QUESTIONS RESPECTING THE DELUGE 157 



was called Atlantis, and it had been submerged with 

 all its people in prehistoric times. This tradition 

 may have reference to certain geological facts of the 

 early modern period already referred to. If the 

 Egyptian tradition really extended back to the ante- 

 diluvian period, we can readily understand their 

 belief in the continent of Atlantis. We have already 

 ascertained the great extension in that period of the 

 land of Western Europe, and there may have been 

 outlying insular tracts in the Atlantic now quite 

 unknown to us. These lands may well have sustained 

 nations of the gigantic Cro-magnon race, ' men of 

 renown,' who, when their westward progress was 

 stayed by the ocean, and they were checked in the 

 north by the increasing cold, may have turned their 

 arms against the dwellers on the Mediterranean 

 coasts, perhaps in the age immediately preceding 

 the Deluge. We know little as yet of the history of 

 those Horshesu, or children of Horus, who are said 

 to have preceded the historic period in Egypt. 

 There must have been Egyptian literature about 

 these people, and should this be recovered we shall 

 probably learn more of Atlantis. In the meantime 

 we may, at least, bring the tradition of that perished 

 continent into harmony with geology and history. 

 I may add that we need not consider the above view 

 as at variance with that of those archaeologists who, 

 like the late Sir D. Wilson, 1 suppose the tradition of 

 Atlantis to have been founded on vague intimations 

 1 The Lost Atlantis, 1892. 



