Atlantis. 199 



of Africa, whose modern descendants, the Berbers, are strongly dis- 

 tinguished from the surrounding tribes by their physical appearance 

 and reddish complexion, and language analogous to that of the abor- 

 iginal population of the Canaries. Proclus, speaking of certain is- 

 lands situated in the "outward sea," mentions the fact that the in- 

 habitants of one of them — Poseidon — preserved a tradition handed 

 down to them by their ancestors, of the Atlantic island of prodigious 

 magnitude, which had really existed in those seas ; and which, during 

 a long period of time, governed all the islands in the Atlantic ocean, 

 and refers to the Ethiopian history of Marcellus as authority for the 

 statement. Other classic writers attribute to the kings of Atlantis a 

 knowledge of astronomy and the invention of the sphere. 



Without multiplying these citations, they tend to show, when taken 

 in connection with the account obtained by Solon in Egypt, that there 

 lingered among the Mediterranean nations, a tradition, more or less 

 distinct, of islands lying in the Atlantic ocean at some far distant per- 

 iod, that were beautiful and fruitful as a garden ; rich in flocks and 

 herds ; abounding in gold ; governed by wise and powerful kings, ac- 

 quainted with navigation and astronomy ; and that after attempting 

 and partially accomplishing the subjugation of the eastern continents, 

 the inhabitants of those islands were, with their country, by convul- 

 sions of nature, engulfed in the sea and entirely destroyed ; or, if we 

 please, became lost to the knowledge of oriental nations by the sub- 

 sidence of intermediate islands which had aided the . primitive navi- 

 gation of the time. 



Assuming the physical possibility of the tradition being true in sub- 

 stance, we may proceed to briefly review the evidence upon which it is 

 sought to apply the same to the continent of America, in referring 

 our aboriginal civilization to a common source, or an intercourse with 

 the Egyptians and other nations of the East. 



The initial point for our consideration is presented by the word At- 

 lantis, or Atlas, which gives name to the great ocean barrier separating 

 the so called New World from the Old. This, we are told, has no sat- 

 isfactory etymology in any European language. Anthon, it is 

 true derives the word from a intensive, and rAaw, to enchire — 

 tracing it, evidently, to the mythological idea of Atlas supporting the 

 heavens. This derivation, however, appears hardly reasonable, since 

 the name would seem to have existed before the duty was imposed 

 upon the god, and was no doubt imported into the Greek through mari- 

 time intercourse with the African nations. It is more probable that 

 the original signification of Atlas — king of the Atlantic isles, situated 

 far in the west beyond the Pillars of Hercules — was gradually lost, as 



