Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1894-05-04
ANCIENT AMERICA.
Supposed to Fave Been Atlantis,
Powerful Umpire.

Powerful Umpire.
1eccrdirs to an Egyptian Legend the
Whole Continent Was Engulfed
In the Sea by . CONFUSION
OF Nature.
In volcme entitled 1.-THE Lost At
limits. by the late Sir Daniel Wilson.
president of the university of Toronto,
an interesting study is made Of the
legends which suggest that America
IS known TO the ancients. In two of
oa dialogues, the Timaeus and
ftias, II Is related that Scion, the
great Athcnian law-giver during a
visit he made to Snis, 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
o powerful empire, according to the
story. was engulfed in the sea by some
'convulsion Of nature, with the result,
of course, of destroying its hundreds of
cities and millions of inhabitants AL
|TbHuy III CClOh . tiatlc Tic OBSTRUCTION OF
Atlantis was described as a remote
event, white with age"
Has this legend a basis of fact? II
cannot be accepted as whole, it ap-
pears, because the Atlantic, in the opin-
ion of biologists. has been substantial
ly what it 10 for many millions Of years.
Geology shows evidences of local up-
heavals, but none of the submergence
of extensive continental areas Sir Dan
lei accordingly feels compelled to reject
the sinking of Atlantis Gs 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 Mediterranean 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
carried westward by ocean currents to
Brazil and Central America In the
\ year $500 Of our era Pedro Aivares de
Cabral, the Portuguese admiral, while
fsiling southwark along the west coast
ofNfrica, was carried by the equatorial
curfert so far out Of his course that he
accidentally discovered Brazil What
befell 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 It's decline. Its people had lost
the spirit which impelle.i them to their
frst discoveries and to their acquisition
Of the greatest IL not the FIRST of the
\ ancient empires.
J Sir Daniel afirms that the ancient
maritime races of the Orient frequently
made voyages far out into the.Atlautic.
In. the reign of Pharaoh-Necho, ell
COS h. c., after the decline of Egyptian
maritime enterprise, a Phoenician feet
was employed to circumnavigate Africa.
Hanno, the Carthaginian, is said to
have reached the Indian ocean by the
route around the cape, as Vasco de
CANA did later, in 1897. Enterprise has
It's pulsations-its periods of expansion
end contraction. There are, it is seen
indications that the discovery of Amer
ica was within the reach of the Egyp
Gars at the period TO which the story o.
Atlantis refers
When tae Egyptians ceased to row
the sea Atlantis was lost to view at Saii
acd became q dim legend. Evidences o.
Egyptian intercourse with it are to b,
sorght. according to the author, among
the ruined cities of Central America
Such evidences may yet be Forthcoming
ut would not" he says, lin any degree
surprise mt to learn OF the discovery o
q genuine Phoenician or other inscrip
ton or some hoard of Assyrian cry
phons or shekels OF the merchan
princes of Tyre, that had knowledge o
the see,' being recovered among tn
still UNEMPLOYED treasures of the burie'
empire of Montezurna or the long-de
serted ruins of Central America Sue
discovery would scarcely be more sur
prising than that of the Punic hoard
found at Corvu, the most westerly islam
of the Azores. Yet il would furnish
substantial basis for the legend of Al
asutis. There is nothing improbable i
the idea that it rests on some histori
basis in which the fall Of an Iberian G
other aggressive power in the wester
Mediterranean has mingled with othe
and equally vague traditions of intel
course with a vast continent lying b
yond the pillars Of Hercules" III
speculation is an attractive one an
adds interest to the study of the antiqu
Aes Of Central America