ATLANTIS TERMIER. 231 



ing forth being the necessary and inevitable counteraction of the 

 very deep, downward sinking of such portions of the crust. Such, 

 in brief, is the history of the Atlantic Ocean for several million 

 years. Many incidents of this history will never be exactly corre- 

 lated, but we know that certain of them are very recent. M. Louis 

 Gentil has given us, in this connection, some very interesting ob- 

 servations, gathered along the Moroccoan coasts. The Strait of 

 Gibraltar was opened at the beginning of the Pliocene. Already, 

 at the Tortonian epoch, the sea was washing the shore of Agadir, 

 and consequently Madeira and the Canaries were then already sep- 

 arated from the Continent. But the Tortonian and even the Plai- 

 sancian beds on this Moroccoan shore are faulted and folded. There- 

 fore in the zone of prolongation of the Atlas Mountains there have 

 been important movements posterior to the Plaisancian, and conse- 

 quently Quaternary. The channel which separates Madeira and 

 the Canaries from the African mass was again deepened in Qua- 

 ternary times. 



Such are the data of geology. The extreme mobility of the At- 

 lantic region, especially in conjunction with the mediterranean de- 

 pression and the great volcanic zone, 3,000 kilometers (1,875 miles) 

 broad, which extends from north to south, in the eastern half of 

 the present ocean; the certainty of the occun^ence of immense de- 

 pressions when islands and even continents have disappeared; the 

 certainty that some of these depressions date as from yesterday, are 

 of Quaternary age, and that consequently they might have been seen 

 by man; the certainty that some of them have been sudden, or at 

 least very rapid. See how much there is to encourage those who still 

 hold out for Plato's narrative. Geologically speaking, the Pla- 

 tonian history of Atlantis is highly probable. 



Now let us consult the zoologists. There is a young French 

 scholar, M. Louis Germain, who is going to answer us; and I really 

 regret very much not being able actually to give him the floor, but 

 instead to lie only his very inadequate interpreter. 



First of all, the study of the present terrestrial fauna of the 

 islands of the four archipelagoes, the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, 

 and Cape Verde, has convinced M. Germain of the clearly continental 

 origin of this fauna. He even observes numerous indications of an 

 adaptation to desert life. The malacological fauna especially is 

 connected with that of the region about the Mediterranean, while 

 differing from the African equatorial fauna. The same analogies 

 with the fauna about the Mediterranean are observed in the Mollusca 

 of the Quaternary. 



Secondly, the Quaternary formations of the Canaries resemble 

 those of Mauritania and inclose the same species of Mollusca; for 

 example, the same species of Helix. 



