Chapter.  V.

The testimony of the sea.

Suppose we were to find in mid-Atlantic, in front of the Mediterranean, in the neighborhood of the Azores, the remains of an immense island, sunk beneath the sea—­one thousand miles in width, and two or three thousand miles long—­would it not go far to confirm the statement of Plato that, “beyond the strait where you place the Pillars of Hercules, there was an island larger than Asia (Minor) and Libya combined,” called Atlantis?  And suppose we found that the Azores were the mountain peaks of this drowned island, and were torn and rent by tremendous volcanic convulsions; while around them, descending into the sea, were found great strata of lava; and the whole face of the sunken land was covered for thousands of miles with volcanic debris, would we not be obliged to confess that these facts furnished strong corroborative proofs of the truth of Plato’s statement, that “in one day and one fatal night there came mighty earthquakes and inundations which ingulfed that mighty people?  Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea; and then that sea became inaccessible on account of the quantity of mud which the ingulfed island left in its place.”

  Map of Atlantis, with its islands and connecting ridges, from deep-sea
                                soundings

And all these things recent investigation has proved conclusively.  Deep-sea soundings have been made by ships of different nations; the United States ship Dolphin, the German frigate Gazelle, and the British ships Hydra, Porcupine, and Challenger have mapped out the bottom of the Atlantic, and the result is the revelation of a great elevation, reaching from a point on the coast of the British Islands southwardly to the coast of South America, at Cape Orange, thence south-eastwardly to the coast of Africa, and thence southwardly to Tristan d’Acunha.  I give one map showing the profile of this elevation in the frontispiece, and another map, showing the outlines of the submerged land, on page 47.  It rises about 9000 feet above the great Atlantic depths around it, and in the Azores, St. Paul’s Rocks, Ascension, and Tristan d’Acunha it reaches the surface of the ocean.

Evidence that this elevation was once dry land is found in the fact that “the inequalities, the mountains and valleys of its surface, could never have been produced in accordance with any laws for the deposition of sediment, nor by submarine elevation; but, on the contrary, must have been carved by agencies acting above the water level.” (Scientific American, July 28th, 1877.)

Mr. J. Starke Gardner, the eminent English geologist, is of the opinion that in the Eocene Period a great extension of land existed to the west of Cornwall.  Referring to the location of the “Dolphin” and “Challenger” ridges, he asserts that “a great tract of land formerly existed where the sea now is, and that Cornwall, the Scilly and Channel Islands, Ireland and Brittany, are the remains of its highest summits.” (Popular Science Review, July, 1878.)