[November, 
^50 Atlantis not a Myth. 
country, filled with people, prosperous and happy ; the sound 
of busy life from man and beast fills the air. Comfort and 
prosperity abound. The sun shines clear overhead, and the 
huge mountains look down upon the cities and villages at 
their feet, like a mother upon her babes : all is a pidture of 
peacefulness. Suddenly, in a second, all is changed. The 
protecting angels become destroying fiends, vomiting fire 
and liquid hell upon the devoted cities at their feet, burning, 
scorching, strangling their wretched inhabitants. The earth 
rocks horribly; palaces, temples, all crashing down, crush- 
ing their human victims, flocked together like so many ants. 
Vast rents open at their very feet, licking with huge flaming 
tongues the terrified people into their yawning mouths. 
And then the inundations. Mighty waves sweep over the 
land. The fierce enemies, Fire and Water, join hands to 
effeCt the destruction of a mighty nation. 
How they hiss and surge, rattle and seethe ! How the 
steam rises, mingled with the black smoke, looking like a 
mourning-veil, that it is, and, when that veil is lifted, all is 
still, the quiet of annihilation ! Of all that populous land 
naught remains save fuming, seething mud. It is not to be 
supposed that all perished in that calamity. Long before 
this they had spread over the portion of the Americas con- 
tiguous to the peninsula, building cities, palaces, roads, and 
aqueducts, like those of their native homes ; and adven- 
turous pioneers continually spreading north, east, and west- 
ward, their constant increase of numbers from their former 
homes enabling them to overcome the resistance offered to 
their progress by both natives and nature, till at last they 
reached and discovered the copper country of Lake Superior. 
That they appreciated this discovery is evinced by the innu- 
merable evidences of their works and of their skill in disco- 
vering the richest and most promising veins. Wherever 
our miners of the present day go, they find their ancient 
fellow-craftsmen have been before them, worked the richest 
veins, and gathered the best copper ; and it is supposed that 
they continued thus till the terrible blotting out of their 
native country cut short all this, and left this advancing 
civilisation to wither and die like a vine severed from the 
parent stem. 
Having no further accession to their numbers, and being 
continually decimated by savages and disease, they slowly 
retreated before the ever-advancing hordes. Gradually, and 
contesting every step, as is shown by their numerous de- 
fensive works along their path, they were forced back to 
their cities on this continent that had been spared them 
