320 
■Atlantis Once 'More. 
[June, 
connection between Europe and America, it does not follow, 
of course, that such must have still subsisted since the 
appearance of man upon the earth. Admitting the exist- 
ence of Atlantis in the human epoch, we may still question 
its catastrophic doom and its claim to be the cradle of 
civilisation. In support of his conclusions Mr. Donnelly 
adduces a vast mass of evidence of the most varied kinds, 
and drawn from diverse sources. History, mythology, 
philology, not less than geology, zoology, and botany, have 
been ransacked with a wonderful amount of patience and 
enthusiasm, We shall not be surprised if, in the opinion of 
many of the outside public, he is held to have proved his 
point. The scientific world will naturally feel more scep- 
tical. They will at once remark that diredt evidence of the 
existence of such an island is wanting. Such eminent 
authorities as Mr. A. R. Wallace, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. 
Murray (of the Challenger Expedition), and Professors 
Agassiz, Dana, and Le Conte, conclude that the great 
oceans have occupied their present position, if not through 
all geological time, yet from an epoch prior to the origin of 
man. Perhaps our best course will be to examine the fourth 
chapter of the work before us, in which the author asks if 
the sudden disappearance of such a tradt of country is 
possible ? In reply to this question he recounts evidence 
proving the elevations and subsidences of large tradts of 
land, and the sudden havoc produced by earthquakes and 
volcanic adtion. But he seems to us to overlook the im- 
portant consideration that the extensive elevations and 
submergencies were slow, gradual, and secular, whilst even 
the widest catastrophe wrought by earthquakes is in com- 
parison extremely limited. Some of his authorities agree 
extremely ill with the conclusions they are adduced to sup- 
port. Thus he quotes Prof. Geikie to show that “ the 
earliest European land appears to have existed in the north 
and north-west, comprising Scandinavia, Finland, and the 
* north-west of the British area, and to have extended thence 
through boreal and ardtic latitudes into North America.” 
Here, then, is a land-connedtion between the eastern and 
western continents, but not in the latitude assigned to 
Atlantis, which is placed about the Azores. “ Within five 
thousand years,” Mr. Donnelly writes, “ the shores of Den- 
mark, Norway, and Sweden have risen from 200 to 600 feet.” 
So be it ; but the occurrences of subsidences and elevations 
in certain places does not prove that such changes have 
occurred everywhere. They show, indeed, what may have 
been, but fall very far short of telling us what must have been. 
