upon the proposition to dig a tunnel from Dover to Calais, as a source of danger, a means of invasion, a threat; and at the end of the island, where the ridge is united to it, they did what England will probably do at the end of the Dover tunnel: they erected fortifications and built a castle, and in it they put a ruler, possibly a sub-king, Heimdal, who constantly, from a high lookout, possibly with a field-glass, watches the coming of the turbulent Goths, or Gauls, or Gael, from afar off. Doubtless the white-headed and red-headed, hungry, breekless savages had the same propensity to invade the civilized, wealthy land, that their posterity had to descend on degenerate Rome. The word _Asas_ is not, as some have supposed, derived from Asia. Asia is derived from the _Asas_. The word _Asas_ comes from a Norse word, still in use in Norway, _Aas_, meaning _a ridge of high land_.[1] Anderson thinks there is some connection between _Aas_, the high ridge, the mountain elevation, and _Atlas_, who held the world on his shoulders. The _Asas_, then, were the civilized race who inhabited a high, precipitous country, the meeting-point of a number of ridges. Atlas was the king, or god, of Atlantis. In the old time all kings were gods. They are something more than men, to the multitude, even yet. And when we reach "Ragnarok" in these Gothic legends, when the jaw of the wolf Fenris reached from the earth to the sun, and he vomits fire and poison, and when Surt, and all the forces of Muspel, "ride over Bifrost, _it breaks to pieces_." That is to say, in this last great catastrophe of the earth, the ridge of land that led from the British Islands to Atlantis goes down for ever. [1. The Younger Edda," Anderson, note, p. 226.] {p. 383} And in Plato's description of Atlantis, as received by Solon from the Egyptian priests, we read: "There was an island" (Atlantis) "situated in front of the straits which you call the Columns of Hercules; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and _was the way to other islands_, and from the islands _you might pass through the whole of the opposite continent_," (America,) "which surrounds the true ocean." Now this is not very clear, but it may signify that there was continuous land communication between Atlantis and the islands of the half-submerged ridge, and from the islands to the continent of America. It would seem to mean more than a passage-way by boats over the water, for that existed everywhere, and could be traversed in any direction. I have quoted on p. 372, _ante_, in the last chapter, part of the Sanskrit legend of Adima and Héva, as preserved in the Bagaveda-Gita, and other sacred books of the Hindoos. It refers very distinctly to the bridge which united the island-home of primeval humanity with the rest of the earth. But there is more of it: When, under the inspiration of the prince of demons, Adima and Héva begin to wander, and desire to leave their island, we read: