The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly

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Moreover, he tells us that "this vast power was gathered into one;" that
is to say, from Egypt to Peru it was one consolidated empire. We will
see hereafter that the legends of the Hindoos as to Deva Nahusha
distinctly refer to this vast empire, which covered the whole of the
known world.

Another corroboration of the truth of Plato's narrative is found in the
fact that upon the Azores black lava rocks, and rocks red and white in
color, are now found. He says they built with white, red, and black
stone. Sir C. Wyville Thomson describes a narrow neck of land between
Fayal and Monte da Guia, called "Monte Queimada" (the burnt mountain),
as follows: "It is formed partly of stratified tufa of a dark chocolate
color, and partly of lumps of black lava, porous, and each with a large
cavity in the centre, which must have been ejected as volcanic bombs in
a glorious display of fireworks at some period beyond the records of
Acorean history, but late in the geological annals of the island"
("Voyage of the Challenger," vol. ii., p. 24). He also describes immense
walls of black volcanic rock in the island.

The plain of Atlantis, Plato tells us, "had been cultivated during many
ages by many generations of kings." If, as we believe, agriculture, the
domestication of the horse, ox, sheep, goat, and bog, and the discovery
or development of wheat, oats, rye, and barley originated in this
region, then this language of Plato in reference to "the many ages, and
the successive generations of kings," accords with the great periods of
time which were necessary to bring man from a savage to a civilized
condition.

In the great ditch surrounding the whole land like a circle, and into
which streams flowed down from the mountains, we probably see the
original of the four rivers of Paradise, and the emblem of the cross
surrounded by a circle, which, as we will show hereafter, was, from the
earliest pre-Christian ages, accepted as the emblem of the Garden of
Eden.

We know that Plato did not invent the name of Poseidon, for the worship
of Poseidon was universal in the earliest ages of Europe;
"Poseidon-worship seems to have been a peculiarity of all the colonies
previous to the time of Sidon" ("Prehistoric Nations," p. 148.) This
worship "was carried to Spain, and to Northern Africa, but most
abundantly to Italy, to many of the islands, and to the regions around
the Ægean Sea; also to Thrace." (Ibid., p. 155.)

Poseidon, or Neptune, is represented in Greek mythology as a sea-god;
but he is figured as standing in a war-chariot drawn by horses. The
association of the horse (a land animal) with a sea-god is inexplicable,
except with the light given by Plato. Poseidon was a sea-god because he
ruled over a great land in the sea, and was the national god of a
maritime people; he is associated with horses, because in Atlantis the
horse was first domesticated; and, as Plato shows, the Atlanteans had
great race-courses for the development of speed in horses; and Poseidon
is represented as standing in a war-chariot, because doubtless wheeled
vehicles were first invented by the same people who tamed the horse; and
they transmitted these war-chariots to their descendants from Egypt to
Britain. We know that horses were the favorite objects chosen for
sacrifice to Poseidon by the nations of antiquity within the Historical
Period; they were killed, and cast into the sea from high precipices.
The religious horse-feasts of the pagan Scandinavians were a survival of
this Poseidon-worship, which once prevailed along all the coasts of
Europe; they continued until the conversion of the people to
Christianity, and were then suppressed by the Church with great
difficulty.

We find in Plato's narrative the names of some of the Phœnician deities
among the kings of Atlantis. Where did the Greek, Plato, get these names
if the story is a fable?

Does Plato, in speaking of "the fruits having a hard rind, affording
drinks and meats and ointments," refer to the cocoa nut?

Again: Plato tells us that Atlantis abounded in both cold and hot
springs. How did he come to hit upon the hot springs if he was drawing a
picture from his imagination? It is a singular confirmation of his story
that hot springs abound in the Azores, which are the surviving fragments
of Atlantis; and an experience wider than that possessed by Plato has
taught scientific men that hot springs are a common feature of regions
subject to volcanic convulsions.

Plato tells us, "The whole country was very lofty and precipitous on the
side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the
city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended
toward the sea." One has but to look at the profile of the "Dolphin's
Ridge," as revealed by the deep-sea soundings of the Challenger, given
as the frontispiece to this volume, to see that this is a faithful
description of that precipitous elevation. "The surrounding mountains,"
which sheltered the plain from the north, are represented in the present
towering peaks of the Azores.

