IV.
The Lost Atlantis.
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Whence sprang the Mound-builders? It is evident, after reading the foregoing, that a people who could reach such a degree of civilization, must have received an impetus from without, which makes us conclude that the Mound-builders migrated to America.
“The Story of Atlantis,” as recorded by Plato in his Timæus, has been regarded as a myth, but seems destined to become genuine history. The translation of the Greek philosopher is as follows:—“Among the great deeds of Athens, of which recollection is preserved in our books, there is one which should be placed above all others. Our books tell that the Athenians destroyed an army that came across the Atlantic Sea, and insolently invaded Europe and Asia, for this sea was then navigable, and beyond the straits where you place the Pillars of Hercules, there was an island larger than Asia (Minor) and Libya combined. From this island one could pass easily to other islands, and from these to the continent which lies around the interior sea. The sea (Mediterranean) on this side the strait of which we speak, resembles a harbor with a narrow entrance; but there is a genuine sea, and the land which surrounds it is a veritable continent. In the Island of Atlantis reigned three kings, with great and marvelous power. They had under their dominion the whole of Atlantis and other islands, and some parts of the continent. At one time their power extended into Libya, and into Europe as far as Tyrrhenia, and, uniting their whole force, they sought to destroy our whole country at a blow; but their defeat stopped the invasion and gave independence to all the countries this side the Pillars of Hercules. Afterward, in one day and one fatal night, there came mighty earthquakes and inundations which engulfed the warlike people. Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea, and then that sea became inaccessible, so that navigation on it ceased, on account of the quantity of mud which the engulfed island left in its place.”
Plutarch, in his “Life of Solon,” relates that the Lawgiver learned this story of Atlantis from Egyptian priests.
Diodorus Siculus relates:—“Over against Africa lies a very great island, in the vast ocean, many days’ sail from Libya westward. The soil there is very fruitful, a great part whereof is mountainous, but much likewise champaign, which is the most sweet and pleasant part, for it is watered by several navigable streams, and beautiful with many gardens of pleasure, planted by divers sorts of trees and an abundance of orchards. The towns are adorned with many stately buildings and banqueting-houses, pleasantly situated in the gardens and orchards.”
Theopompos, who wrote in the fourth century B.C., tells substantially the same story, which was given by Silenus to the ancient king Midas, recorded by Aristotle. The Gauls possessed traditions on this subject, which were collected by the Roman historian Timagenes, who lived in the first century before Christ. This record states that three distinct peoples dwelt in Gaul (France): (1) The indigenous population, (2) The invaders from a distant island (Atlantis), (3) The Aryan Gauls.
Marcellus, also, in a book on the Ethiopians, speaks of seven islands lying in the Atlantic Ocean near Europe, which we may undoubtedly identify with the Canaries; but he adds: “The inhabitants of these islands preserve the memory of a much greater island, Atlantis, which had, for a long time, exercised dominion over the smaller ones.”
Now all these ancient writers clearly state that a continent existed west of Africa, which was destroyed by a great cataclysm. The tribes in Central America and Mexico, in Venezuela, British and Dutch Guiana, distinctly describe these cataclysms, one by water, one by fire, and a third by winds. Catlin, in his “Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America,” describes the tradition of such a cataclysm.
The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in his “Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique,” and “Sources de l’Histoire Primitive du Mexique,” has translated the “Teo Amoxtli,” which is the Toltecan mythological history of the cataclysm of the Antilles. The festival of “Izcalli” was instituted to commemorate this terrible calamity, in which “princes and people humbled themselves before the Divinity, and besought him not to renew the frightful convulsions.”
It is claimed that, by this catastrophe, an area larger than France became engulfed, including the Lesser Antilles, the extensive banks at their eastern extremity, the peninsulas of Yucatan, Honduras and Guatemala, and the great estuaries of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. With Yucatan and Guatemala went down the splendid cities of Palenque and Uxmal, and others whose sites and inhabitants are now in the ocean bed.
In verification of these ancient traditions, our modern geographies tell us that Old Guatemala was destroyed by a water volcano in the sixteenth century, and again in the eighteenth by an earthquake. The sea-shells on both sides of the Isthmus of Panama are alike, and according to geographical distribution of animals, this could only come about by the Isthmus having been once submerged, and after remaining so long enough for the intermixture of species, being raised; and the submarine fossils found on the Isthmus prove the hypothesis.
According to Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, the oldest Mexican records date back to nine hundred and twenty-five years before Christ, when a strange people came among them. In opposition to Winchell’s hypothesis of a northwest Mongolian migration to Mexico, I wish to prove that the Mound-builders were the people who came after the cataclysms, and that they came from the continent of Atlantis.
And what hope have I to establish such affinity? “Dans les pays les plus différent,” says Benjamin Constant, “chez les peuples de moeurs les plus opposées, le sacerdoce a dû aû culte dés éléments et des astres, un pouvoir dont audjour d’hui nous concevons à peine l’idée.”
The nearest lands west of Africa, where Plato located the continent of Atlantis, are the Canary Islands, the nearest being about fifty miles from Africa, and the whole group extending about three hundred miles, and separated from the continent by a channel more than five thousand feet deep. Of all oceanic islands (not continental) discovered by Europeans, the Canaries alone were inhabited. Here were found the Guanches, now extinct, who, at the time of their discovery, were not aware that a continent existed in their neighborhood, for, on being asked by the Spanish missionaries how they had come to their archipelago, they answered: “God placed us on these islands, and then forsook and forgot us.” Now who were these Guanches? Their islands have never been connected with Africa, because the channel between them is a mile deep, and Wallace, in his “Island Life,” has proved that any island surrounded by water over five thousand feet deep is of volcanic origin, and that is just the clue we are seeking. If craniometry is a reliable science, the Guanches were not savages, but superior to the Egyptians! According to Prof. Flower’s measurements, the skull of the English of low grade contains 1,542 cubic centimeters, the Guanches 1,498, Japanese 1,486, Chinese 1,424, Italians 1,475, and the Ancient Egyptians 1,464. That a remnant of a race found on an island in mid-ocean should have a better developed brain than many continental nations who have made history, is significant. We should expect such a people to conquer their neighbors, just as is recorded by Plato. And now as to their dispersion. When Columbus set sail from Palos in 1492, he steered directly for the Canary Islands for repairs. When he left the Canaries, without any effort of his own the trade winds carried his vessels straight to the West Indies. These winds blow in this direction all the time. In December, 1731, a ship started from Teneriffe with a cargo of wine for one of the Western Canaries, and, having only six men on board, they were unable to manage the ship, and the trade winds carried them straight to Trinidad, on the Island of Cuba, of course. While Atlantis was sinking, some of the inhabitants escaped on rafts and boats, and, being exactly at the same point at which Columbus and the ship’s crew started in the path of the trade winds, there was nothing to do but wait, and they were carried to the West Indies, through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, to Yucatan and Mexico. We can easily see now why the oldest civilization of the New World is in Central America. Some of these emigrants stopped in the West Indies, for the aborigines spoke the same language as the Mayas of Yucatan to-day. Some stopped in South America, for Dr. Lund, the eminent Swedish naturalist, in the bone caves of Minas Gerais, Brazil, found human skulls exactly like those of the Mound-builders.
The sudden destruction of these people recalls the beautiful lines from Richardson’s Geology, on “The Nautilus and the Ammorite:”