This unparalleled book should intrigue navigators: unprecedented land treks near-unbelievable in length, scope, and hazard are chronicled and ocean crossings, and the circling of the world centuries before the Vikings—crossings fraught with all the dangers imaginable, including storms, hidden reefs, hurricanes, and even mutiny.
This first recorded ocean crossing was about forty centuries ago, of seaworthy, ocean going vessels without known sails, engines, oars, or rudders—eight barges like and near contemporary with Noah’s ark, long as a tree, tight as a dish, peaked at the end like a gravy boat, (see Ether 2:17) corked at top and bottom, illuminated by molten stones, perhaps with radium or some other substance not yet rediscovered by our scientists. Light and like a fowl upon the water, this fleet of barges was driven by winds and ocean currents, landing at a common point in North America probably on the west shores.
(Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, Apr. 1963, pp. 63–64)