Both illustrations at the bottom of the preceding page show the same receding form of the forehead, due to either artificial deformation of the skull or to a common race characteristic. We must add the fact that the extraordinary practice of deforming the skull was found all over Europe and America to the catalogue of other proofs that the people of both continents were originally united in blood and race. With the couvade, the practice of circumcision, unity of religious beliefs and customs, folk-lore, and alphabetical signs, language and flood legends, we array together a mass of unanswerable proofs of prehistoric identity of race. PART IV. THE MYTHOLOGIES OF THE OLD WORLD A RECOLLECTION OF ATLANTIS. CHAPTER I. TRADITIONS OF ATLANTIS. We find allusions to the Atlanteans in the most ancient traditions of many different races. The great antediluvian king of the Mussulman was Shedd-Ad-Ben-Ad, or Shed-Ad, the son of Ad, or Atlantis. Among the Arabians the first inhabitants of that country are known as the Adites, from their progenitor, who is called Ad, the grandson of Ham. These Adites were probably the people of Atlantis or Ad-lantis. "They are personified by a monarch to whom everything is ascribed, and to whom is assigned several centuries of life." ("Ancient History of the East," Lenormant and Chevallier, vol. ii., p. 295.), Ad came from the northeast. "He married a thousand wives, had four thousand sons, and lived twelve hundred years. His descendants multiplied considerably. After his death his sons Shadid and Shedad reigned in succession over the Adites. In the time of the latter the people of Ad were a thousand tribes, each composed of several thousands of men. Great conquests are attributed to Shedad; he subdued, it is said, all Arabia and Irak. The migration of the Canaanites, their establishment in Syria, and the Shepherd invasion of Egypt are, by many Arab writers, attributed to an expedition of Shedad." (Ibid., p. 296.) Shedad built a palace ornamented with superb columns, and surrounded by a magnificent garden. It was called Irem. "It was a paradise that Shedad had built in imitation of the celestial Paradise, of whose delights he had heard." ("Ancient History of the East," p. 296.) In other words, an ancient, sun-worshipping, powerful, and conquering race overran Arabia at the very dawn of history; they were the sons of Adlantis: their king tried to create a palace and garden of Eden like that of Atlantis.