Spirit of the Press

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 4, 30 October 1931, Page 10

Spirit of the Press

LEGENDS EXPLODED OR OTHERWISE

has not yet yielded up all

her secrets. It cannot, for example, be stated beyond all doubt that Atlantis, the continent which Plato said used to exist in the middle of the Atlantic, is entirely a figment of mar’s imagination, though all the probabilities point to its being so. Whether it ever really had “a local habitation” or was merely “an insubstantial pageant” of the fancy, may be finally settled at some future date.

Meanwhile LI. M. S. Challenger’s expedition .north cf the Azores to seek for a shallow belt of water in the midst of a uniformly deep depression, near the spot where Atlantis traditionally sank beneath the waves, recalls other legends of antiquity concerning fabulous or semi-tabubus things and places, which even now have a possibility cf factual basis lingering about them.

Reluctantly, one has to give up the unicorn. Though a most learned and fascinating book has been 'written about him, we can regaid the unicorn, only in a mood cf affectionate incredulity. One const? ?tly comes across evidence of our ancestors’ belief in him. As late as 1789 a unicorn’s horn was used to test the ingredients in the food of the kings of France. He is a supporter of the royal arms of England and Scotland. He figures on the front p?ge of every issue of “The Times,” perhaps an even more exalted position. But even so no one has ever seen a unicorn. And it is at least reasonable to suppose that, in the moie than 2000 years during which accounts of the unicorn have been extart, someone would at some time have seen one somewhere, if he existed at all. It is the same with the phoenix ; but hardly with the sea serpent. This stand-by of the correspondence columns of the p?nny papers in the summer months may turn out to be

authentic at any moment. Most of the sea serpents that have been seen hitherto have indeed disappointingly changed into lines of porpoises, a flight of sea fowl, or even masses of seaweed, on closer inspection. But there are nevertheless one or two cases on record which this kind of explanation does not fit; and it is just remotely possible that we shall wake up one fine morning to find that, although Atlantis never was, and the phoenix and the unicorn are only amiable fictions, the real, genuine, 100 percent sea serpent has at last been discovered. Christian Science Monitor.