32 DOTTINGfS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. II.—B. S. 
is a remarkable family likeness, if nothing more, 
between the ancient British and Chiriqui inscriptions, 
—a relationship entirely unsuspected by me until Mr. 
Tate’s remarkable work fell into my hands. Could 
an identity between these rocks, so widely separated 
geographically, be established, we should be in a pa- 
sition to indulge in legitimate speculation. We should 
have to concede—I say it without hesitation—that, 
in prehistoric times, an intercourse existed between 
the British Islands and Central America; that this 
intercourse could not be maintained by the small 
crafts which so rude a civilization could send across 
the wide Atlantic Ocean; that a land communication 
was absolutely necessary to ensure such an intercourse; 
that it could not have been carried on by way of Asia 
without leaving numerous traces behind; that no such 
traces have been found; and that, consequently, it 
must have taken place when the island of Atlantis— 
in the hands of modern science no longer an Egyptian 
myth*—was so intimately connecting Europe and 
America that the woods, which then covered Europe, 
were identical in character with those still existing in 
the southern parts of North America. But before 
science can concede conclusions of these, or similar 
speculations, we want more facts, which, it is hoped, 
may be forthcoming now that it has been shown what 
great interest attaches to them. 
* Compare Unger’s ‘ Sunken Island of Atlantis/ an English trans¬ 
lation of which has been published in Seemann’s c Journal of Botany/ 
vol. iii. p. 12, and a Spanish by Mr. A. Ernst at Caracas. 
