depending upon the proportions in which the dark and light races are mingled, for peculiar mental and moral characteristics go with these complexions.  The red-haired people are a distinct variety of the white stock; there were once whole tribes and nations with this color of hair; their blood is now intermingled with all the races of men, from Palestine to Iceland.  Everything in Europe speaks of vast periods of time and long, continued and constant interfusion of bloods, until there is not a fair-skinned man on the Continent that has not the blood of the dark-haired race in his veins; nor scarcely a dark-skinned man that is not lighter in hue from intermixture with the white stock.

CHAPTER VI.

GENESIS CONTAINS A HISTORY OF ATLANTIS

The Hebrews are a branch of the great family of which that powerful commercial race, the Phoenicians, who were the merchants of the world fifteen hundred years before the time of Christ, were a part.  The Hebrews carried out from the common storehouse of their race a mass of traditions, many of which have come down-to us in that oldest and most venerable of human compositions, the Book of Genesis.  I have shown that the story of the Deluge plainly refers to the destruction of Atlantis, and that it agrees in many important particulars with the account given by Plato.  The people destroyed were, in both instances, the ancient race that had created civilization; they had formerly been in a happy and sinless condition; they had become great and wicked; they were destroyed for their sins—­they were destroyed by water.

But we can go farther, and it can be asserted that there is scarcely a prominent fact in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis that cannot be duplicated from the legends of the American nations, and scarcely a custom known to the Jews that does not find its counterpart among the people of the New World.

Even in the history of the Creation we find these similarities: 

The Bible tells us (Gen. i., 2) that in the beginning the earth was without form and void, and covered with water.  In the Quiche legends we are told, “at first all was sea—­no man, animal, bird, or green herb—­there was nothing to be seen but the sea and the heavens.”

The Bible says (Gen. i., 2), “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”  The Quiche legend says, “The Creator—­the Former, the Dominator—­the feathered serpent—­those that give life, moved upon the waters like a glowing light.”

The Bible says (Gen. i., 9), “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear:  and it was so.”  The Quiche legend says, “The creative spirits cried out ‘Earth!’ and in an instant it was formed, and rose like a vapor-cloud; immediately the plains and the mountains arose, and the cypress and pine appeared.”

The Bible tells us, “And God saw that it was good.”  The Quiche legend says, “Then Gucumatz was filled with joy, and cried out, ’Blessed be thy coming, O Heart of Heaven, Hurakan, thunder-bolt.’”