1 58 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



of the existence of America, since any such intima- 

 tions which reached the civilised nations of Southern 

 Europe or Africa would naturally be considered as 

 an indication that some part of the lost Atlantis still 

 continued to exist. 



In still another direction does the deluge story 

 connect itself with physical probabilities. If we 

 examine the Atlantic map representing the soundings 

 of the Challenger expedition, we shall find evidence 

 not only of that extension of land in temperate 

 Western Europe which may have originated the 

 story of Atlantis, but other dispositions of land, 

 especially in the extreme north and south, which 

 may have influenced antediluvian climate. We have 

 reason to believe that in the second continental 

 period, that of palaeocosmic man, Baffin's Bay may 

 have been greatly narrowed and Behring's Straits 

 entirely closed, while large tracts of land existed 

 around Iceland and west of Norway. There would 

 thus be almost continuous land connection around 

 the north pole, permitting easy extension of man 

 and of hardy animals. There would also be much 

 less access of ice to the North Atlantic. 



At the same time in another region there was 

 probably a land connection from Florida to South 

 America by the Bahamas, and the equatorial current 

 may have been more powerfully deflected northward 

 than now. The effect would be to produce around 

 the North Atlantic, and especially on the eastern 

 side, a golden age of genial climate, fitted to early 



