( P75) 
had happened, in an Age fo long before, as in comparifon, 
of which the Greeks tvere hut as Children. And all this 
Tradition (through fo many hands, and at fuch great in- 
tervals of time J is, at every ftep, reported from the Rela- 
tors prefent memory. And 'tis very poffible, that fome one 
or other of thefe Relators might fo far miftake, or mif-re- 
member, as to call that a Dtffolution or Dlf^ippearance of an 
Ifland («?<vi'«&w,) which was but a Tearing of it from the Con- 
tinent* 
It ferves however to the prefent purpofe, if at leaft fo 
much of the Story be true, That long kfore Phto's ti^m^ 
there had been fome fuch Diffolution or Rupture of an Ifie or 
Ifthmus^ fomewhere in the Atlantick Ocean^ (that is, in the 
Northern Sea) of which there were fome fymptoms yet remain- 
ing in Plato J time. For, this being admitted, it is as appli- 
cable to the prefent cafe fas to any we know) of v/hich 
there are fo many Symptoms yet remaining to this day. 
I know xh2iX.0lAUs Rudbeck, in his Atlantica (Cap. 7. ^ 
8. pag. 295.) doth endeavour fin favour of his &e<?;?/^23 to 
put an Allegorical fenfe upon this whole paflage. 
But I fee not why it may not be underftood in a plain lite- 
ral fenfe, as a true matter of Faft, (though perhaps a little 
difguifed, as was wont to be the fafhion (in that Age in 
relating old ftories 0 and is very confident with all that 
RudbeckQit^soTXt oiPlato^ in that whole feventh Chapter 
of his Atlantica. 
For the name of the Atlantick Sea (wherein this Ifland is 
faid to be) was not then (nor is now) confined to the Coaft 
of Sweden, but extended as far asthe Briti/fj Ifland, and 
much farther. And v/hen Rudbeck tdls us out of Plato^ 
that the whole Atlantica was as big as Libia and Afia 
(which whether meant of either of them fingly as Rudbeck 
underflands it, or oi both together, as the words leem to im- 
port, SfjLAhv0icLf i^'AjUi fxfilay^ I will not Contend 5 J we 
cannot fuppofe it to be Plato's meaning, that this whole Re- 
gion was fwallowed up 5 but rather fome fmall part of it, 
P p p p p p from 
