THE ATLAIJTIC OCEAN. 159 



Some curious traditions are found in the writincrs 

 of the ancients respecting an island of very large 

 size, believed to have once existed in the Atlantic. 

 Plato, in the Timreus, gives the fullest account of 

 this island, vhich was called Atlantis. It is stated 

 to have been nearly two hundred miles in length, 

 situated opposite the Straits of Gibraltar. It was 

 fertile and populous, and some of the warlike chiefs 

 among whom it was divided are said to have made 

 irruptions upon the continent, and to have conquered 

 a considerable part of Europe and ISTorthern Africa. 

 Several other islands are described as situated in the 

 vicinity of Atlantis, beyond which lay a continent 

 superior in size to all Europe and Africa. At length, 

 the whole island is reported to have been swallowed 

 up by the sea ; after which, for a long period, that 

 part of the ocean was of difficult and dangerous 

 navigation, on account of the numerous rocks and 

 shelves which lay beneath the surface. There are 

 many circumstances which render it improbable that 

 tliis stoiy, marvellous as it is, is entirely a fiction. 

 It has been supposed that the great island was Cuba, 

 the surrounding ones the other West Indies, and the 

 great continent America ; and that the cessation of 

 intercourse with these regions, through the decay of 

 naval enterprise, gave rise to the tradition that the 

 island itself had disappeared. But this would not 

 explain the matter-of-fact statement of the rocky 

 shallows after the catastrophe ; nor would the dis- 

 tance of Cuba from Europe permit martial invasions 

 of this continent to be readily made from it. Others 

 have concluded — and this does not seem to my own 



