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Atlantis not a Myth . 
[November, 
VI. ATLANTIS NOT A MYTH. 
By Edward H. Thompson. 
t UR sturdy worker in the copper mine of Lake Supe- 
rior, finding both himself and his vein of copper 
growing poorer day by day, determines to seek some 
more paying claim in the as yet unexplored portion of the 
copper country. He gathers his kit of tools together and 
starts, and, after many a hard hour’s travel over the wild 
and rugged country, finds a region with abundant signs of 
copper, and where seemingly no human foot has trod since 
creation’s dawn. 
He strikes a rich vein, and goes steadily to work digging 
and blasting his way to the richer portions, when suddenly, 
right in the richest part, he finds his lead cut off by what 
looks to his experienced eye marvellously like a mining shaft. 
Amazedly he begins to clear out of the pit the fallen earth 
and the debris of ages, and the daylight thus let in reveals 
to his astonished gaze an immense mass of copper raised 
some distance from the original bottom of the pit on a plat- 
form of logs, while at his feet lie a number of strange stone 
and copper implements, — some thin and sharp like knives 
and hatchets, others huge and blunt like mauls and ham- 
mers, — all being left in such a manner as though the work- 
man had but just gone to dinner and might be expedited 
back at any moment. Bewildered, he ascends to the surface 
again and looks about him. He sees mounds that from 
their positions are evidently formed from the refuse of the 
pit, but these mounds are covered with gigantic trees, evi- 
dently the growth of centuries ; and, looking still closer, he 
sees that these trees are fed from the decayed ruins of trees 
still older — trees that have sprung up, flourished, grown old, 
and died since this pit was dug or these mounds were raised. 
The more he thinks of the vast ages that have elapsed since 
this pit was dug, that mass of copper quarried and raised, 
the more confused he becomes ; his mind cannot grasp this 
immensity of time. 
“ Who were these miners ? When did they live, and 
where did they come from ?” are the questions he asks him- 
self, but gets no answer. However, one fadt is patent to 
him — that, whoever they were, they will not now trouble 
his claim ; and, consoled by this reflection, he goes to work 
again. 
The traveller in wandering through the dense and almost 
