But an apparently insignificant object in the same department aroused far greater interest among my companions. Carefully guarded under a glass cover, where it had evidently undergone some special process of preservation, was a flat, little rectangle of some shrivelled brownish substance, which upon close scrutiny I took to be tobacco! That my guess had been correct was demonstrated by a placard that accompanied the exhibit: “This is a fragment of a narcotic imported into old Atlantis from across the western ocean. It found high favor at one time among the women of the country, and to a lesser extent among the men, although its use was considered a mark of effeminacy. There were several common ways of absorbing this drug, the most popular being to ignite it and suck the smoke into the lungs by means of a little twisted tube. Happily, this disgusting habit has long ago disappeared, and the elimination of this plant at the time of the Good Destruction is not the least of the benefits conferred by Agripides.” I am afraid that few of my companions agreed with the latter statement. They cast longing glances in the direction of the tobacco; and, had it not been safely guarded beneath glass, its career would surely have ended then and there. With the memory of the tobacco still rankling in our minds, we were escorted into what was known as the “Department of Human Evolution.” Here was depicted the rise of man from the lowest savage state to the height of present-day Atlantis. A series of skeletons indicated the gradual transformation from a broad-boned, ape-like thing to a big-skulled modern--and, to my great surprise, the large cranial capacity was represented as belonging almost exclusively to the aboriginal and Post-Submergence eras! * * * * *