Athy, 

 Atlantic. 



A T L 49 



must have been much longer than the Greeks re- 

 ported it. But as no vestiges are now discoverable 

 of so magnificent a work, the whole story has been 

 called in question : 



Perforntus Athos, et qukquid Criccia mendax 

 Audet in historia. 



We must not here omit the daring proposal of 

 Stasicrates, an engineer in the service of Alexander, 

 who offered to convert the whole mountain into a 

 statue of that prince. The enormous figure, which 

 must have been in a sitting posture, was to hold a 

 city in its left hand, containing 10,000 inhabitants, 

 and in the right, an immense basin, whence the col- 

 lected torrents of the mountain should issue in a 

 mighty river. But the project was thought to be 

 too extravagant, even by Alexander. 



Mount Athos is now peopled by a numerous horde 

 of Greek monks, denominated Caloyers, who are of 

 the order of -St Basil. These devotees, who amount 

 to 6000, fare very hardly, abstaining entirely from 

 flesh, and subsisting chiefly on pickled olives. They 

 were at one time distinguished for their learning, at 

 least for possessing several valuable manuscripts, and 

 for their numerous copies of the Scriptures, to trans- 

 scribing which, they applied themselves with much 

 laudable assiduity. Though now extremely illiterate, 

 so much so that they can scarcely read or write, they 

 have the merit of being sober, peaceable, and in- 

 dustrious : and these qualities have procured for 

 them the good opinion of the Turks, who afford 

 them protection and sustenance. They have twenty- 

 four monasteries situated on different parts of the 

 mountain, raised in stories to a great height, and sur- 

 rounded with walls; and these buildings, interspersed 

 with churches, hermitages, and some fortifications, 

 on which are mounted some pieces of artillery, give 

 an extraordinary appearance to this lofty eminence, 

 and present, to the eye of the traveller, as he ap- 

 proaches the scene, a most picturesque object, and a 

 pleasing specimen of manual industry. Mount Athos 

 is now called Hagiosoros, or Monte Santo, from the 

 reputed sanctity of its inhabitants. It is in W 1C 

 N. Lat. '21 <W E. Long. 



See Herodot. 1. vi. c. 44.; 1. vii. c. 21. &c. Plut. 

 in vita A/cxaud. ./Elian, de Aiiim. 1. xiii. c. 20. Lil- 

 ian. 1. ii. v. 672. P/iii. 1. iv. c. 10. Strab. Epit, 

 1. vii. Mela de Sit. Cellarii Geog. Belon Observ. 

 1. i. c. 25. (e) 



ATHY, a town in the county of Kildare, in Ire- 

 land, situated on the river Barrow, which is navigable 

 to the sea. A branch of the great canal from Dub- 

 lin to the Shannon joins the Barrow at Athy. The 

 exports from the adjacent country to Dublin amount 

 annually to 20,000, and consist of corn, coals, flour, 

 butter, and potatoes. Number of houses 550. Po- 

 pulation 33(30. W. Long. 7 V. N. Lat. 52? 9'. 

 See Beaufort's Memoir nf a Map of Ireland, and 

 Anthologia Hibernica, vol. i. (j) 



ATLANTIC Ocean, the name of that immense 

 tract of sea which separates the western shores of 

 Europe and Africa from the eastern shores of North 

 and South America. An account of Mr Kirvvan's 

 theory of the formation of the Atlantic may be seen 

 vol.. III. I>AKT I. 



A T L 



in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. 

 vi. p. 228. (w) 



ATLANTIS, an island mentioned in Plato's Ti- 

 masus, as situated beyond the Pillars of Hercules, 

 and surpassing in extent Asia and Africa taken to- 

 gether. Many consider the whole account as an idle 

 fable, not deserving of the least attention. Peri/o- 

 nius, and others, consider it as a proof that the an- 

 cients had some obscure knowledge of America : 

 whilst others suppose, that it refers to an immense 

 island or continent formerly existing in the place now 

 occupied by the Atlantic ocean. We shall lay be- 

 fore our readers an abstract of the original account as 

 given in the Timasus, and then shall advert more par- 

 ticularly to the several opinions entertained respecting 

 it. Critias, one of the speakers, professes to have 

 heard the account from his grandfather, who received 

 it from Solon, and this latter learned it from the 

 Egyptian priests, when he studied under them in 

 Egypt. The sum of their accounts is this : that the 

 vast island of Atlantis was situated near the straits of 

 Gades : that it was governed by a race of mighty 

 conquerors, who subdued all Africa as far as Egypt^ 

 and all Europe as far as the Tuscan sea. In succeed- 

 ing ages, however, owing to prodigious earthquakes 

 and inundations, the Atlantic island was suddenly ab- 

 sorbed into the bosom of the ocean, which for many 

 ages afterwards could not be navigated, on account 

 of the numerous rocks and shelves with which it 

 abounded. 



There is so much of the marvellous and improba- 

 ble in this account, that but a moderate share of in- 

 credulity is necessary to make us reject the whole as 

 a fable. The information comes to us in a very round- 

 about way, and from a very suspicious quarter ; and 

 it would not be very safe to receive as authentic his- 

 tory, the ipse dixit of an Egyptian priest. 



There are circumstances, however, which have in- 

 duced some to think that this Atlantic island is no 

 other than the continent of America. Ammianus 

 Marcellinus affirms, that the account recorded by- 

 Plato is no fable. Crantor also, Plato's first inter- 

 preter, considers it as a true history. It is admitted 

 that there is an error in the account, as to the proxi- 

 mity of the island to the Straits of Gibraltar : for 

 Diodorus Siculus informs us, that the Phoenicians in 

 early times, sailing beyond the Pillars of Hercules, 

 were carried by storms and tempests far to the west, 

 till they tell in with a vast island, having navigable 

 rivers and a fruitful soil. It is thought that the 

 Atlantis of Plato, and this island mentioned by Dio- 

 dorus, can be nothing else than the continent of Ame- 

 rica ; and that the account of the submersion of this 

 vast island arose from the circumstance of its be- 

 coming, in course of time, entirely unknown to the 

 ancients. 



But many naturalists, among whom are BufFon and 

 Whitehurst, have thought it probable, that such an 

 island or continent as that described by Plato actually 

 existed, and that the Canary islands, the Azores, and 

 Teneriffe, are nothing else than the summits of moun- 

 tains belonging to such an island or continent sub- 

 merged, and the fragments of an antediluvian world, 

 consumed and shattered by earthquakes and volcanic 



G 



Atlantis. 



