Overview

Somewhere-anywhere-in the Atlantic, islands drifted like those tissues of root and sedge that break from the edges of northern lakes and are sent to and fro by the gales: floating islands. The little rafts bearing that name are thick enough to nourish trees, and a man or a deer may walk on them without breaking through. Far different were those wandering Edens of the sea, for they had mountains, volcanoes, cities, and gardens; men of might and women lovelier than the dawn lived there in brotherly and sisterly esteem; birds as bright as flowers, and with throats like flutes, peopled the groves, where luscious fruit hung ready for the gathering, and the very skies above these places of enchantment were more serene and deep than those of the storm-swept continents. Where the surges creamed against the coral beaches and cliffs of jasper and marble, the mer-people arose to view and called to the land men in song, while the fish in the shallows were like wisps of rainbow.It was the habit of these lands never to be where the seeker could readily find them. Some legends pertaining to them appear to do with places no farther from the homes of the simple, if imaginative, tellers than the Azores, Canaries, and Cape Verdes; but others indicate a former knowledge of our own America, and a few may relate to that score or so of rocks lying between New England and the Latin shores; bare, dangerous domes and ledges where sea fowl nest, and where a crumbling skeleton tells of a sailor who outlived a wreck to endure a more dreadful death from cold and thirst and hunger. Some of these tales reach back to the Greek myths: survivals of the oldest histories, or possibly connected America with the old world through voyages made by men whose very nations are dead and long forgotten; for the savages and ogres that inhabited these elusive islands may be European concepts of our Indians. But in the earlier Christian era all was mystery on those plains of water that stretched beyond the sunset. It was believed that as one sailed toward our continent the day faded, and that if the mariner kept on he would be lost in hopeless gloom.Perhaps the most ancient story in the world tells of the sinking of Atlantis. When the Egyptian priest told it to Solon it was already venerable beyond estimate; yet he recounted the work and pleasures of the Atlantans, who were a multitude, who drank from hot and cold springs, who had mines of silver and gold, pastures for elephants, and plants that yielded a sweet savor; who prayed in temples of white, red and black stone, sheathed in shining metals; whose sculptors made vast statues, one, representing Poseidon driving winged horses, being so large that the head of the god nearly touched the temple roof; who had gardens, canals, sea walls, and pleasant walks; who had ten thousand chariots in their capital alone; the port of twelve hundred ships. They were a folk of peace and kindness, but as they increased in wealth and comfort they forgot the laws of heaven; so in a day and a night this continent went down, burying its millions and its treasures beneath the waters. A few of the inhabitants escaped to Europe in their ships; a few, also, to America. It has been claimed that Atlantis may still be traced in an elevation of the ocean floor about seven hundred miles wide and a thousand miles long, its greatest length from northeast to southwest, and the Azores at its eastern edge-mountain tops not quite submerged. As some believe, it was from this cataclysm that has sprung the world-wide legend of a deluge.

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