200 Atlantis. 



commerce declined and the tradition of the existence of the islands 

 became indistinct, and was ultimately merged in the secondary idea 

 of "keeper of the pillars which hold heaven and earth asunder," — 

 which stood upon the western horizon where the eye would naturally 

 turn in looking toward the fabled islands, and thus became crystal- 

 lized in the mythology of the day. It is, therefore, more reasonable to 

 suppose that the few greek words, and there are but few, which con- 

 tain the radical a-1 or rX, all of them involving the idea of support- 

 ing a burden, are themselves derived from this secondary significa- 

 tion of Atlas. 



Accepting this, then, as an imported word, foreign to European lan- 

 guage, the argument drawn from comjiarative philology proceeds upon 

 a precedent established by Max Miiller. This distinguished philol- 

 ogist traces the locality of Ophir mentioned in the Hebrew bible, in 

 the following ingenious manner. Speaking of the fleet of Tharsish 

 which Solomon had at sea together with the navy of Hiram, and which 

 came once in three years bringing gold, ivory, silver, apes, and pea- 

 cocks, also gold from Ophir, algum-trees, and precious stones, he says : 

 "A great deal has been written to find out where Ophir really was ; 

 but there can be no doubt it was India. The names for apes, peacocJcs, 

 ivory and algum-trees are foreign words in Hebrew, as much as tobacco 

 or gutta-percha are in English. Now if we wished to know from what 

 part of the world gutta-percha was first imported into England, we 

 might conclude .that it came from that country where the name gutta- 

 percha formed part of the spoken language. If, therefore, we can find 

 a language in which the names for peacocks, apes, ivory and algum- 

 trees, which are foreign words in Hebrew, are indigenous, we may be 

 certain that the country in which that language was spoken must be 

 the Ophir of the Bible. That language is no other but Sanskrit ;" 

 and India, the learned author concludes, is the land of Ophir ; and 

 argues that the vessels of Solomon traded on the coast of Malabar 

 and brought away the products floated down the Indus, a conclusion 

 supported by other considerations as well. 



If, therefore, to use the formula of Max Miiller, we can find a 

 country, in the spoken language of which the word Atlantis has an 

 indigenous root, there it is said we are justified in seeking traces 

 of the long lost race. 



That language was spoken in the lovely vale of Anahuac, at the 

 period of its conquest by the rapacious Spaniard ; and tropical Amer- 

 ica, that land, rich in flocks and herds, beautiful as the Elysian fields, 

 and so abundant in gold, it is hardly oriental hyperbole to say its trees 

 bore golden apples. 



