Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1894-07-06
ANCIENT AMERICA.
supposed to Have Been Atlanta
a Powerful Umpire.
A~oofdins to an Egyptian Lee,nd thu
Whole Contineut Was Enrulfed
IN the Sea by Convuision
OF Nature.

o~" oy n CopyulSion
Of Nature.
In volume entitled The Lost At
iantis," by the late Sir Daniel Wilson.
president Of the university of Toronto.
an interesting study is made of the
legends which suggest that America
vas known to the ancients. In two OF
riatos dialogues, the Timaeus and
Crltias, 1t Is related that Scion. the
great Athcnian law-giver, during q
VISIT ne made to Sais, in Egypt, some
tnirty-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.
Ihis continent, Atlantis, the seat of
. powerful empire, according to tho
story, was engulfed in the sea by some
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 a remote
event, white with age"
Has this legend a basis of fact? Il
cannot be accepted as a whole, it ap-
pears, because the Atlantic, in the opin-
Ion OF biologists, has been substantial
~ what 1t is for many millions of years
Geology shows evidences of local up-
heavals, but none of the submergence
OF extensive continental areas. Sir Dam
lei accordingly feels compelled to reject
the sinking of Atlantis as a detail of
the story invented to account for the
cessation OF intercourse with it. The
body OF the story he is disposed to &C
cept Atlantis was America, which con-
tinent the earlier Egyptians had discov-
cred during their period of adventurous
maritime enterprise There are many
evidences of Egyptian domination
around the before the
Trojan war. Their ships sailed the At
lantic, visiting England for tin and ex-
ploring the coast of Africa toward and
beyond the equator in search of gold.
Their vessels might readily have been
carriod westward by ocean currents to
Brazil and Central America In the
year 1900 of our era Pedro Alvares de
Cabral, the Portuguese admiral, while
Ealing southwark along the west coast
Of Africa, was carried by the equatorial
current so far out of his course that he
accidentally discovered Brazil What
befen the Portuguese admiral in 1900
might readily, Sir Daniel thinks, have
befallen Egyptian admirals thousands
Of years before. Egypt when first re-
vealed to US In history was already far
gone in its decline. Its people had lost
the spirit which irrpelled them to their
first discoveries and to their acquisition
Of the greatest il not the Rrst of the
ancient empires. -..
Sir Daniel afirms that the ancient
maritime races Of the Orient frequently
made voyages far out into the Atlantic
In the reign of Pharaoh-Necho. Gil
sos B. c., after the decline of Egyptian
maritime enterprise. a Phoenician feet
Sas employed to circunnavigate Africa.
Uann0, the CartEaPinian, is said to
have reached ths Indian ocean by the
route around the cape, as Vasco de
Cana didlater, il l497. Enterprise has
its pulsaticns-its periods of expansion
and contraction. There are, it is seen.
indications that the discovery of Amer
lea was within the reach of the Egyp-
tians at the period to which the story of
Atlantis refers
When the Egyptians ceased to rove
tie seq Atiantis was lost to view at Sais
- be anne a dim legend Evidences of
W an intercourse with it are to be
,,.-shv. according to the author, among
&c rCired cities of Central America.
s.. a evidences may yet be Forthcoming.
1T would not" he says, lin any degree
surprise me to learn of the discovery of
4 genuine Phoenician or other inscrip-
j. n o- some hoard of Assyrian cry
.s.- rs or shekels of the merchant
prir.esof Tyre, that had knowledge of
she sea: being recovered among the
still dnaxpl ored treasures of the buried
sIu"ire & Nontezuma or the long-de-
ser. "a. ~ 80, of Central America Such
: go 0v ~ gouid scarcely be more sur
orlsing tan that of the Punic boards
p ind at Corvo, the most westerly island
III the Azores. Yet it would furnish Q
basis for the legend Of At
ants. There is nothing improbable in
-he idea tia; it rests on some historic
Das.s in which the fall of an Iberian or
= Their aggressive power in the western
Mediterranean has mingled with other
nd equally vague traditions of inter
course with vast continent lying be-
yond the pillars of Hercules" The
speculation is an attractive one and
adds interest to the study of the antiqui-
,sss of Central America