{p. 367}

It is true Professor Hartt tells us[1] that there is a marked difference in the complexion of the Botocudo Indians who have lived in the forests of Brazil and those, of the same tribe, who have dwelt on its open prairies; and that those who have resided for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years in the dense forests of that tropical land are nearly white in complexion.  If this be the case in a merely leaf-covered tract, what must have been the effect upon a race dwelling for a long time in the remote north, in the midst of a humid atmosphere, enveloped in constant clouds, and much of the time in almost total darkness?

There is no doubt that here and then were developed the rude, powerful, terrible “ice-giants” of the legends, out of whose ferocity, courage, vigor, and irresistible energy have been evolved the dominant races of the west of Europe—­the land-grasping, conquering, colonizing races; the men of whom it was said by a Roman poet, in the Viking Age:  “The sea is their school of war and the storm their friend they are sea-wolves that prey on the pillage of the world.”

They are now taking possession of the globe.

Great races are the weeded-out survivors of great sufferings.

What are the proofs of my proposition that man survived on an
Atlantic island?

In the first place we find Job referring to “the island of the innocent.”

In chapter xxii, verse 29, Eliphaz, the Temanite, says

When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person.”

Where shall he save him?  The next verse (30) seems to tell

[1.  “The Geology of Brazil,” p. 589.]

{p. 368}

“He shall deliver the island of the innocent:  and it is delivered by the pureness of thine [Job’s] hands.”

And, as I have shown, in Genesis it appears that, after the Age of Darkness, God separated the floods which overwhelmed the earth and made a firmament, a place of solidity, a refuge, (chap. i, vs. 6, 7,) “in the midst of the waters.”  A firm place in the midst of the waters is necessarily an island.

And the location of this Eden was westward from.  Europe, for we read, (chap. iii, v. 24): 

“So he drove out the man; and he placed at the EAST of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

The man driven out of the Edenic land was, therefore, driven eastward of Eden, and the cherubims in the east of Eden faced him.  The land where the Jews dwelt was eastward of paradise; in other words, paradise was west of them.

And, again, when Cain was driven out be too moved eastward; he “dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden,” (chap. iv, verse 16.) There was, therefore, a constant movement of the human family eastward.  The land of Nod may have been Od, Ad, Atlantis; and from Od may have come the name of Odin, the king, the god of Ragnarok.