Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1918-01-23
TABLED ATLANTIS.
French Scientist Believes that Island
Once Existed.

Academy Of Sciences, remarks in the
Smithsonian Annual Report:
"No affirmation Is get permissible,
but it seems more and more evident that
vast region, continental or made up
OF great islands, has collapsed west OF
| the Pillars of hercules, otherwise called
the Strait of Gibraltar, and that its
collapse occurred in the not far distant
] past. In any event, the question OF
| Atlantis is placed anew before men OF
science"
tabled country, part OF the interesting
mythology OF the Eastern World, and
an ineShaustible subject for poets from
the days of Plato on, but now M. Termier
says:
at may be, indeed, that the poets were
once more right. After long period Of
disdainfuI indifference, observe how in
the last few years science is returning to
the study Of Atlantis. How many natur-
alists, biologists, biologists, or botanists,
are asking one smother to-day whether
Plato has not transmitted to us, with
slight smplificatiou, q page from actual
history of mankind"
| NJ. Termier quotes part OF Piatos dia-
| logue "Timaeus, - or "Concerning Net ure, ("
| from which the following facts, AZ stated
by an old Egyptian priest, are secured: :
"Athens was destroyed bya powerful
army which came from an island larger
than Libya, and even Asia, lying in the
| Atlantic ocean beyond the strait called
the Pillars Of Hercules.
"In the island OF Atlantis reigned kings
of amazing power, having under their do
main several other islands also, and some
parts OF the.continent, as we'll as Libya, as
far east as Egypt, and Europe as far as the
Tyrrhenian sea.
Gan this power was once united to sub
jugate Athens, but the Athenisns stopped
the invasion and restored all the nations
living on that side (east) of the Pillars OF
Hercules to Independence.
"Later, with great earthquakes and in
| undstions, in a single day and one fatal
night, ali who had been warriors against
Athens were swallowed up, and the island
OF Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea-"
The author says that the above narrative
has not at all the coloriug OF fable, but
an exactness almost scientific. II may be
thought that the dimensions of the island
of Atlantis are slightly exaggerated here,
but we must remember that the Egyptian
priest thought OF Asia as what we know as
Asia Minor.
Plato also develops the Egyptian tradi-
ton OF the fabulous origin of Atlantis,
fallen to the share of Neptune and on
which this god placed his ten mortal
children.
He describes the cradle OF the Atlantis
race as a fertile plain located near the
sea and opening into the central part of
the island. About 1t circle OF mountains
protect the plain from the icy blasts OF the
north; in these superb mountains there
are numerous villages, rich and populous.
In the plain there is a magnificent city,
the palaces and temples Of which are con-
structed from stones OF three colors drawn
! from the very bosom OF the island; here
and there sremines yielding all the metals
useful to men, aud finally the shores of
the island rise perpendiculsrly and COM
mandipg above the tumultuous sea.
| We may smile in reading, but the
geographic description of the island Is
not Of the sort which one jokes about
and forgets. This description tallies
well with what we would imagine to-day
OF great land submerged in the region
OF the Azores and enjoying the eternal
| springtime which is the endowment of
| these islands; land formed from a
basement of ancient rocks bearing, with
some fragments of whitish calcareous
| terranes. extinct volcanic mountains
and lava flows, black or red, long since
\ grown cold.
Such is the story of the Atlantis OF
Plato, a history fabulous in its origins,
like the majority of histories, yet ex-
tremeIy exact and highly probable in
| its detail and tragic ter mination.
| This Is all that antiquity teaches us,
for the accounts OF Theopompus and
MarcelIus are interesting only from the
impression that they leave US of the
the peoples along the Mediterranean
shores.
Down to very nearly our own era
there was a general belief, all about
the Mediterra mean, in the ancient
Albanian invasion, VIII ich was checked
by the very sudden submergence OF
the country from which they came.
According to III. Termier, the study OF
the physical geography of the Atlantic
ocean tends to show us what might well
have been the base Of this great oceanic
continent, the Hottest spires OF which
form the Azores. He looks forward TO the
day when the charts of the Atlantic will
be exact and detailed, affcrding closer
study with this point in view.
Geology also indicates the possibility OF
there once having been great tableland
surmounted with volcanoes in the eastern
Atlantic, where now Cough island, st.
Helena, Ascension, Cape Verde islands,
the Canaries, Medeira. the Azores and a
| faw othars all of which are either integ-