Atlantic island of a prodigious magnitude, which had really existed in those seas; and which, during a long period of time, governed all the islands in the Atlantic Ocean. (Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 233.) The smaller islands may contain an allusion either to the Cape Verde or to the Canaries, in the latter of which some of the ancients placed the Elysian fields; the three larger point to some of the West India islands; and the Atlantic island to the continent of America itself, which we may suppose to have been accidentally discovered by some ship driven far out of its usual course by violent and long-continued easterly winds, and the knowledge of it lost again in the imperfect state of navigation among the ancients, prior to the discovery of the properties of the magnet, and the invention of the mariner's compass. water. III. Indeed there is an account of a geographical discovery by the Phoenicians in Diodorus, which may, by possibility, be that of some part of the continent of America. To the west of Africa, says he, we meet with an island distant many days' sail from that part of the world. Its soil is fertile, its surface varied by mountains and valleys, and intersected by many navigable rivers. Its gardens are filled with all sorts of trees, and irrigated by abundant springs of It contains numerous country-houses magnificently furnished, surrounded by parterres of flowers and covered walks, to which the inhabitants of the country retreat during the heat of summer, for the purpose of enjoying those blessings which nature has poured forth with such profusion. The mountains of this island are covered with thick forests of fruit trees, and its valleys refreshed by numerous transparent streams. The chase supplies them abundantly with various descriptions of animals, so that there is no deficiency in their feasts, with respect either to plenty or luxury. In addition to this, the sea which surrounds this island produces a copious supply of all kinds of fish, which indeed may be regarded as one of its general properties. The air is so temperate that the trees retain both their leaves and fruit during the greater part of the year, and the island altogether is so delightful that it appears to be rather the abode of gods than of men. Formerly it was entirely unknown, on account of its great distance, and the Phoenicians were the first who discovered it. From a remote period they had been in the habit of trading in those seas, which induced them to establish colonies in Africa and in the western parts of Europe. In the course of this employment they were surprised by a violent tempest, which lasted many days, drove them into the ocean, and finally deposited them in the island which we have described. Having been the first to discover its beauty and fertility, they made them known to other nations. When the Tuscans became powerful by sea, they wished to establish a colony there, but were prevented by the Carthaginians. The attractions of this new country were so great, that they were apprehensive too many of their nation would be induced to emigrate to it; and on the other hand they regarded it as a secure asylum, in the event of any great and unforeseen reverse happening to the city of Carthage, when they hoped that their naval superiority would enable them to transfer the seat of empire to this island, while their conquerors, whoever they might be, from ignorance of its situation would be unable to follow and molest them. (Diodorus, lib. v. c. 15.) IV. There is still another view of the subject. Plato says, that the island of Atlantis was as large as Syria and Asia Minor put together, and situated in the Atlantic, and that nine thousand years had elapsed since the period when it ceased to exist. Nine thousand years carry us back to an era which, if not prior to the existence of the earth itself in its present form, is most assuredly long anterior to all transactions which we can identify with any known race of men. We find ourselves among the Præadamites of the Orientals, the inhabitants of a former world. Sir William Jones, addressing the members of the Asiatic Society, says: "Before you lies that prodigious chain of mountains (the Himalaya) which formerly perhaps were a barrier against the violence of the sea; and the old maps in Ptolemy's Geography represent the peninsula of India as united to Africa, and inclosing all the northern part of the Pacific Ocean in a huge mediterranean sea. Did the submersion of the southern continent of Ptolemy occasion the retreat of the waters from the peninsula of India as far as the base of the Himalaya? Was that retreat followed, after a long interval of time, by the descent of the primitive people described by Bailly, from the table land of Tartary? Did the emersion of the present continents of North and South America from the bottom of the ocean by the force of central fire, submerge the Atlantic island of Plato, and form the actual bed of the Atlantic Ocean? Is the account of the Deluge of Noah, the Indian Satyavrata, the Chaldean Xisuthrus, and, the Greek Ogyges, and Deucalion, which is in no sense peculiar to the Jews, a dark tradition, imperfectly preserved, of the wreck and disappearance of a former world, and of the substitution of the present, not from