Plato tells us that the destruction of Atlantis filled the sea with mud,
and interfered with navigation. For thousands of years the ancients
believed the Atlantic Ocean to be "a muddy, shallow, dark, and misty
sea, Mare tenebrosum." ("Cosmos," vol. ii., p. 151.)

The three-pronged sceptre or trident of Poseidon reappears constantly in
ancient history. We find it in the hands of Hindoo gods, and at the base
of all the religious beliefs of antiquity.

"Among the numerals the sacred three has ever been considered the mark
of perfection, and was therefore exclusively ascribed to the Supreme
Deity, or to its earthly representative--a king, emperor, or any
sovereign. For this reason triple emblems of various shapes are found on
the belts, neckties, or any encircling fixture, as can be seen on the
works of ancient art in Yucatan, Guatemala, Chiapas, Mexico, etc.,
whenever the object has reference to divine supremacy." (Dr. Arthur
Schott, "Smith. Rep.," 1869, p. 391.)

We are reminded of the, "tiara," and the "triple round of sovereignty."

In the same manner the ten kingdoms of Atlantis are perpetuated in all
the ancient traditions.

"In the number given by the Bible for the Antediluvian patriarchs we
have the first instance of a striking agreement with the traditions of
various nations. Ten are mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Other
nations, to whatever epoch they carry back their ancestors, whether
before or after the Deluge, whether the mythical or historical character
prevail, they are constant to this sacred number ten, which some have
vainly attempted to connect with the speculations of later religious
philosophers on the mystical value of numbers. In Chaldea, Berosus
enumerates ten Antediluvian kings whose fabulous reign extended to
thousands of years. The legends of the Iranian race commence with the.
reign of ten Peisdadien (Poseidon?) kings, 'men of the ancient law, who
lived on pure Homa (water of life)' (nectar?), 'and who preserved their
sanctity.' In India we meet with the nine Brahmadikas, who, with Brahma,
their founder, make ten, and who are called the Ten Petris, or Fathers.
The Chinese count ten emperors, partakers of the divine nature, before
the dawn of historical times. The Germans believed in the ten ancestors
of Odin, and the Arabs in the ten mythical kings of the Adites."
(Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the East," vol. i., p. 13.)

The story of Plato finds confirmation from other sources.

An extract preserved in Proclus, taken from a work now lost, which is
quoted by Boeckh in his commentary on Plato, mentions islands in the
exterior sea, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and says it was known that
in one of these islands "the inhabitants preserved from their ancestors
a remembrance of Atlantis, all extremely large island, which for a long
time held dominion over all the islands of the Atlantic Ocean."

Ælian, in his "Varia Historia" (book iii., chap. xviii.), tells us that
Theopompus (400 B.C.) related the particulars of an interview between
Midas, King of Phrygia, and Silenus, in which Silenus reported the
existence of a great continent beyond the Atlantic, "larger than Asia,
Europe, and Libya together." He stated that a race of men called Meropes
dwelt there, and had extensive cities. They were persuaded that their
country alone was a continent. Out of curiosity some of them crossed the
ocean and visited the Hyperboreans.

"The Gauls possessed traditions upon the subject of Atlantis which were
collected by the Roman historian Timagenes, who lived in the first
century before Christ. He represents that three distinct people dwelt in
Gaul: 1. The indigenous population, which I suppose to be Mongoloids,
who had long dwelt in Europe; 2. The invaders from a distant island,
which I understand to be Atlantis; 3. The Aryan Gauls." ("Preadamites,"
p. 380.)

Marcellus, in a work on the Ethiopians, speaks of seven islands lying in
the Atlantic Ocean--probably the Canaries--and the inhabitants of these
islands, he says, preserve the memory of a much greater island,
Atlantis, "which had for a long time exercised dominion over the smaller
ones." (Didot Müller, "Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum," vol. iv., p.
443.)

