“Owing to a succession of storms the Peterkin was driven out of her course, and after narrowly escaping being dashed to pieces on the Florida reefs, Lat. 24-1/2 deg.  N., Long. 82 deg.  W., we ran ashore with the loss of only two lives—­the second mate and cabin boy—­on the Isthmus of Yucatan, close to the estuary of a river.[1] Here we were forced to spend nearly a year, during which time I made several journeys of exploration into the interior of the continent.  In the course of one of my rambles amid a dense mass of tropical foliage, I suddenly found myself face to face with a gigantic stone Sphinx, which I at once recognized and identified.  It was Tat-Nuada, an Atlantean deity, elaborately described in one of the burned books.  Much excited, I set to work, and, after clearing the base of the idol of fungi and other vegetable growth adhering to it, discovered a superscription in Atlantean dialect to the effect that the image had been set up there by one Hullir—­to commemorate the destruction of Atlantis, of which catastrophe Hullir believed himself and his family, i.e. his wife Ozilmeave and daughters, Taramoo and Niketoth, and the crew of his yacht, the Chaac-molre (ten in number), the sole survivors.

“Here, then, to my unutterable joy, was strong corroborative evidence of the great disaster narrated in detail in the manuscripts I had found in Inisturk Island.  The existence of Atlantis was now thoroughly substantiated.  On all sides of me I stumbled across further evidences of these early settlers.  Here, standing in bold outline on a slight eminence, was a stone edifice adorned with symbolical carvings of eggs, harps, mastodons, triangles, and numerous other objects, all of which were capable of interpretation, and indicated that the building was a temple to some god.

“I was much struck by the extraordinary similarity in many of the things I saw—­notably in the sphinx, idols and symbols—­to many I had seen in Egypt, and to some extent in Ireland, and I at once set to work to draw up a careful analogy between the languages of those countries.

“The word Banchicheisi[2] I found to contain the Celtic ban, a barrow; and Coptic isi, plenty; whilst I recognized in the words Coulmenes,[3] the Celtic Coul, a man’s name, i.e. Finn, son of Coul; in Thottirnanoge, the Coptic Thoth, i.e. name of ancient Egyptian deity, and Erse Tirnanoge, the name of the wife of Oisin, the last of the Feni; in Chaac-molree[4] the Coptic deity, re; in Ozilmeave,[5] the Celtic Meave, a girl’s name; in Taramoo,[6] the Celtic Tara, a girl’s name; and in Niketoth,[7] toth, the Erse technical form of feminine gender; and comparing the alphabets I traced a very striking likeness between the Atlantean—­

“[Atlantean:  a] (a) and the Gaelic or Erse [Erse:  A] [Atlantean:  B] (B) and the Coptic [Coptic:  B] [Atlantean:  d] (d) and Erse [Erse:  D] [Atlantean:  g] (g) and Erse [Erse:  g] [Atlantean:  T] (T) and Coptic [Coptic:  T]