The "Lost Atlantis."

A brief review of the subject of the Lost Atlantis may be of interest. Plutarch, about 100 A. D., in his life of Solon, 600 B. C., relates that when Solon, the great lawgiver of the Greeks, was in Egypt, he learned from the priest of Sais the "Story of Atlantis," which Plato (about 400 B. C.) gives us in his "Timaeus." Abridged, the priest of Sais says to Solon: "Among the great deeds of Athens is one that should be placed above all others. Our record tells us that the Athenians destroyed an army that came across the sea and invaded Europe and Asia (Minor), for this sea (the Atlantic) was then navigable, and beyond the strait, where you place the Pillars of Hercules, there was an island larger than Lybia and Asia (Minor) combined. From this island one could pass to other islands, and from these to the continent lying around the interior sea-Mediterranean. The sea, on this side of the strait, resembles a harbor with a narrow entrance, but there is beyond a genuine sea, and the land which it surrounds is a veritable continent. On the island of Atlantis reigned three kings of great and marvelous power. They dominated Atlantis and the islands and some parts of the continent. Uniting their whole force, they sought to destroy our countries (European) at one blow. Their defeat stopped the invasion, and gave entire independence to all the countries on this side of the Pillars of Hercules. Afterwards, in one fatal day and night, there came a mighty earthquake, and inundations which engulfed this warlike people. Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea, and then that sea, Atlantic, became inaccessible, so that navigation ceased." Other classical writers describe the island, or continent of Atlantis, as containing mountains and pleasant valleys and navigable streams, and cities adorned with stately buildings, etc.

But this awful catastrophe, which submerged an area of land larger than France, that at one time almost connected the two continents, which destroyed one of the most ancient people who have left a record upon the earth, was so long ago that even the writers whom we call "the Ancients" were divided, and warmly debated various theories. With the decline of the Platonic School of Alexandria, even the name of Atlantis dropped out of literature and was not heard during the Middle Ages. But with the Renaissance came the republication of Plato's "Timaeus." During the fifteenth century it was printed five times in Latin, and was translated also into French and Italian.

That Atlantis, a continental island between Europe and America, might have existed and disappeared, leaving only remnants as islands, was too evident to escape notice, and so the controversy was renewed, and engaged some of the most learned minds of the world. Columbus held that the continent referred to by the Ancients was on the other side of India, and that India could be reached by a few weeks' sail across the Atlantic. Thus, theoretically, Atlantis, whether mythical or real, led to the discovery of America by Columbus.

The literature upon this subject is voluminous. Abbe Brasseur de Bourboug, the most eminent decipherer of Mexican records, asserts that he has found in Atlantis the ethnography of Americans. He finds the Toltecs to be descendants of the panic-stricken fugitives of the great catastrophe, which is recorded by them as well as by the Egyptians. M. Cataline, an eminent French scholar, finds in the ruined cities of Central America evidence that they have once been in the bed of the ocean, and says that all the territory surrounding them bears evidence to the same fact; that the continent rose again by the subsidence of the waters, and thus left these ancient sites exposed. The Atlantis-theory skeptics offset this by saying that the ruins of the great city of Palenque and Uxmal are too well preserved to have been subject to the action of water for any length of time (CURIOUS QUESTIONS, Vol. 11., p. 227). But Brasseur appeals to philology to strengthen his cause. He says that the words Atlas and Atlantic have no satisfactory etymology in any European language; but that a root is readily found in the Toltecan. "Atl" means water, and from this come a series of words-"Atlantic," a large body of water; "Atlantis," a body of land surrounded by water. But the most learned treatise in favor of Atlantis has been advanced by M. Paul Gaffarel, published in 1869 and 1880. He utilized the invention of deep-sea soundings, and found a ridge running down the middle of the Atlantic, broadening toward the Azores. The depth of the water over the ridge is less than 1000 fathoms, while the valleys on either side average 3000 fathoms.

It is called the "Dolphin Ridge," the United States vessel that took the soundings being named the "Dolphin." Another ridge, called the "Challenger," extends from a point north of the Ascension Island, running directly south between South America and Africa. There has lately been found evidence of a connecting ridge across the tropical Atlantic which joins the other two. M. Gaffarel and others, upon the publication of the charts, renewed their arguments for the "Lost Atlantis," and some enthusiasts go so far as to say that science will yet enable man to recover some Atlantean evidence from submerged cities of Atlantis that will for ever close the discussion. The book of Ignatius Donnelly, called "Atlantis," is a late addition to the literature in favor of the Lost Atlantis; while those who oppose the theory appeal to much earlier documents, such as Martin's "Comments on Plato's Timaeus."