235 
when this river enters the sea at the Marigot of Marin* 
gutns. 
These considerations compared with the great num* 
bers of shells which are found in the deserts to the east 
of the mount Atlas, and with the great quantity of salt 
existing in the Sahhara, and other facts which I have 
observed, make me believe, that the Sahhara has been 
a sea to a period very near our own times, if compared 
with the immense epochas of nature; and in that case 
the chains of the mount Atias formed an island. 
The name, which the natives give to this chain, is 
Tedla; which being written without vowels, according 
to the usage of ancient languages, may be pronounced 
Atdla, to which the Greeks, in conformity with the ge- 
nius of their language, added the final letter s, this would 
make Atdias. The word preserved from the earliest 
antiquity to the present times. 
If we consult the ancient authors and maps, we find 
that the seas which bound Africa on the east, south, 
and west, are called the Atlantic sea; and as the coun- 
try of Atlas gave its name to seas so distant, it is still 
more likely that it would give it to the sea of Sahhara, 
which watered its coast; and thus we have the isle of 
Atlas or the Atlantklis, surrounded by the sea of the 
same name, and by the Mediterranean, and presenting 
to us exactly the first circumstance reported to Plato 
by the priest of Sais, namely, that this island was si- 
tuated on the coasts of the Atlantic sea. 
Another particularity concerning this island was, that 
it was opposite to the entrance which the Geeks in their 
language call the pillars of Hercules. The priest does 
not merely say, that the island was opposite the pillars 
