Ch. XIV.] THE FABLED ATLAXTIS. 271 



singular kingdom, whose dominion extended not only 

 over the whole island, but over many others, and parts of 

 the continent. It ruled also over Libya as far as Egypt, 

 and over Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This kingdom 

 with the whole of its forces united tried to subjugate in 

 one campaign your country and ours, and all the country 

 within the strait/' " At that time, Solon, your nation 

 shone out from all others by bravery and power. It was 

 placed in great danger, but it defeated the attacking 

 army, and erected triumphal monuments. But when at 

 a later period earthquakes and great floods took place, the 

 whole of your united army was swallowed up during one 

 evil day and one evil night, and at the same time the 

 island of Atlantis sank into the sea." Grantor, quoted 

 by Proclus, corroborates the account by Plato, and says 

 that he found this same story retained by the priests of 

 Sais, three hundred years after the period of Solon, and 

 that he was shown the inscriptions on which it was re- 

 corded. 



Turning to the western side of the Atlantic, we find 

 in the Teo Amoxtli, as translated by the Abbe Brasseur 

 de Bourbourg, an account of the overwhelming of a 

 country by the sea, when thunder and flames came out 

 of it, and " the mountains were sinking and rising." 

 Everywhere throughout America there are traditions of 

 a great catastrophe, in which a whole country was sub- 

 merged, and only a few people escaped to the mountains ; 

 a^ad the Spanish conquerors relate with wonder the 

 accounts they found amongst the Indians of a universal 

 deluge. Amongst the modern Indians the traveller, 

 Catlin, relates that in one hundred and twenty different 

 tribes that he had visited in North, and South, and 



