I’ll reserve space for two 400’ walkways on each deck (though some YE models propose 3, or 4 walkways to simplify animal access). 3 (decks) x 2 (walkways) x 400’ x 8’ (height) x 6’ (width) = 115.2 K ft^3.
1.51875M – 115.2K = 1.40355 M ft^3
The enormous beams required for support would consume more volume. Some model constructions I found on YE sites suggest that the major framework would require upwards of 100 45-foot 2’x2’ beams for support. That consumes 18K ft^3. Reasonably the cross bracing would require another 9K ft^3. Then there are the 3 decks. Since 10” joists are common in modern houses that don’t support a lot of animal weight (and don’t float through turbulent global floods), it seems reasonable to have 18” thick decks. The 3 decks would then consume 3 x 450’ x 75’ x 1.5’ = 151.875 K ft^3. Summing these terms up gives 178.875 K ft^3 of available volume consumed by framework and decks.
1.40355 M – 178.875 K = 1.224675 M ft^3
Now I move on to the actual sheep. How many can actually fit in a “standard” rail car? Well, in “The Genesis Flood” Whitcomb and Morris pull the ol’ undefined term switch-a-roo. They quote from one source that says a double-decker rail boxcar (no dimensions given) can hold 240 sheep. Then they quote from a different source to show that the ark is as big as 522 boxcars (of the 9’x9’x33’ sized varieties). Hmm, I wonder if the first quote was actually referring to one of the 17’x9’x90’ sized varieties? We have a potential sheep carrying volume capacity error of 5-fold. I found one record of a major sheep transport rail station that averaged 90 sheep per boxcar, but again the boxcar dimensions weren’t given. I’m willing to give Whitcomb and Morris a break and go along with 120 sheep for each of those small (9x9x33) boxcars that they used for their volume. That would then produce 30K (sheep) / 120 (sheep per box car) x 2670 ft^3 (volume per boxcar) = 667.5 K ft^3
1.224675 M – 667.5 K = 557.175 K ft^3
Things are looking up for Jacks camp.
But wait, there’s more. Food and water are required. A sheep generally consumes about 4L water per day. 1L = 0.03531 ft^3.
30,000 (sheep) x 4L x 0.03531 (ft^3/L) x 365 (days) = 1.546578 M ft^3.
(oops – we can’t have that).
Let’s assume that they drank rainwater at first, but once the rain stopped and the millions of dead animals, dirt, and feces started floating around they’d have to drink from reserves. Let’s say they only stored a 182 day supply, nope that won’t work. How about a 90-day supply? Now we’re down to 0.25 x 1.546578 M = 386.644 K ft^2
557.175 K – 386.644 K = 170.530 K ft^3
Surely this is enough left over the human living quarters. Oops, I almost forgot the food.
An ewe requires about 0.3 tons of hay/year. A modern compacted 70 lb hay-bale is 14”x18”x35” (5.104 ft^3).
600 lbs x 5.104 ft^3 (bale) / 70 lbs (bale) = 43.748 ft^3
30,000 x 43.748 ft^3 = 1.312457 M ft^3
(oops again – another major hurdle)
Do we put them on ½ rations? No that’s not sufficient. OK, God made it so they only ate 1/10th the normal amount. That solves it. But now we only have 39,284 ft^3 for human quarters and their food. And what about the exercise areas I mentioned earlier and the need for ventilation tunnels sufficient to circulate to the lowest deck, the side walkways needed from each major walkway, the ramps/stairs between floors, etc.?
I’m sorry Jack, but the hurdles far outweigh the simple alternative. One could easily adhere to all the historic orthodox Christian doctrines and accept a regional flood interpretation. It would even be reasonable (yet I still disagree) to believe that God did in fact destroy all humans (except Noah & crew) and many animals in such a large regional flood. But your version is beyond believability. Floods occurred, various human embellishments got added to the stories about those floods, and we now have a bunch of myths. That is the probable explanation, and the one that most reasonably minded individuals will accept.
Well it’s been fun Jack, but I have real work to focus on for a while. Freeing the minds of those still held captive in fundamentalist dogma is only a part-time hobby. I truly wish for you the intellectual freedom that I have obtained. Though leaving fundamentalism is scary at first, once you experience the joy of free-thought you’ll be glad you did.
