The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-01-04
ANCIENT AMERICA.
Supposed to Have Been Atlantis,
q Powerful Empire.
According to an Egyptian Legend tho
Whole Continent Was Engulrcd
In the Sen by ConvuIsion
OF Nature.

In volume entitled "The Lost At,
lantis," by the late Sir Daniel Wilson.
president of the university of Toronto,
an interesting study is made of the
legends which suggest that America
was known to the ancicnts In two of
Plato's dialogues, tho Timacus and
Critias, it is related that Scion, the
great Athcnian law-giver, during a
visit he made to Sais, in Egypt, some
thirty-four hundred years ago, was in.
formed by the priests of the former
existence, west of the strait of Gibral-
tar, of an island continent in the At
lantic ocean, says the Baltimore Sun.
This continent, Atlantis, the seat of
4 powerful empire, according to the
story, was cngulfed in the sea by some
CONFUSION OF nature, with the result.
of course. of destroying its hundreds of
cities and millions of inhabitants. Al.
ready in Solon's time the destruction of
Atlantis was described as n remote
event, white with age"
Has this legend basis Of fact? It
cannot be accepted as whole, it ap-
pears, because tic Atlantic, in the opin
ION of biologists, has been substantial
~ what 1T is for many millions of wears
Geology shows evidences of local up-
hcavals, but none Of the submcrrcnce
of extensive continental areas. Sir Dan.
lei accordingly feels compelled to reject
the sinking of Atlantis us a detail of
the. story invented to account for the
cessation of intercourse with it. The
body of the story he is disposed to ac.
ccpt. Atlantis was America, which con-
tlnnnt hf, nrli..
cred during their period of adventurous
maritime enterprise. There arc many
evidences of Egyptian domination
around the Mediterranean before the
Trojan war. Their ships sailed the At
lantic, visiting England for tin and cx-
ploring the coast of Africa toward and
beyond the equator in search of rold.
Their vessels might readily have been
carried we stward by ocean currents to
Brazil and Central America. In the
year 100 of our era Pedro Alvarcs de
Cabral, the Portuguese admiral. while
sailing southwark along tie west coast
OF Africa, was carried by the cuuatorial
current so far out of his course that he
accidentally discovered Brazil. What
bcfcll the Portuguese admiral in 1900
might readily, Sir Daniel thinks. have
bcfallcn Egyptian admirals thousands
of years before. Egypt when first re-
vcalcd to us iii history was already far
gone in its decline. It's people had lost
the spirit which impellcd them to their
first discoveries and to their acquisition
of the greatest if not the first of the
ancient empires.
Sir Daniel aiiirms that the ancient
maritime races Of the Orient frequently
made voyages far out into the Atlantic.
In the reign of Pharaoh Nccho, Gil
G03 Il. c., after the decline of Egyptian
maritime enterprise, IL Phocnician feet
was employed to crcumnavigatc Africa.
lianno, the Carthaginian, is said to
have reached the Indian ocean bv the
route around the cape, as Vasco de
CANA did later, in 1897. Enterprise has
its pulsations-its periods of expansion
and contraction. There are, it is seen,
indications that the discovery of Amer.
lea was within the reach of the Ecyp.
tians at the period to which the story of
Atlantis refers.
When the Egyptians ceased to rove
the sea Atlantis was lost to view at Sais
and became u dim legend. Evidences of
Egyptian intercourse with it are to be
sought, according to the author, among
the ruined cities of Central America.
Such evidences may yet be forthcoming.
ut would not" he says. Sin any degree
surprise me to learn of the discovery of
genuine Phocnician or other inscrip-
ton or some hoard of Assyrian CRY
phons or shcl1cls of the merchant
princes of Tyre, that had knowledge of
the sea- being recovered among the
still uncXplored treasures of the buried
empire of Montczuma or the long-de-
serted ruins of Central America. Such
discovery would scarcely be more sur
prising than that of the Punic boards
found at Corvo, the most westerly island
of the Azores. Yet it would furnish a
substantial basis for the legend of At
lantis. There is nothing improbable in
the idea that it rests on some historic
basis in which the fall of an Ibcrian or
other aggressive power in the western
Mediterranean has mingled with other
and equally vague traditions of inter
course with vast continent lying be-
You'd the pillars of Hercules" The
speculation is an attractive one and
adds interest to the study of the antiqui-
ties of Central America.