The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1871-07-07
ATLANTIS OF PLATO.

1t is somewhat singular that the
names of the Atlantic Ocean and the
Atlantis of Plato are derived from the
language of these Tolecs, who subju-
gated the enlightened Arabians OF
Phunicians, who built Paianque. The
citizens of Allan and MaZatIan retain
it. The peculiar sound of the letters
IL can be traced as it has been left in
the names of the places in the track
of their migrations from the North
west through all the regions intersect-
ed by the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky
Mountains and the Cordilleras of Mex
leo. This was observed by Fremont
and is mentioned in his account of
Klamath Lake. The Able de Bour-
burg, in his work, the Popul Vuh, or
translation of the traditions of the
Mexicans and Central Americans, las
almost demonstrated the certainty that
the American kingdom of Xibalba,
and the Atlantis of Plato were the
same; and that the Ancient Greek his
torians received their ideas O, the
Saturnian Continent, the Meropes,
and the Atlantide from the inter-
course which existed, in prehistoric
ages, between the maritime nations
of the old world and America.
MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
No antiquarian can compare the
large mounds of the Mississippi VAL
lev and those of Mexico without con-
Guiding that they Nere constructed by
the same people, or by races whose
architectural ideas were the same. The
truncated pyramidal form of their
temples, with their four sides facing
the cardinal points with geometrical
precision, is preserved, as is the case
in the stupendous pyramid of Cholu-
la and the great temple of the City of
Mexico. An engraving of this famous
temple, as it existed when Cortes con-
quered the country, has been preserv-
ed by the Abbee ClavigerO, i'm his his
tory of Mexico. A fine specimen of
a temple of this kind may yet be seen
in the valley of the Tennessee River,
at Florence, Ala. When / examined
that immense mound in 1916, it was
more than seventy feet high, and con-
tanned nearly an acre of land. But ii
was then cultivated in corn, which
grew upon its steep sides and sum-
init; and the plow, combined with
the washing of the rains, was rapidly
defacing its symmetry and reducing
it to the level of the adjacent bottom.
The mounds are so abundant in the
valley of the Yazoo River that they
give 1t the Choctaw name it bears.
Yazoo, in the languages of the Choc-
taws and Chickasaws, means "old
ruins,n and Yazoo .Ok-hinnah is their
word for the river of ruins, and not
the river of death as it is sometimes
translated, There is scarcely q town.
ship of fertile land in the whole terri
tory formerly occupied by those tribes
which does not contain some of the
architectural remains of the aborigines
of whose history they had no tradi-
tions. Whoever they were, they
were excellent judges of land, and Sc
lected the most favored sites for their
cities and villages. Wherever the soil
is the most fertile and the best water
ed, there they settled most densely,
and their ruins are the most abundant
The net work of rivers and bayous
connecting the waters of the Missis-
sippi and Yazoo, between Memphis
duu oCCAho w nave OCcu
constructed by them; OF to have been
improved and utilized for the purposes
of agriculture and navigation. | ex>
amined a portion of this region, in
1883, between fernando and Com
merce, and concluded, from what
l then saw of the vestiges of this ex-
tinct race, that this portion of the val
ley Yves the 4
EGYPT OF THE MOUND BUILDERS,
and l Isupposed that the evident marks
of population as numerous if not as
enlightened as that which occupied
the Valley of the Nile in the days of
"Populous No that was situate among
the rivers,p (Nahun, C. III, s., must
have suggested the name of No or
Memphis TO the white pioneers who
rounded that thriving city. 1t was
then an uninhabited wilderness, and
the annual floods inundated all part
of "the bottom" except the ancient
layeeS and fia tiJmuIii of this hurried I