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On the Translation of Myths Between the Old And: Challenger

This view has, however, been reduced in its proportions by Dr. Carpenter, who has levelled the results of the recent researches by the Challenger expedition against the advocates of the intermutations of land and ocean, and, in pursuing another line of reasoning from Mr. Wallace, has estimated the solid contents of ocean and land above the sea-level respectively, as bearing the proportion of thirty-six to one. So that, supposing all the existing land of the globe to sink down to the sea-level, this subsidence would be balanced by the elevation of only one thirty-sixth part of the existing ocean floor from its present depth to the same level. It must be admitted that the balance of argument was until lately considerably against the former existence of the country of Atlantis, whose ghostly outlines, however, we could almost imagine to be sketched out by faint contours in the chart illustrative of the North Atlantic portion of the Challenger investigations. But it was not so overwhelming as to entitle us to ignore the story entirely as a fable. I do not conceive it impossible that some centrally situated and perhaps volcanic island may once have existed, sufficiently important to have served as the basis of simple legends, which, under the enchantment of distance and time became metamorphosed and enriched.