Diodorus Siculus relates that the Phœnicians discovered "a large island
in the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, several days'
sail from the coast of Africa. This island abounded in all manner of
riches. The soil was exceedingly fertile; the scenery was diversified by
rivers, mountains, and forests. It was the custom of the inhabitants to
retire during the summer to magnificent country-houses, which stood in
the midst of beautiful gardens. Fish and game were found in great
abundance; the climate was delicious, and the trees bore fruit at all
seasons of the year." Homer, Plutarch, and other ancient writers mention
islands situated in the Atlantic, "several thousand stadia from the
Pillars of Hercules." Silenus tells Midas that there was another
continent besides Europe, Asia, and Africa--"a country where gold and
silver are so plentiful that they are esteemed no more than we esteem
iron." St. Clement, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, says that there
were other worlds beyond the ocean.

Attention may here be called to the extraordinary number of instances in
which allusion is made in the Old Testament to the "islands of the sea,"
especially in Isaiah and Ezekiel. What had an inland people, like the
Jews, to do with seas and islands? Did these references grow out of
vague traditions linking their race with "islands in the sea?"

The Orphic Argonaut sings of the division of the ancient Lyktonia into
separate islands. He says," When the dark-haired Poseidon, in anger with
Father Kronion, struck Lyktonia with the golden trident."

Plato states that the Egyptians told Solon that the destruction of
Atlantis occurred 9000 years before that date, to wit, about 9600 years
before the Christian era. This looks like an extraordinarily long period
of time, but it must be remembered that geologists claim that the
remains of man found in the caves of Europe date back 500,000 years; and
the fossil Calaveras skull was found deep under the base of Table
Mountain, California, the whole mountain having been formed since the
man to whom it belonged lived and died.

"M. Oppert read an essay at the Brussels Congress to show, from the
astronomical observations of the Egyptians and Assyrians, that 11,542
years before our era man existed on the earth at such a stage of
civilization as to be able to take note of astronomical phenomena, and
to calculate with considerable accuracy the length of the year. The
Egyptians, says he, calculated by cycles of 1460 years--zodiacal cycles,
as they were called. Their year consisted of 365 days, which caused them
to lose one day in every four solar years, and, consequently, they would
attain their original starting-point again only after 1460 years (365 x
4). Therefore, the zodiacal cycle ending in the year 139 of our era
commenced in the year 1322 B.C. On the other hand, the Assyrian cycle
was 1805 years, or 22,325 lunations. An Assyrian cycle began 712 B.C.
The Chaldeans state that between the Deluge and their first historic
dynasty there was a period of 39,180 years. Now, what means, this
number? It stands for 12 Egyptian zodiacal cycles plus 12 Assyrian lunar
cycles.

+--------------------+----------+
| 12 X 1460 = 17,520 | |
+--------------------+----------+
| | = 39,180 |
+--------------------+----------+
| 12 X 1805 = 21,660 | |
+--------------------+----------+

"These two modes of calculating time are in agreement with each other,
and were known simultaneously to one people, the Chaldeans. Let us now
build up the series of both cycles, starting from our era, and the
result will be as follows:

+-----------------+--------------+
| Zodiacal Cycle. | Lunar Cycle. |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 1,460 | 1,805 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 1,822 | 712 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| _____ | _____ |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 2,782 | 2,517 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 4,242 | 4,322 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 5,702 | 6,127 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 7,162 | 7,932 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 8,622 | 9,737 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 110,082 | 11,542 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 11,542 | |
+-----------------+--------------+

"At the year 11,542 B.C. the two cycles came together, and consequently
they had on that year their common origin in one and the same
astronomical observation."

That observation was probably made in Atlantis.

The wide divergence of languages which is found to exist among the
Atlanteans at the beginning of the Historical Period implies a vast
lapse of time. The fact that the nations of the Old World remembered so
little of Atlantis, except the colossal fact of its sudden and
overwhelming destruction, would also seem to remove that event into a
remote past.

Herodotus tells us that he learned from the Egyptians that Hercules was
one of their most ancient deities, and that he was one of the twelve
produced from the eight gods, 17,000 years before the reign of Amasis.

In short, I fail to see why this story of Plato, told as history,
derived from the Egyptians, a people who, it is known, preserved most
ancient records, and who were able to trace their existence back to a
vast antiquity, should have been contemptuously set aside as a fable by
Greeks, Romans, and the modern world. It can only be because our
predecessors, with their limited knowledge of the geological history of
the world, did not believe it possible that any large part of the
earth's surface could have been thus suddenly swallowed up by the sea.

Let us then first address ourselves to that question.

CHAPTER IV.

