Such advance in civilization, such elaboration of organization, such
splendor and power would certainly have overflowed abundantly on the
islands intervening between Atlantis and the continental shore. It
is not written that these all shared the same fate; and in point of
fact the Azores, Madeira and her consorts, the Canary Islands, and the
Cape Verde group are still in evidence. Some of them must have been
within fairly easy reach of Atlantis if Atlantis existed. There is no
indication that they have been newly created or have come up from below
since that time. Even allowing for great exaggeration and assuming
only a large and efficient population in a vast insular territory
without the ascribed superfluity of magnificence, such a people would
surely have left some kind of lasting memorial or relic beyond their
own borders. Nothing of the kind has ever been found either in these
islands of the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes or elsewhere in that part
of the earth.
The advocates of a real Atlantis try to pile up proofs of a great land
mass existing at some time in the Atlantic Ocean, a logical proceeding
so far as it goes but one that falls short of its mark, for the land
may have ascended and descended again ages before the reputed Atlantis
period. It is of no avail to demonstrate its presence in the Miocene,
Pliocene, or Pleistocene epoch, or, indeed, at any time prior to the
development of a well organized civilization among men, or, as Plato
apparently reasons, between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago. Also what is
wanted is evidence of the great island Atlantis, not of the former
seaward extension of some existing continent nor of any land bridge
spanning the ocean. It is true that such conditions might serve as
distant preliminaries for the production of Atlantis Island by the
breaking down and submergence of the intervening land; but this only
multiplies the cataclysms to be demonstrated and can have no real
relevance in the absence of proof of the island itself. The geologic
and geographic phenomena of pre-human ages are beside the question.
The tale to be investigated is of a flourishing insular growth of
artificial human society on a large scale, not so very many thousands
of years ago, evidently removed from all tradition of engulfment and
hence dreading it not at all but sending forth its conquering armies
until the final defeat and annihilating cataclysm.
TERMIER’S THEORY OF AN ANCIENT ATLANTIC CONTINENTAL MASS
Nevertheless, inquiries as to an ancient Atlantic continental mass
have an interest. We may cite a few of the recent outgivings. Termier
tells us of an east-and-west arrangement of elevated lands across the
Atlantic in earlier ages, as opposed to the present north-and-south
system of islands and raised folds. By the former there was
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