We might not know the size of the Paratethys Sea, the inland “sea in the wilderness,” at the time of the Jaredite encounter, but we know its historical existence. The Jaredite response to this travel impediment was to “build barges, in which they did cross many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the Lord” (Ether 2:6-7). This inland sea of western Asia must have been of such a size that it was better to cross by barges than to travel around. Also, there is no mention of building multiple sets of barges to cross a series of inland seas.

We next need to know what is meant by the term “barge.” In the English of the early 1800s, when the Book of Mormon was translated, the Oxford English Dictionary indicates the word barge denoted “a small seagoing vessel” or “any small boat.” The word barge is connected to the word “bark,” a small ship, and derives from old French barque, Latin barica, Greek baris “Egyptian boat,” Coptic bari “small boat,” and even hieroglyphic Egyptian ba-y-r for “basket-shaped boat.” By extension, the term “embark” literally means to board the kind of boat called a “bark” (or barge or barque).

The term barge, therefore, was merely the common word for any small boat, not the flat-hulled vessels that haul bulk goods we call barges today. These Jaredite barges or boats, built to cross the “sea in the wilderness,” most likely were sailing vessels, complete with sails to catch the wind, a deep draft to prevent toppling, and a rudder for steering. It would not have been worth the effort to build boats unless an efficient means of propulsion, such as the wind, was readily available. In this area of Asia, a zone of westerlies, the winds could drive a sailing vessel from west to east, the direction of the Jaredite travels. Rowing a boat heavy-laden with people, animals and supplies is not efficient and often not possible.

The brief account of their travels in the “wilderness,” in three verses of the Book of Ether, may raise more questions than it answers, but this we do know: The Jaredites crossed an inland “sea in the wilderness” of western Asia in some type of boats with the Lord’s direction (Ether 2:5-7). Also, these first boats were constructed somewhat differently than the eight vessels which were later built to cross the “great deep” of the Pacific Ocean (see Constructing Another Set of Barges (Boats), below).

The account next states that the “Lord would not suffer [allow] that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness,” but they should continue to go “forth even unto the land of promise” (Ether 2:7). This would imply that the terrain they encountered after crossing the “sea in the wilderness,” and continuing “forth,” was also wilderness, and this terrain would have been at a somewhat higher level than the inland sea to provide a basin or containment for the water. The distance across the wilderness on the eastern side of the inland sea in Asia to a distant seashore farther to the east is not indicated, nor is the nature and characteristics of the wilderness terrain.