GOSSIP ^THE AFFINITY OF RACES. 309 



related a similar tradition with that of Plato. Accordinof to this 

 writer there were seven islands in the Atlantic Ocean sacred to 

 Proserpina, of these three were of a very large size, and the inhabi- 

 tants had a tradition among them that they were originally one 

 large island which had ruled over the rest." 



Since the discovery of this continent many authors find America 

 in the Atlantis of Plato. Anthon, from whose excellent Classical 

 Dictionary I have extracted the foregoing from ancient authors, 

 says for himself — ** The advocates of this theory might easily con- 

 nect with the legend of the lost Atlantis, the remains of a very 

 remote civilization that are found at the present day in Spanish 

 America. We have there the ruins of cities which carry us back 

 to Pelasgic times, and the religious symbols and ornaments con- 

 nected with which remind us strongly of the phallic mysteries of 

 antiquity. Even the lotus flower, the sacred emblem of India (he 

 might have added the elephant also) may be seen in the sculptures. 

 These curious remains of former days are long anterior to Mexican 

 times, nor have they anything whatever to do with Phoenician set- 

 tlements, such settlements on the shores of America being purely 

 imaginary. In connection with the view just taken we may point 

 to the peculiar conformation of our continent along the shores of 

 the Gulf of Mexico, where everything indicates the sinking at a 

 remote period of a large tract of land, the place of which is now 

 occupied by the waters of the Gulf. * * * The mountain tops 

 of this sunken land still appear to view as the Islands of the West 

 Indian group, and thus the large continent lying beyond Atlantis, 

 and the adjacent islands, and to which Plato refers, may have been 

 none other than that of America. W"e proceed a step further. Ad- 

 mitting that Atlantis was situate in the Ocean which at present 

 bears its name, it would require no great stretch of fancy to sup- 

 pose that the Canaries, Madeira isles and Azores once formed por- 

 tions of it, and that it even extended as far as Newfoundland. The 

 Cape de Verd islands, though so much to the south, may also be 

 included." 



Thus far hypotheses, tradition and fact, with reference to an 

 exceedingly remote connection between the races of the Eastern 

 and Western hemispheres, and then its disruption. If it were 



