THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 1*3 



Some curious traditions are found in the writings 

 of the ancients respecting an island of very large size, 

 believed to have once existed in the Atlantic. Plato, 

 in the Timaeus, gives the fullest account of this 

 island, which was called Atlantis. It is stated to have 

 been nearly two hundred miles in length, situated 

 opposite the Straits of Gibraltar. It was fertile and 

 populous, and some of the warlike chiefs among 

 whom it was divided, are said to have made irrup- 

 tions upon the continent, and to have conquered a 

 considerable part of Europe and Northern Africa. 

 Several other islands are described as situated in the 

 vicinity of Atlantis, beyond which lay a continent 

 superior in size to all Europe and Africa. At length, 

 the whole island is reported to have boon swallowed 

 up by the sea ; after which, for a long period, that 

 part of the Ocean was of difficult and dangerous navi- 

 gation, on account of the numerous rocks and shelves 

 which lay beneath the surface. There are many cir- 

 cumstances which render it improbable that this 

 story, marvellous as it is, is entirely a fiction. It 

 has been supposed that the great island was Cuba, 

 the surrounding ones the other West Indies, and the 

 great continent America ; and that the cessation of 

 intercourse with these regions, through the decay of 

 naval enterprise, gave rise to the tradition that the 

 island itself had disappeared. But this would not 

 explain the matter-of-fact statement of the rocky 

 shallows after the catastrophe; nor would the dis- 

 tance of Cuba from Europe permit martial invasions 

 of this continent to be readily made from it. Others 

 have concluded — and this does not seem to my own 



p2 



