Page:Atlantis - The Antediluvian World (1882).djvu/492

474 The fact that the same opinions and customs exist on both sides of the ocean implies identity of origin; it might be argued that the fact that the explanation of many customs existing on both hemispheres is to be found only in America, implies that the primeval stock existed in America, the emigrating portion of the population carrying away the custom, but forgetting the reason for it. The fact that domestic cattle and the great cereals, wheat, oats, barley, and rye, are found in Europe and not in America, would imply that after population moved to Atlantis from America civilization was developed in Atlantis, and that in the later ages communication was closer and more constant between Atlantis and Europe than between Atlantis and America. In the case of the bulky domestic animals, it would be more difficult to transport them, in the open vessels of that day, from Atlantis across the wider expanse of sea to America, than it would be to carry them by way of the now submerged islands in front of the Mediterranean Sea to the coast of Spain. It may be, too, that the climate of Spain and Italy was better adapted to the growth of wheat, barley, oats and rye, than maize; while the drier atmosphere of America was better suited to the latter plant. Even now comparatively little wheat or barley is raised in Central America, Mexico, or Peru, and none on the low coasts of those countries; while a smaller quantity of maize, proportionately, is grown in Italy, Spain, and the rest of Western Europe, the rainy climate being unsuited to it. We have seen (p. 60, ante) that there is reason to believe that maize was known in a remote period in the drier regions of the Egyptians and Chinese.

As science has been able to reconstruct the history of the migrations of the Aryan race, by the words that exist or fail to appear in the kindred branches of that tongue, so the time will come when a careful comparison of words, customs, opinions, arts existing on the opposite sides of the Atlantic will furnish an approximate sketch of Atlantean history.

The people had attained a high position as agriculturists.