WAS SUCH A CATASTROPHE POSSIBLE?

All that is needed to answer this question is to briefly refer to some
of the facts revealed by the study of geology.

In the first place, the earth's surface is a record of successive
risings and fallings of the land. The accompanying picture represents a
section of the anthracite coal-measures of Pennsylvania. Each of the
coal deposits here shown, indicated by the black lines, was created when
the land had risen sufficiently above the sea to maintain vegetation;
each of the strata of rock, many of them hundreds of feet in thickness,
was deposited under water. Here we have twenty-three different changes
of the level of the land during the formation of 2000 feet of rock and
coal; and these changes took place over vast areas, embracing thousands
of square miles.

All the continents which now exist were, it is well understood, once,
under water, and the rocks of which they are composed were deposited
beneath the water; more than this, most of the rocks so deposited were
the detritus or washings of other continents, which then stood where the
oceans now roll, and whose mountains and plains were ground down by the
action of volcanoes and earthquakes, and frost, ice, wind, and rain, and
washed into the sea, to form the rocks upon which the nations now dwell;
so that we have changed the conditions of land and water: that which is
now continent was once sea, and that which is now sea was formerly
continent. There can be no question that the Australian Archipelago is
simply the mountain-tops of a drowned continent, which once reached from
India to South America. Science has gone so far as to even give it a
name; it is called "Lemuria," and here, it is claimed, the human race
originated. An examination of the geological formation of our Atlantic
States proves beyond a doubt, from the manner in which the sedimentary
rocks, the sand, gravel, and mud--aggregating a thickness of 45,000
feet--are deposited, that they came from the north and east. "They
represent the detritus of pre-existing lands, the washings of rain,
rivers, coast-currents, and other agencies of erosion; and since the
areas supplying the waste could scarcely have been of less extent than
the new strata it formed, it is reasonably inferred that land masses of
continental magnitude must have occupied the region now covered by the
North Atlantic before America began to be, and onward at least through
the palæozoic ages of American history. The proof of this fact is that
the great strata of rocks are thicker the nearer we approach their
source in the east: the maximum thickness of the palæozoic rocks of the
Appalachian formation is 25,000 to 35,000 feet in Pennsylvania and
Virginia, while their minimum thickness in Illinois and Missouri is from
3000 to 4000 feet; the rougher and grosser-textured rocks predominate in
the east, while the farther west we go the finer the deposits were of
which the rocks are composed; the finer materials were carried farther
west by the water." ("New Amer. Cyclop.," art. Coal.)

DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII

The history of the growth of the European Continent, as recounted by
Professor Geikie, gives an instructive illustration of the relations of
geology to geography. The earliest European land, he says, appears to
have existed in the north and north-west, comprising Scandinavia,
Finland, and the northwest of the British area, and to have extended
thence through boreal and arctic latitudes into North America. Of the
height and mass of this primeval land some idea may be formed by
considering the enormous bulk of the material derived from its
disintegration. In the Silurian formations of the British Islands alone
there is a mass of rock, worn from the land, which would form a
mountain-chain extending from Marseilles to the North Cape (1800 miles),
with a mean breadth of over thirty-three miles, and an average height of
16,000 feet.

As the great continent which stood where the Atlantic Ocean now is wore
away, the continents of America and Europe were formed; and there seems
to have been from remote times a continuous rising, still going on, of
the new lands, and a sinking of the old ones. Within five thousand
years, or since the age of the "polished stone," the shores of Sweden,
Denmark, and Norway have risen from 200 to 600 feet.

Professor Winchell says ("The Preadamites," p. 437):

"We are in the midst of great, changes, and are scarcely conscious of
it. We have seen worlds in flames, and have felt a cornet strike the
earth. We have seen the whole coast of South America lifted up bodily
ten or fifteen feet and let down again in an hour. We have seen the
Andes sink 220 feet in seventy years. . . Vast transpositions have taken
place in the coast-line of China. The ancient capital, located, in all
probability, in an accessible position near the centre of the empire,
has now become nearly surrounded by water, and its site is on the
peninsula of Corea. . . . There was a time when the rocky barriers of
the Thracian Bosphorus gave way and the Black Sea subsided. It had
covered a vast area in the north and east. Now this area became drained,
and was known as the ancient Lectonia: it is now the prairie region of
Russia, and the granary of Europe."