the laboratory of Chaos, but from the bosom of the ocean? As the appearance of the globe proves to demonstration, that our present continents once formed the bottom of the sea, not merely that the sea flowed over them as described in the Mosaic account of the Deluge, a circumstance altogether inadequate to account for geological phenomena which cannot be disputed for a moment, what is now sea may have been land; and the spots actually occupied by the great Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the principal residences of the human race. All the laws of chemistry lead to the conclusion that matter is in its nature as imperishable as spirit, and that what in popular language is called the dissipation or destruction of a substance, is only the liberation of its simple or elementary parts, which must necessarily form new combinations by the laws of the attraction of cohesion or of chemical affinity, and, to use the philosophical language of Ovid, "Omnia mutantur, nil interit." v. It is undoubtedly true that since the dawn of authentic history, no records have been preserved of nature working on that gigantic scale, which geologists suppose when they talk of the elevation of continents from the bottom of the sea, by the expansive force of central fire; but it is equally true that numerous instances, both ancient and modern, are mentioned of nature operating in that mode; so that if the hypothesis in question should be chargeable with arguing from causes which are inadequate to the production of the phenomena, it at any rate escapes the imputation of reasoning from causes which have no real existence. Strabo relates that between Thera and Therasia, after eruptions of four days' continuance, fires issuing from the sea elevated by degrees, and pushed up from the bottom of the waters, at that time inflamed and boiling, as if by the aid of a machine, an island formed of volcanic matter, which was twelve stadia. in circumference. The eruption being over, the Rhodians, who were at that time masters of the sea, had the courage to land first on the spot, and erected a temple to the Asphalian Neptune. The same author also informs us, that near Methone, in the Hermionic Gulf, a mountain of fire seven stadia in height, formed by the eruption of combustible matter, was seen to arise. Inaccessible during the daytime, both on account of its heat and its sulphureous odour; in the night it diffused an agreeable smell, was conspicuous at a great distance, and gave out so intense a heat as to cause the sea to boil at five stadia distance, while as remote even as twenty stadia the waters were agitated and muddy. Almost the whole of this space was heaped with fragments of rock, equal to towers in bulk. (Strabo, lib. 1.) VI. According to the account of Xanthus of Lydia, a great drought happened in the reign of Artaxerxes, which exhausted the rivers, lakes, and wells. Xanthus pretended to have seen various sea-shells, and petrified cockles, and muscles, at a great distance from the sea, and marshes of salt water in Armenia, Mattiana, and lower Phrygia. From these circumstances he was persuaded that what is now land was once sea. Strabo was of opinion that the Euxine sea had formerly no outlet near Byzantium, but that the rivers which discharge themselves into that sea having forced the obstacle, and opened themselves a passage, its waters rushed into the Propontis and the Hellespont; and that in the same way the Mediterranean, filled to overflowing by its rivers, broke through the isthmus which closed the Straits of Gibraltar, and by flowing through this new channel left, what had formerly been quicksands, dry land. (Strabo, lib. 1.) Art, empire, earth itself to change are doom'd. And where the Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloom'd. VII. It is time, however, to dismiss these geological speculations, which have, perhaps, detained us too long. I was surprised to meet with a passage in the first book of Strabo, which proves, beyond a doubt, that the ancient geographers had formed a clear conception, and attained a decided conviction, of the practicability of that scheme, which so many centuries later was carried into effect by Columbus. It is as follows: The inhabited earth, says Eratosthenes, from the laws of nature, must be longer from east to west, than it is broad from north to south, as we have already remarked, because such is also the greatest dimension of the temperate zone. We know that this zone, as the mathematicians say, returning on itself, forms a complete circle; SO THAT IF THE EXTENT OF THE ATLANTIC SEA WERE NOT AN OBSTACLE, WE MIGHT SAIL FROM SPAIN INTO INDIA, ALWAYS FOLLOW ING THE SAME PARALLEL OF LATITUDE. This is precisely the plan which occurred to Columbus; and when he sailed from Palos in Andalusia, on the 3rd of August, in the year 1492, it was with the hope and expectation of reaching the East Indies by holding a westerly course. It is a curious subject of speculation, whether or not Columbus ever saw the above passage in Strabo, and all the certainty we can attain on the point is, that if he ever read it, he must have read it in manuscript, as the Editio Princeps of Strabo was not printed before the year 1516 by Aldus, and then in Greek only, of which it does not appear that Columbus had any |