FESTUS.
ATLANTIS:
THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.
PART I. THE HISTORY OF ATLANTIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK.
THIS book is an attempt to demonstrate several distinct and novel
propositions. These are:
1. That there once existed in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite the mouth
of the Mediterranean Sea, a large island, which was the remnant of an
Atlantic continent, and known to the ancient world as Atlantis.
2. That the description of this island given by Plato is not, as has
been long supposed, fable, but veritable history.
3. That Atlantis was the region where man first rose from a state of
barbarism to civilization.
4. That it became, in the course of ages, a populous and mighty
nation, from whose overflowings the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the
Mississippi River, the Amazon, the Pacific coast of South America, the
Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the Baltic, the
Black Sea, and the Caspian were populated by civilized nations.
5. That it was the true Antediluvian world; the Garden of Eden; the
Gardens of the Hesperides; the Elysian Fields;
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the Gardens of Alcinous; the Mesomphalos; the Olympos; the Asgard of
the traditions of the ancient nations; representing a universal memory
of a great land, where early mankind dwelt for ages in peace and
happiness.
6. That the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, the Phœnicians,
the Hindoos, and the Scandinavians were simply the kings, queens, and
heroes of Atlantis; and the acts attributed to them in mythology are a
confused recollection of real historical events.
7. That the mythology of Egypt and Peru represented the original
religion of Atlantis, which was sun-worship.
8. That the oldest colony formed by the Atlanteans was probably in
Egypt, whose civilization was a reproduction of that of the Atlantic
island.
9. That the implements of the "Bronze Age" of Europe were derived
from Atlantis. The Atlanteans were also the first manufacturers of iron.
10. That the Phœnician alphabet, parent of all the European
alphabets, was derived from au Atlantis alphabet, which was also
conveyed from Atlantis to the Mayas of Central America.
11. That Atlantis was the original seat of the Aryan or Indo-European
family of nations, as well as of the Semitic peoples, and possibly also
of the Turanian races.
12. That Atlantis perished in a terrible convulsion of nature, in
which the whole island sunk into the ocean, with nearly all its
inhabitants.
13. That a few persons escaped in ships and on rafts, and, carried to
the nations east and west the tidings of the appalling catastrophe,
which has survived to our own time in the Flood and Deluge legends of
the different nations of the old and new worlds.
If these propositions can be proved, they will solve many problems
which now perplex mankind; they will confirm in
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many respects the statements in the opening chapters of Genesis; they
will widen the area of human history; they will explain the remarkable
resemblances which exist between the ancient civilizations found upon
the opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean, in the old and new worlds;
and they will aid us to rehabilitate the fathers of our civilization,
our blood, and our fundamental ideas-the men who lived, loved, and
labored ages before the Aryans descended upon India, or the Phœnician
had settled in Syria, or the Goth had reached the shores of the Baltic.
The fact that the story of Atlantis was for thousands of years
regarded as a fable proves nothing. There is an unbelief which grows out
of ignorance, as well as a scepticism which is born of intelligence. The
people nearest to the past are not always those who are best informed
concerning the past.
For a thousand years it was believed that the legends of the buried
cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were myths: they were spoken of as
"the fabulous cities." For a thousand years the educated world did not
credit the accounts given by Herodotus of the wonders of the ancient
civilizations of the Nile and of Chaldea. He was called "the father of
liars." Even Plutarch sneered at him. Now, in the language of Frederick
Schlegel, "the deeper and more comprehensive the researches of the
moderns have been, the more their regard and esteem for Herodotus has
increased." Buckle says, "His minute information about Egypt and Asia
Minor is admitted by all geographers."
There was a time when the expedition sent out by Pharaoh Necho to
circumnavigate Africa was doubted, because the explorers stated that
after they had progressed a certain distance the sun was north of them;
this circumstance, which then aroused suspicion, now proves to us that
the Egyptian navigators had really passed the equator, and anticipated
by 2100 years Vasquez de Gama in his discovery of the Cape of Good Hope.
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If I succeed in demonstrating the truth of the somewhat startling
propositions with which I commenced this chapter, it will only be by
bringing to bear upon the question of Atlantis a thousand converging
lines of light from a multitude of researches made by scholars in
different fields of modern thought. Further investigations and
discoveries will, I trust, confirm the correctness of the conclusions at
which I have
