ATLANTIC LEGEND 73 



We have summarized elsewhere some of the latest evidence 

 drawn from the bed of the Ocean River by geologists and 

 oceanographers. Though the story written in rock may be of 

 an earlier Atlantis than the legend demands, some of the 

 strange and contradictory facts which have come to light leave 

 doubt even in the scientific mind, and such facts are in accord 

 with the thesis of Termier. Perhaps the results of future sub- 

 marine dredging and the firing of explosive charges and the 

 painstaking reading of delicate instruments will bring new 

 evidence to clinch the matter and finally label the legend as a 

 fascinating myth or fable. Perhaps, though, the reverse may 

 come about, and the future thus bring new life to Atlantis in 

 the mind of man. 



This, then, is the picture in legend, in the history of animal 

 and plant migration, and in the dim, far-off picture of our 

 ancestors migrating into Europe and America from unknown 

 sources, carrying elements of cultures we cannot trace, and 

 possibly harassed by world geographic cataclysms we can still 

 see traces of but cannot fix in time or duration. The phoenix 

 was a bird that rose from the ashes of his own destruction and 

 lived again. Let us leave the fascinating field of conjecture 

 with this image of the phoenix, the bird of mysterious ever- 

 lasting life. The Phoenicians derived their very name from this 

 Greek word phoenix, ''red." They were the early Red Men of 

 the wild western explorations of the Mediterranean world. 

 Strangely, when we come to America, we find the Mayans 

 likewise calling their ancestors who came with beards from 

 the east over the sea the Red Men. It is time now to go on 

 with the actual voyages, from the Phoenicians to Columbus, 

 of those Mediterraneans who dared penetrate and carry the 

 light of bold discovery into the unknown western sea. 



