God's Power vs. Man's
Illustration★★★★An example of an illustration from geology—the par- ticular example being taken from mineralogy. Let us contrast the power of God and the power of man, Here is a large greyish colored rock. We will say that it is three feet long and wide and high—a cubic yard. This copper ore contains one and a half per cent copper.
Concealed in this rock, scattered through it in little particles are eighty pounds of copper. We take that great rock and break it into pieces. We send those pieces through finer and finer crushers until we have a grey- ish white powder. We send that powder through a swirling con- tainer of water in which has been placed an oil that has the strange property to attract to it and carry along with it, the particles of copper that are in the ore.
On the surface are hundreds of bubbles and on these are little particles of something black in color. A machine separates the oil and these particles and we have a pile of something that looks just like gunpowder. We mix this powder with lime and other chemicals and place the whole mixture in a great smelting furnace. There the great heat separates the copper from the dross and we see this copper come flowing out in a cherry red stream.
After a while we see lying before us a copper bar obtained from that grey rock. Man is a wonderful creature is he not? But wait a minute.
Do you know that with all of his machinery, mills, smelters, crushers, refiners, hydraulic presses and terrific electric heat, he cannot take a piece of rock and make from it a piece of copper ore. Man has never been able to make a piece of copper ore even as big as a pea. But God has made whole mountains of it.
The point
Man, with all his machinery and technology, cannot create a single piece of copper ore the size of a pea; yet God has made whole mountains of it—a vivid contrast of divine vs human power.