PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Volume 3 FEBRUARY 15. 191 7 Number 2 
ATLANTIS AND THE PERMANENCY OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC 
OCEAN BOTTOM 
By Charles Schuchert 
PEABODY MUSEUM. YALE UNIVERSITY 
Communicated. January 8. 1917 
In 1912 Prof. Pierre Termier, the director of the Geological Survey 
of France, delivered before the Oceanographic Institute of Paris a very 
interesting and stimulating lecture on the probable existence of Plato's 
Atlantis. This lecture is now published in English in the Annual Report 
of the Smithsonian Institution for 1915 (1916), pages 219-234. In his 
lecture the speaker drew a conclusion that needs to be examined, as it is 
of considerable importance in paleogeography whether one is in harmony 
with it or not. Termier thinks it ''A fair conclusion .... that the 
entire region north of the Azores and perhaps the very region of the 
Azores, of which they may be only the visible ruins, was very recently 
submerged." This means that the area believed to have been sub- 
merged is at least equal to 40,000 square miles, and may be even far 
more than 200,000 square miles; it is said to have sunk quickly about 
10,000 feet beneath the surface of the sea. 
What are the facts that lead Termier to this very important con- 
clusion? He relates them as follows: 
Some cataclysms certainly have occurred, and they date only as from 
yesterday. I ask all those who are concerned with the problem of Atlantis 
to listen attentively and to impress on their mind this brief history; there is 
none more significant: In the summer of 1898 a ship was employed in the 
laying of the submarine telegraphic cable which binds Brest to Cape Cod. The 
cable had been broken, and they were trying to fish it up again by means 
of grappling irons. It was in north latitude 47° 0' and longitude 29° 41' 
west from Paris, at a point about 500 miles north of the Azores. The mean 
depth was pretty nearly 1700 fathoms, or 3100 meters. The relaying of the 
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