Sketcher. "ATLANTIS, THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD."

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1624, 30 November 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

Sketcher.

"ATLANTIS, THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD."

Plato makes Critias 'describe "an island situated in front of the straits, which you call the Columns of Hercules " (Straits of Gibraltar), an " island * •* * larger than Libya and Asia put together." The name of this island, Critias says, was Atlantis, and in it "there was a great and wonderful empire, which had rule over the whole island, and several others, as well as over parts of the continent, and, besides these, they subjected the parts of Libya within the Columns of Hercules as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia." The continent alluded to in the foregoing quotation is supposed to be America, which Critias thus refers to in describing the geographical relations of Atlantis :—lt: — It (Atlantis) " was the way to the other islands, and from the islands ,>ou might pass through the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean ; for this sea (the Mediterranean) which is within the Straits of Hercules is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and ihe surrounding land may be most truly called a continent." Ignatius Donnelly has undertaken, in an illustrated volume of nearly five hundred pages, to demonstrate that Plato's description of Atlantis is not a fable, but a veritable history. He argues that Atlantis was the region where man first rose from a state of barbarism to civilisation ; that emigrant Atlanteans reached the shores of the. Gulf of Mexico^ the Mississippi River, the Amazon, the Pacific coast ,of South America, the Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian, founding thereon civilized nations. In contravention to the generally accepted theory of theologians, that the Garden of Eden was located in the Valley of the Euphrates, Mr. Donnelly endeavours to prove that Atlantis was it, and was also "the Garden of Hesperides, the Elysian Melds, the Gardens of Alcinous, the Mesomphalos, the Olympas, and the Asgard of the traditions of the ancient nations." Sun- | worship, he holds, was the original religion of Atlantis, and it is represented in the mythology of Egypt and Peru. The manufacture of bronze in Europe was derived from Atlantis, and the Atlanteans were also workers of iron. Atlantis \yas the original seat of the Aryan and Semitic, and, possibly, Turanian race*. But the most curious of all, is the claim that the Deluge legends of all nations in both hemispheres, originated in the catastrophe which engulfed Atlantis, and destroyed its people, excepting "a few persons who escaped on ships and rafts, and carried the tidings to the nations east and west." The testimony of the deep-sea soundings made by the Challenger, the Gettysburg, the Dolphin, and other vessels which have been engaged in the survey of the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, is introducedto show that a sunken continent extends from Iceland in the north, to a low latitude in the South Atlantic. That portion of this sunken ridge lying opposite the Straits of Gibraltar, and of which the Azores are the summits of its highest peaks, formed Atlantis. The soundings sh»w that this ridge connects with the three continents — Europe, Africa and America. This is what Mr. Donnelly thinks happened at one time in the history of this submerged continent : When these connecting ridges extended from America to Europe and Africa, they shut off the flow of the tropical waters of the ocean to the north ; there was then no " Gulf Stream ;" v the land-locked ocean that laved the shores of Northern Europe, was then intensely cold, and the result was the Glacial Period. It is just possible, that Mr. Donnelly may be proving too much. Some of the most learned and cautious of modern geologists, have attributed the glacial epoch, to a totally different cause, namely, the shifting of the earth's axis, a phenomenon which is forever taking place. The testimony of the coal measures of Pennsylvania, and the dredgings of the pea, is also introduced, to prove that such a violent convulsion of nature, as is supposed to have overwhelmed Atlantis, was possible. Great earthquakes, which have been accompanied by immense loss of life, and which are known to have produced great physical changes, ate cited for the same purpose. _ The peculiar structure of pottery and metallic implements, found in the lake dwellings of Switzerland and in the mounds of America, is also accepted by Mr. Donnelly, as the proof of their oommon origin, and he, of course, assumes that Atlantis was the Source. The reader may not agree with any of Mr. Donnellys findings, but the facts he submits, will be found curious and interesting, although neither the grouping of these facts, nor the findings are strictly new.

HYGIENE AMONG THE. CHINESE. ' The " Heathen Chinee" has not a few reyilers, who ara ever ready to point to features 'in his social character which render him an ' undesirable neighbour. The medical office* of the State Board of Health', of SanvFraDcisco' has, however, something; to : say -in tfavqr^oi the Celestials. Itf his - report lately^presented 1 'to Congress, he states that^neter^kne^'any/ ' disease dr"apreading Wh'e CKines-ei' 'c[uar terii of the, cityf^He|dmitS that they%e!quiteiclpge, todeattajjpu^s' ~theu**-he^lth/condiu6nt(and«immunity-|r,qm;