AROUND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 4

AROUND THE WORLD.

GOSSIP OF THE PORTS. LOST ATLANTIS. (By LEE-FORE-BRACE.) Every lover of the sea, landsmen and sailors, will be interested to hear that a scientific expedition is being organised by the Royal Geographical Society to seek for some tangible proof. of the xormer existence of the lost lands of the Atlantic, known as Atlantis. The belief that there was once a great continent of land lying in the middle of the North Atlantic has been current among sailormen from time immemorial, and the traditions, legends and folklore of the various nations bordering on the coasts of the Atlantic give a certain amount of proof that there is something in the story. The mystery of unexplored lands, what few there are that remain, sink into insignificance when compared with the apparently insoluble problems of the ocean, whose fastnesses can only be reached by the lead of the sounding machine, or the grappling irons of the cable ship. From time to time the various British, American and German societies have sent out expeditions to drag the bed of the Atlantic searching for the lost continent, but so far none have been successful. Legends of Lost Lands. The belief that the continents of Africa and America were once joined is accepted by scientists, but whether or not' this country was ever inhabited by a civilised race is a problem that has yet to be solved. For documentary evidence we have only a few fragmentary writings from the pens of the classical authors, but Muse are so intermingled with the mythology of their times that it is difficult to know when the fact begins and fiction ends. Added to these are the persistent legends of the west coast of Europe; from Spain to Ireland the coast traditions teem with stories of lost lands far out in the western ocean. In Spain and Portugal we have the lpcrpnd nf Anfilln +.lio Inaf lnn/-l fvnm tTrV»i'rtV»

In Spain and Portugal we have the legend of Antilla, the lost land from which the Antilles or the outer group of the West Indies take their name. These are regarded b many scientists as the remnants of the western part of the submerged continent. Long before the discovery of America, Antilla was marked on medieval charts as a large rectangular island lying in the vicinity of the thirtyfifth parallel of north latitude. In France we find legends of the lost land of Ys. In Cornwall the lost land is called Lyonnesse, but of greater importance is the Irish legend of St. Brandon's Isle, which tradition places to tlie northward of the Canaries. The island's namesake, St. Brandon, as history relates, spent many years in search of this elusive land, and even as late as the eighteenth century expeditions were fitted out f or its discovery. On the Atlantic's Wostern Shore. As might be expected, if any truth underlies the tradition of Atlantis, similar legends are to be found on the other side of the Atlantic, where the ancient civilised races on Mexico and Central America not only believed in the existence of land to the eastward, but in some cases, regarded it as their original home. By far the most interesting account of j Atlantis is to be found in Plato's "Critias," wherein is given a full descrip tion of the country, its people and their manners and customs. Considering thai Plato lived in about 6008.C., and the occurrences set forth in his narrative were dated 9000 years before that, due allowance must be made for its extreme antiquity. To thos6 of us who have read ■Plato's story there seems to be a certain I amount of truth in it, for he suggests that the facts were particularly suited to the requirements of a certain festival on account of its being truth and not fiction. Plato's story is a most remarkable instance of the survival of folk-memory, for the extreme remoteness of the period with which it deals makes it appear almost incredible that a tradition should live so long. Subsequent discoveries have, however, given us grounds to believe that it is at least founded on fact. In Plato's story the gods of the ancient Greeks play a very important part, but that in no way detracts from its interest; their remarkable doings at the siege of Troy fed many people to suppose that history to be a myth, but subsequent excavations have proved its authenticity.

Remnants of a Lost Race. The most convincing argument in favour of the theory that Atlantis was inhabited by a more or less civilised race lies in the evidence of the prehistoric remains that have been unearthed on the west coast of France and Spain. The appearance of the Cro-Magnon race, so called from the name of the French village where the discoveries were made, can only be accounted for by the supposition of an immigration from the westward. It is chiefly on this evidence that the Royal Geographical Society is organising the present expedition.

In a paper recently issued by tlie society are c'omplete particulars of these discoveries. An examination made by the scientist of the Royal Geographical Society on the human skeletons and coffin contents gives every indication of a people whose menta: and physical development must have been infinitely in advance of any other race living in Western Europe at that period. The fact that remains of a similar race, with similar grave contents have been excavated on the seaboard of the South American continent adds further support to the belief that the Cro-Magnous were of Atlantic origin. What makes the discoveries of special interest to lovers of the sea is the fact that exquisite models of pre-historic ships have been found in the graves. They are unlike anything else known, and the build of them at once tells the seaman that they were meant for deep water navigation.

Perhaps the most striking proof that there was at one time such a land as Atlantis is to be found in the Guancho aborigines of the Canary Islands, a race that has now ceased to exist as a distinct neople owing to the admixture of foreign blood. On the first appearance of the Spaniards in these islands they found a tall, fair race of people, who, in theiv primitive state, seem to have had all the characteristics of the Cro-Magnous. Their physical resemblance to the older race, as noted by the Spaniards, their methods of buryfiig their dead, and the contents of their graves, give every indication that they are of the same race as the CroMagnons, and modern scientists now believe that they were the last known remnants of the original Atlanteans. An inspection of a chart of the North Atlantic gives little evidence to show that deep down on the sea bottom lies the remains oi a great prehistoric civilisation. But then it must be remembered that right throughput the whole length and breadth of that mighty ocean only a little over three thousand deep sea soundings have been made, but if a careful inspection is made it will be noted that there is a mighty shallow from Greenland in the north, to a point about two hundred miles north of the R;ver Amazon. This great central plateau is known as the Dolphin Ridge, discovered by a ship of that name in 1825, when on one of the Atlantis expeditions. What happened to Atlantis, and the more modern evidence offering will be told h a later article.