Atlantis. 209 



expect to find no greater resemblance than is common between other 

 nations similarly situated. Common features may, it is true, be ob- 

 served in the social and religious systems of many ancient peoples, and 

 it might be said that these do not per se prove a community of origin. 

 But the resemblances between the Mexican and Egyptian systems, it 

 is claimed, are of a peculiar character, i-eadily distinguishable from 

 those common to other nations. The division of the people into 

 castes ; their special knowledge of astronomy ; the erection of pyra- 

 mids and temples for worship and sepulchre ; belief in the transmigra- 

 tion of souls ; together with many other striking resemblances in reli- 

 gion and arts, it is maintained, can hardly be referred to a coincidental 

 development of races — one a race of mountaineers, isolated so far as 

 we can ascertain, from all exterior influences by great ocean barriers ; 

 the other, residents of alluvial plains, in the immediate neighborhood 

 of other and distinct races, possessing capacities for elevation which at 

 an early day produced civilizations which awed the world. 



A further fact is asserted by Brasseur de Bourbourg : that among 

 the early Mexican nations, there was a lingering tradition of a great 

 cataclysm, such as mentioned by Plato, in which many of their 

 ancestors were destroyed by a great wave which rolled up from the 

 Atlantic to the base of the mountains, overwhelming all within its 

 reach. A violent subsidence of extensive areas of land, accompanied by 

 earthquakes, ensued, of which the Bahama Islands, Greater and Lesser 

 Antilles, and Carribbee Islands, are but the higher elevations project- 

 ins: above the water. It is to be feared, that the enthusiastic Abbe, . 

 has stated the case too strongly. The reference to a deluge, is a tradi- 

 tion which the Aztecs possessed in common with nearly all the Indian 

 tribes of North America, which many bibliologists have supposed 

 to be a lingering remnant of the Semitic traditions, prevalent on the 

 plains of Asia ; and their traditions of an age of fire, and one of famine, 

 to be, in like niauncr, a traditional reminiscence of the destruction of 

 the "cities of the plain," and of the famine " Avhich was upon all 

 lands," when Joseph, the Israelite, served the Egyptian Pharaoh. 

 Catlin says of the Mandan tribe, on the upper Missouri, that they 

 held a yearly celebration in honor of the preservation of their great 

 ancestor from the flood in a big canoe, a symbol of which was erected in 

 the center of their village, and held in great veneration. It is diflficult, 

 sometimes, to ascertain just how far statements of this kind are tinged 

 with the prejudices of the observers ; and, the worthy Abbe having 

 the A.tlantic tradition in his mind, and the enthusiastic Indian artist 

 feeling certain he was among the long lost tribes of Israel, may, both 

 have unconsciously colored the facts to suit their respective theories. 



