Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1880-02-04
ATLANTIS NOT A MYTH.
Nv Edward II. Thompson.

copper growing poorer day by day,
determines to seek some more pay
ing claim in the yet unexplored
portion of the copper country. He
gathers his kit of tools together
and starts, and, after many hard
hours travel over the wild and
rugged country, finds a region
with abundant signs of copper, and
where seemingly no human foot
has trod since creations dawn.
He strikes a rich vein and goes
steadily to work digging and blast
ing his way to richer portions, when
suddenly, in the richest part, he
finds his lead cut off by what looks
to his experienced eye marvellous
" like a mining shaft. Amazedly
he begins to clear out Of the pit
the fallen earth and the debris Of
ages, and the daylight thus let in
reveals to his astonished gaze an
immense mass of copper raised
some distance from the original
bottom of the pit on platform of
logs, while at his feet lie a number
of strange stone and copper i'm
plements-some thin and sharp
like knives and hatchets, others
huge and blunt like mauls and
hammers-all being left in such a
manner as though the workman
had but just gone to dinner and
might be expected back at any
moment. Bewildered, he ascends
to the surface again and looks
about him. He sees mounds that
from their positions are evidently
formed from the refuse Of the pit,
but these mounds are covered with
gigantic trees, evidently the growth
of centuries and, looking still
closer, he sees that these trees are
fed from the decsyed ruins of trees
still older-trees that have sprung
up, flourished, grown old, and died
since this pit was dug or these
mounds were raised. The more he
thinks Of the vast ages that have
elapsed since this pit was dug, that
mass of copper quarried and raised,
the more confused he becomes; his
mind can not grasp this immensely
OF time.
"Who where these miners p
When did they live, and where did
they come from Z" are the ques-
tiops he asks himself, but gets no
answer. However, one fact is pa.
tent to him-that, whoever they
were, they will not now trouble his
claim; aud, consoled by this re-
Election, he goes to work again.
The traveller in wandering
through the dense and almost i'm
penetrable forest of Central and
South America, suddenly finds him
self upon a broad and well-paved
road, but a road over which in
places there have grown trees GEN.
turtles old. Curiously following
this road, he sees before him, as
though brought thither by some
Alsddin's lamp, a vast city, a city
built of stone-buildipgs that look
at a distance like our large New
England factories-splendid pala-
ces and aqueducts, all constructed
with such massiveness and gran
deur as to compel cry Of aston
ishment from the surprised travel
er-an immense but deserted city,
whose magnificent palaces and
beautiful sculpturing are inhabited
and viewed only by the iguana and
centipede. The roads and paths
to the aqueducts, once so much
travelled as to have worn hollows
In the hard stone, are now trodden
only by the ignorant mestizo or
simple Indian. OF this deserted
home Of lost race, the traveller
asks the same questions as the
miner, aud the only answer he gets
from the semi-civilized Indian is
the laconic "Quien sabei" And
who does knowi
The curious and scientific world,
however, are not so easily answer
ed, and various are the theories
and conjectures as to these diggers
of mines and builders of mounds
and strange cities. One Of the
most plausible Of these-one be-
lieved by many scientists to be
the true theory-is this: Ages
ago the Americas presented very
different appearance from what
they now do. Then an immense
rsninsula extended itself from