A LOST CONTINENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 27 (Supplement)

A LOST CONTINENT

BY KOTARE

ATLANTIS

The lost continent of Atlantis hfts proved in all ages a fertile seed-bed for the imagination. Was there once a vast island continent lying close to the western frontiers of Europe? Was it occupied by a race of transcendent intellectual power, whose infiltration into Europe and Africa and America gave us the foundation of all our culture? Was it overwhelmed in some stupendous cataclysm which has left only a few island peaks to toll of the glory and strength that once dominated the world?

The changes in tho land-masses of the globe have been insignificant in historical times, sinco man,' the recorder, came late upon the scene. But those that can read tho record of the rocks can tell of readjustments and disappearances of huge areas of land that once seemed as securely established as any of our continents to-day. The study of the flora and fauna of lands widely separated to-day confirms the judgment of tho geologist. New Zealand, for example, has had a land connection in comparatively recent times with the Antarctic and tho Malayan continents. But the Atlantis catastrophe is presumed to have occurred since man appeared, and to have left records in tho memories of survivors which are retained to-day in the traditional folklore of peoples in all parts of the earth. Some have reconstructed from this vague material the political constitution of the Atlantean state, the splendour of its culture, its moral decay and the final disaster that submerged the land and all its tense eager life in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlanteans John Masefield pictures the life of Atlantis as finer, more intellectual, more triumphant than ours. In some green island of the sea "Where now the shadowy coral grows. In pride and pomp and empery The courts of Old Atlantis rose. In many a glittering house of glass The Atlanteans wandered there; The paleness of their faces was Like ivory, so pale they were. There were no sounds in their bright cities. Thoughts were communicated without speech; only their thoughts like golden birds about their chambers trilled and sang. They knew all wisdom, he says; they knew all beauty. And though the greedy seas have drowned all the glittering walls and towers, the beauty they found and lived, the great thoughts that were their daily companions, have entered into the spiritual heritage of the world. That beauty and wisdom still float through the earth, and the poet in_ his hour of vision tunes in to tho ancient yet living glory. But at the falling of the tide The golden birds still sing and gleam; The Atlanteans have not died, Immortal things still give us dream. William Blake was firmly convinced that Britain was part of old Atlantis. He embodied that idea in the most famous of his lyrics, the so-called " Jerusalem " song he inserted in his prophetic book " Milton." All the world's wisdom came from ancient Britain. The Jews and all their culture were developed in England's green and pleasant land. They have been exiled, first in Palestine, and later throughout the world, for many centuries now, but they will all return ultimately to England, and Jerusalem will be built again on English soil. It has been a long way round, hut it will lead back homg at last. And that is what we subscribe to when we sing I will not cease from mental fight Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land. Plato The first authoritative reference to Atlantis in the surviving literature of the world is in Plato's dialogue " Timaeus." Socrates is debating with three of his friends. Critias reminds the master of the strange stories the sage Solon had been told in Egypt by somo of the inner circle of Egyptian priests. The Egyptian records, the priests informed him, reported a devastating earthquake and flood which wiped off the map the great island of Atlantis, once situated just beyond the Pillars of Hercules and as large as Libya and Asia together. "On Atlantis there reigned kings of formidable power who not only controlled all their own vast island, but also extended their dominion to all the adjacent islands and to a considerable portion of Europe and Africa." They fought against Egypt and the Athenians. Athens had just repelled a specially menacing invasion when a terrible earthquake, followed by a tidal .wave, blotted out Atlantis in the west and almost annihilated Europe. Socrates commented that the story Critias had told must not be regarded as an old wives' fable, but as genuine history. But the mero legends of priests of the ancient world, even though Socrates and Plato accepted them, do not carry conviction to the modern mind. It is necessary, however, to» distinguish the fact of Atlantis from tho traditional descriptions of the Atlanteans. Along several lines of scientific investigation there are problems that can be met most satisfactorily by postulating tho existence in comparatively modern times of a largo land-mass between Europe and Africa on the east and tho Americas in the west. The British official survey of the Atlantic bed discovered signs of violent volcanic action, and traced the outline of mountains and valleys that suggested the subsidence en masse of a vast land area. Mr. Edward Forrest's " The Atlantean Continent," published a few months ago, decides that the existence of similar shellfish and fresh-water fish in both Europe and America can be explained onlv on the assumption that once the continents had a land connection. He thinks, too. that the great ice age in Europe can he explained onlv by the presence of a. very lofty range of mountains to the north-west of Europe, where the tremendous ice masses were formed and from which they moved by gravity down to the lower levels of Northern Europe. Some Problems In the anthropological field some explanation lias to be found for the similarities of cultures in tho east and the west —tho obvious kinship between the religion,s beliefs and practices of Egypt and Central America. A land connection across tho Atlantic, if there is no certain scientific evidence against it, would solve many of these apparently insoluble problems. Then there are plants like the banana, which are tho result of intensive artificial culture of a valueless wild stock, and which are found in both Africa and America. The horse evolved in America became extinct and was reintroduced from Europe. How did it got from America to Europe in the first place? Even tho little lemming, pressing westward by somo inherited instinct, may be called on to give its testimony. Across Scandinavia tho lemmings march in their myriads at certain definite periods. They take hill nnd valley in their resistless progress. Nothing can turn them aside. They reach the sea and without hesitation take to tho water and swim out nnd out till the North Sea has engulfed them. Did their ancestors know of lands to the west within swimming distance? Under that ancestral urge are they driven to find death where once were land and life? Once, it is thought, there was a westward

land (Now drowned) where there was food for those stm-ved thintrs. And memory of the place has burned its brand . , In the little brains ol all the Lemming kings.