1) The document discusses a student who had doubts about the young earth based on seeing stalactites in caves, but the author addresses this by showing him stalactites growing rapidly under buildings. 2) It provides examples of stalactites found growing in just 59 years under the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, disproving the notion that stalactites require thousands of years to form. 3) The author concludes that stalactites can form rapidly in many locations like buildings, shopping centers, and cars parks, not just caves, challenging the idea that their presence indicates an old earth.

1. Do Ancient Stalactites Really
Exist?
BY EVAN JAMIESON
DECEMBER 1, 1999 CREATION MAGEZINE
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v16/n1/stalactites

2. Evan Jamieson
I was talking to a friend on campus at
Murdoch University, Western Australia.
He had been having trouble with the theory of
evolution and its relationship to the Bible.
VS

3. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
Some months previously I
had purchased Dr. Michael
Denton’s book, Evolution: A
Theory in Crisis. My friend
read the book in little over a
week and came back rejoicing.
All his questions had been
answered, and there was
renewed faith in the inerrancy
of Scripture.

4. Stalactites
But he still had a question. Is the earth really young?
After all, he had just come back from touring the
caves of Western Australia’s south-west, and had
seen all those stalactites. Didn’t they prove the earth
was many thousands, or even millions, of years old?

5. George Rogers Clark Memorial
I told him to come with me to
see some buildings on campus
where substantial stalactites
were growing. I asked whether
he thought these had taken
many thousands of years to
form, or whether perhaps it
was a creationist trick to glue
them to the undersides of the
buildings.

6. War shrine lade a limestone cave
While this article was being prepared for Creation
magazine, the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne
(Australia) reported another occurrence of rapid-
forming stalactites.
The Shrine of Remembrance in
Melbourne has been crumbling
because of water seepage. Parts of it
are in danger of caving in if it is
not repaired quickly.

7. Journalist Michael Harvey
The Herald Sun’s photographer took pictures of the
lower parts of the building, including photos of many
stalactites and stalagmites which have grown
beneath the building since it was constructed in
1934.
Journalist Michael Harvey said, ‘Massive vaults
beneath the terraces resemble the interior of
limestone caves with constant dripping of water
producing thousands of stalactites and stalagmites.
These ‘thousands of stalactites and stalagmites’ have
all grown within the 59 years since the shrine was
built

8. Creation Magazine, Vol.9 No.4
I remember raising the question of stalactite growth
rates at a lecture in my undergraduate days, only to
be told that stalactites growing from buildings were
different to those forming in caves because the
concrete offered a ready supply of material and there
was enhanced water flow at localized sites because of
redirection of water by the building’s
drainage system. But similar conditions apply for
every stalactite cave. (More information on stalactite
growth rates appeared in Creation magazine, Vol. 9
No. 4.)

9. George Rogers Clark Memorial
Job 12:8: ‘Speak to the earth, and
it shall teach thee . . .’. Stalactites
are growing everywhere
. . . shopping centers, schools,
universities, and even in multi-
storey car parks.
Whenever you see a white
stalactite hanging from a
building, look for yourself and
see how many thousands of years
old you think that building is.
Presentation by D. Molinski