If you have ever visited a large cave, you may have heard the guide warn you, "Don't touch the formations! They took millions of years to form!" Hanging from the ceiling of the cave were probably many beautiful pointed rock hangings, called stalactites. They are formed by mineral deposits left by dripping water over time.

The guide may even have told you that it takes a thousand years to grow a stalactite an inch. Carlsbad Caverns is supposed to have taken 250 million years to grow. But is it true? If so, the world must be millions of years old, and the Genesis account of creation completely wrong.

Dr. Kent Hovind, in his video "The Age of the Earth," offers many surprising facts demonstrating that the world cannot possibly be this old.

Among them is a photo of stalactities, some 50 inches in length, that have been formed by dripping water under the Lincoln Memorial, built in 1922. These stalactites have grown nearly 2/3 inch per year! So much for the "thousand years per inch" idea.

Hovind also shows a photo of a bat covered by flowstone in a cave before he could rot. Imagine how long this bat would have had to lie here dead, without rotting, for this flowstone to cover him as it has! Obviously, these mineral deposits occur much more rapidly than we are led to believe.

If in fact God created the world 6,000 years ago, and then destroyed it by a flood 4,400 years ago, we should expect to find many of the oldest things in the world to be somewhat less than 4,400 years old.

Hovind, in his seminar, offers many examples, including:

• The Great Barrier Reef, the oldest and largest reef in the world, has been determined to be 4,200 years old.
• The world's oldest tree is 4,300 years old.
• Minerals being washed into the ocean by erosion would bring the salt content of the ocean to its present level in less than 5,000 years!