The daily Alaskan., 1913-03-25
BRlDGED AN OCEAN
The Lost Atlantis That Was
 Swallowed by the Sea.
A NATION OF MANY LEGENDS.
Plato Got His Story of the Continent and lts Ruin From solon, tho Old Lawsivsr-The Theories That Were Built by lsnstius Donnslly.

and It's Ruin From solon, tho Old
 Lawsivsr-Ths Theories That Were
 Built by lsnatius oonneliy.
 Far out beyond the Pillars of Her cules, where the Atlantic ocean stretches broad and deep today. men of imagination like to believe there lies & buried kingdom. The sea washes over its once fertile plains md creatures of the deep float in and among its top less towers. seawee. and silt have buried its temples fr 10000 years. Here, scientists of a romantic turn will tell you, lies the lost land of Allan tis, where once there ru ed the richest and most powerful Of the earth, q world power while wolvr7 still howled upon the seven hills of tome and the glory that was Greece " yet un- dreamed
 But today all that rema Is of the lost kingdom is a little grou of Islands, the Azores: mountain tor these that were not wholly overwh med when the proud island sank il tbe sea. Many years ago an Irishm ., ignadus Donnelly. who possessed an active im- agination and a mind which worked along interesting and unusual lines, wrote a book about Atlantis, in which he proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that the lost kingdom really ex- isted and was not a fable.
 The earliest authentic information about this mystery land we ind in Plato. who averred he had it from bis grandfather Solon, the famous law giver who had spent some years among the Egyptians. Plato told of a great continent which had existed e,OO0 years before lying to the west of the Pillars of Hercules and making wal upon the nations to the east Only Athens and Egypt were able to with stand the onslaughts of the Atlantans' and then suddenly, ''in a day and a night" the island was overwhelmed and sank into the sea. This was the story Solon had from the Egyptians and which bis grandson wrote down and the legend has persisted ever since
 Diodorus Sicuus, a Roman writer, tells how the Phoenlcians discovered "a large island in the Atlantic ocean between the Pillars of Hercules, sev- eral days' sail from the coast of Africa. This island abounded in all manner or riches. Tbe soil was exceedingly fer file. The scenery was diversified by rivers, mountains and forests, It was the custom of the inhabitants to retire during the summer to magnificent country houses, which stood In the midst of beautiful gardens. Fish and game were found In great abundance; the climate was delicious and the trees bore great crops of fruit at all seasons of the year
 Soupdings made by British and American vessels have shown conclu- sively that surrounding the Azores there is a submerged plateau, which 1t does not require much imagination to identify with the rich plain" mention cd by Plato From this lost continent Donnelly believed that ridges of land ran to the present coasts of South America and Africa, originally, SO that before the time of which Plato wrote the eastern and western hemispheres were connected by land Thus be ac' counted for many similarities In the plants and animals of the two hemis- pheres which otherwise are very diff icult to explain.
 The continent as described by Plato was mountainous, but was surrounded by vast fertile plains. It was rich in precious metals and had numerous teIn- ples and statues Of gold and silver and ivory.
 In the sudden and violent destruction of Atlantis, '.in one dreadful day and night" Donnelly believed be saw the origin of the legend of the deluge, 90 universal among the followers of all religions. The Biblical deluge, the flood in which the Greeks believed, from which only Deukallon and Pyrrhs escaped, the overflow which Chaldsan legends tell of all these, Donnelly be lIeved, had their foundation in the de. struction of Atlantis
 Plato tells us that the race of the Atlantans had fallen from their high estate and committed sins, and the Zeus determined to overwhelm them. An earthquake preceded the sinking of the land, and there camo a great storm which brought the sea rushing in over the once fruitful lard.
 Before this deluge Atlantis was the greatest power In the world, Donnelly said. Not only had it made war against the infant nations of Europe, conquer Ing France and Spain and Africa as far as the Nile, but colonies were es- tabllshed In Mexico, in Central Amer lea and along the valley of the Missis- slppL The mound builders were colo nists from Atlantis. After the destruc. ton of the parent continent the east. ern and the western hemispheres lost all remembrance of each other. as both of them at last forgot the great Atlnn' tis or If they remembered at sll re membered 1t only as a legend, faint and shadOwy tradition.
 OpIv n fsyU of tha thousands of ln-