There is ample geological evidence that at one time the entire area of
Great Britain was submerged to the depth of at least seventeen hundred
feet. Over the face of the submerged land was strewn thick beds of sand,
gravel, and clay, termed by geologists "the Northern Drift." The British
Islands rose again from the sea, bearing these water-deposits on their
bosom. What is now Sicily once lay deep beneath the sea: A subsequently
rose 3000 feet above the sea-level. The Desert of Sahara was once under
water, and its now burning sands are a deposit of the sea.

Geologically speaking, the submergence of Atlantis, within the
historical period, was simply the last of a number of vast changes, by
which the continent which once occupied the greater part of the Atlantic
had gradually sunk under the ocean, while the new lands were rising on
both sides of it.

We come now to the second question, Is it possible that Atlantis could
have been suddenly destroyed by such a convulsion of nature as is
described by Plato? The ancients regarded this part of his story as a
fable. With the wider knowledge which scientific research has afforded
the modern world, we can affirm that such an event is not only possible,
but that the history of even the last two centuries has furnished us
with striking parallels for it. We now possess the record of numerous
islands lifted above the waters, and others sunk beneath the waves,
accompanied by storms and earthquakes similar to those which marked the
destruction of Atlantis.

In 1783 Iceland was visited by convulsions more tremendous than any
recorded in the modern annals of that country. About a month previous to
the eruption on the main-land a submarine volcano burst forth in the
sea, at a distance of thirty miles from the shore. It ejected so much
pumice that the sea was covered with it for a distance of 150 miles, and
ships were considerably impeded in their course. A new island was thrown
up, consisting of high cliffs, which was claimed by his Danish Majesty,
and named "Nyöe," or the New Island; but before a year had elapsed it
sunk beneath the sea, leaving a reef of rocks thirty fathoms under water.

The earthquake of 1783 in Iceland destroyed 9000 people out of a
population of 50,000; twenty villages were consumed by fire or inundated
by water, and a mass of lava thrown out "greater than the entire bulk of
Mont Blanc."

On the 8th of October, 1822, a great earthquake occurred on the island
of Java, near the mountain of Galung Gung. "A loud explosion was heard,
the earth shook, and immense columns of hot water and boiling mud, mixed
with burning brimstone, ashes, and lapilli, of the size of nuts, were
projected from the mountain like a water-spout, with such prodigious
violence that large quantities fell beyond the river Tandoi, which is
forty miles distant. . . . The first eruption lasted nearly five hours;
and on the following days the rain fell ill torrents, and the rivers,
densely charged with mud, deluged the country far and wide. At the end
of four days (October 12th), a second eruption occurred, more violent
than the first, in which hot water and mud were again vomited, and great
blocks of basalt were thrown to the distance of seven miles from the
volcano. There was at the same time a violent earthquake, the face of
the mountain was utterly changed, its summits broken down, and one side,
which had been covered with trees, became an enormous gulf in the form
of a semicircle. Over 4000 persons were killed and 114 villages
destroyed." (Lyell's "Principles of Geology," p. 430.)

In 1831 a new island was born in the Mediterranean, near the coast of
Sicily. It was called Graham's Island. It came up with an earthquake,
and "a water-spout sixty feet high and eight hundred yards in
circumference rising from the sea." In about a month the island was two
hundred feet high and three miles in circumference; it soon, however,
stink beneath the sea.

The Canary Islands were probably a part of the original empire of
Atlantis. On the 1st of September, 1730, the earth split open near Year,
in the island of Lancerota. In one night a considerable hill of ejected
matter was thrown up; in a few days another vent opened and gave out a
lava stream which overran several villages. It flowed at first rapidly,
like water, but became afterward heavy and slow, like honey. On the 11th
of September more lava flowed out, covering up a village, and
precipitating itself with a horrible roar into the sea. Dead fish
floated on the waters in indescribable multitudes, or were thrown dying
on the shore; the cattle throughout the country dropped lifeless to the
ground, suffocated by putrid vapors, which condensed and fell down in
drops. These manifestations were accompanied by a storm such as the
people of the country had never known before. These dreadful commotions
lasted for five years. The lavas thrown out covered one-third of the
whole island of Lancerota.

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