FIRE, ROCK, AND SEA 31 



therefore compelled to regard the legend of Atlantis as per- 

 haps an extremely ancient and exaggerated myth based on 

 relatively small sinkings of land like those which now separate 

 the British Isles from the continent of Europe, and which are 

 known to have occurred within the time of man's existence on 

 earth. Against the Atlantean legend is the fact that plant life 

 on the Azores and other oceanic islands of the North Atlantic 

 has little in common with that of the mainland. The results 

 of this kind of comparison, based on our knowledge of the 

 past evolution of plants, rule out any land connections during 

 the past 30 or 40 million years, much less the 12,000 years 

 since Atlantis is supposed to have foundered. 



Mute evidence against the lost continent also comes from 

 the sea floor itself, in the microscopic shape of one of the 

 smallest of living creatures. Globigerina, as it is called, grows 

 and reproduces in countless billions in the ocean water. As 

 each tiny individual lives out its short span it leaves behind a 

 small but delicately fashioned globular shell. The slow, steady, 

 never-ending rain of these tiny shells upon the sea floor over 

 monotonous centuries of time has built up a carpet of fine 

 mud or ooze on the sea floor in moderate depths away from 

 the land. Since different species have appeared at different 

 times, and since the layers of Globigerina ooze were inter- 

 leaved with different types of deposit during glacial periods, 

 we are able to read the history of the ocean in its sediments. 

 The tale we read from the sea floor where some say Atlantis 

 now rests tells us of deep water above it since a time well 

 before the last glacial period, so that it could not have sunk at 

 a later date than 100,000 years ago. Nevertheless, a lingering 

 doubt remains with many, for there is much from literary and 

 ethnological sources that brings credence to this idea of a lost 

 continent and a lost people. We shall return to this when we 

 deal with the legends of the River. 



While geologists unite in believing that there has been no 



