“Then comes the fourth age, Atonatiuh, ‘Sun of Water,’ whose number is 10 X 400 + 8, or 4008.  It ends by a great inundation, a veritable deluge.  All mankind are changed into fish, with the exception of one man and his wife, who save themselves in a bark made of the trunk of a cypress-tree.  The picture represents Matlalcueye, goddess of waters, and consort of Tlaloc, god of rain, as darting down toward earth.  Coxcox and Xochiquetzal, the two human beings preserved, are seen seated on a tree-trunk and floating in the midst of the waters.  This flood is represented as the last cataclysm that devastates the earth.”

The learned Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg translates from the Aztec language of the “Codex Chimalpopoca” the following Flood legend: 

“This is the sun called Nahui-atl, ‘4 water.’  Now the water was tranquil for forty years, plus twelve, and men lived for the third and fourth times.  When the sun Nahui-atl came there had passed away four hundred years, plus two ages, plus seventy-six years.  Then all mankind was lost and drowned, and found themselves changed into fish.  The sky came nearer the water.  In a single day all was lost, and the day Nahui-xochitl, ’4 flower,’ destroyed all our flesh.

“And that year was that of ce-calli, ‘1 house,’ and the day Nahui-atl all was lost.  Even the mountains sunk into the water, and the water remained tranquil for fifty-two springs.

“Now at the end of the year the god Titlacahuan had warned Nata and his spouse Nena, saying, ’Make no more wine of Agave, but begin to hollow out a great cypress, and you will enter into it when in the month Tozontli the water approaches the sky.’

“Then they entered in, and when the god had closed the door, he said, ‘Thou shalt eat but one ear of maize, and thy wife one also.’

“But as soon as they had finished they went out, and the water remained calm, for the wood no longer moved, and, on opening it, they began to see fish.

“Then they lit a fire, by rubbing together pieces of wood, and they roasted fish.

“The gods Citlallinicue and Citlalatonac, instantly looking down said:  ’Divine Lord, what is that fire that is making there?  Why do they thus smoke the sky?’ At once Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca descended.  He began to chide, saying, ‘Who has made this fire here?’ And, seizing hold of the fish, he shaped their loins and heads, and they were transformed into dogs (chichime).”

Here we note a remarkable approximation to Plato’s account of the destruction of Atlantis.  “In one day and one fatal night,” says Plato, “there came mighty earthquakes and inundations that ingulfed that warlike people.”  “In a single day all was lost,” says the Aztec legend.  And, instead of a rainfall of forty days and forty nights, as represented in the Bible, here we see “in a single day. . . even the mountains sunk into the water;” not only the land on which the people dwelt who were turned into fish, but the very mountains of that land sunk into the water.  Does not this describe the fate of Atlantis?  In the Chaldean legend “the great goddess Ishtar wailed like a child,” saying, “I am the mother who gave birth to men, and, like to the race of fishes, they are filling the sea.”