It is not a violent presumption to suppose that an art known to the Hindoos 3870 B.C., and to the Chinese and Phoenicians at the very beginning of their history—­an art so curious, so extraordinary—­may have dated back to Atlantean times.

Civil Government.—­Mr. Baldwin shows ("Prehistoric Nations,” p. 114) that the Cushites, the successors of the Atlanteans, whose very ancient empire extended from Spain to Syria, were the first to establish independent municipal republics, with the right of the people to govern themselves; and that this system was perpetuated in the great Phoenician communities; in “the fierce democracies” of ancient Greece; in the “village republics” of the African Berbers and the Hindoos; in the “free cities” of the Middle Ages in Europe; and in the independent governments of the Basques, which continued down to our own day.  The Cushite state was an aggregation of municipalities, each possessing the right of self-government, but subject within prescribed limits to a general authority; in other words, it was precisely the form of government possessed to-day by the United States.  It is a surprising thought that the perfection of modern government may be another perpetuation of Atlantean civilization.

Agriculture.—­The Greek traditions of “the golden apples of the Hesperides” and “the golden fleece” point to Atlantis.  The allusions to the golden apples indicate that tradition regarded the “Islands of the Blessed” in the Atlantic Ocean as a place of orchards.  And when we turn to Egypt we find that in the remotest times many of our modern garden and field plants were there cultivated.  When the Israelites murmured in the wilderness against Moses, they cried out (Numb., chap. xi., 4, 5), “Who shall give us flesh to eat?  We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the Melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.”  The Egyptians also cultivated wheat, barley, oats, flax, hemp, etc.  In fact, if we were to take away from civilized man the domestic animals, the cereals, and the field and garden vegetables possessed by the Egyptians at the very dawn of history, there would be very little left for the granaries or the tables of the world.

Astronomy.—­The knowledge of the ancients as to astronomy was great and accurate.  Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander the Great to Babylon, sent to Aristotle a series of Chaldean astronomical observations which he found preserved there, recorded on tablets of baked clay, and extending back as far as 2234 B.C.  Humboldt says, “The Chaldeans knew the mean motions of the moon with an exactness which induced the Greek astronomers to use their calculations for the foundation of a lunar theory.”  The Chaldeans knew the true nature of comets, and could foretell their reappearance.  “A lens of considerable power was found in the ruins of Babylon; it was an inch and a half in diameter and nine-tenths of an inch thick.” (Layard’s “Nineveh