And here I may note that this word hurakan—­the spirit of the abyss, the god of storm, the hurricane—­is very suggestive, and testifies to an early intercourse between the opposite shores of the Atlantic.  We find in Spanish the word huracan; in Portuguese, furacan; in French, ouragan; in German, Danish, and Swedish, orcan—­all of them signifying a storm; while in Latin furo, or furio, means to rage.  And are not the old Swedish hurra, to be driven along; our own word hurried; the Icelandic word hurra, to be rattled over frozen ground, all derived from the same root from which the god of the abyss, Hurakan, obtained his name?  The last thing a people forgets is the name of their god; we retain to this day, in the names of the days of the week, the designations of four Scandinavian gods and one Roman deity.

It seems to me certain the above are simply two versions of the same event; that while ships from Atlantis carried terrified passengers to tell the story of the dreadful catastrophe to the people of the Mediterranean shores, other ships, flying from the tempest, bore similar awful tidings to the civilized races around the Gulf of Mexico.

The native Mexican historian, Ixtlilxochitl, gave this as the Toltec legend of the Flood: 

It is found in the histories of the Toltecs that this age and first world, as they call it, lasted 1716 years; that men were destroyed by tremendous rains and lightning from the sky, and even all the land, without the exception of anything, and the highest mountains, were covered up and submerged in water fifteen cubits (caxtolmolatli); and here they added other fables of how men came to multiply from the few who escaped from this destruction in a “toptlipetlocali;” that this word nearly signifies a close chest; and how, after men had multiplied, they erected a very high “zacuali,” which is to-day a tower of great height, in order to take refuge in it should the second world (age) be destroyed.  Presently their languages were confused, and, not being able to understand each other, they went to different parts of the earth.

“The Toltecs, consisting of seven friends, with their wives, who understood the same language, came to these parts, having first passed great land and seas, having lived in caves, and having endured great hardships in order to reach this land; . . . they wandered 104 years through different parts of the world before they reached Hue Hue Tlapalan, which was in Ce Tecpatl, 520 years after the Flood.”  ("Ixtlilxochitl Relaciones,” in Kingsborough’s “Mex.  Ant.,” vol. ix., pp. 321, 322.)

It will of course be said that this account, in those particulars where it agrees with the Bible, was derived from the teachings of the Spanish priests; but it must be remembered that Ixtlilxochitl was an Indian, a native of Tezeuco, a son of the queen, and that his “Relaciones” were drawn from the archives of his family and the ancient writings of his nation:  he had no motive to falsify documents that were probably in the hands of hundreds at that time.