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 32 ATLANTIS surface waters is not steady in any direction, and hence the floating sea- weed tends to accumulate there. This accumulation is perhaps most ob- servable in the triangular region marked out by the Azores, the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands, but much seaweed is also found to the west- ward of the middle part of this region in an elongated area extending to the 7oth meridian. The abundance of seaweed in the Sargasso Sea fluctuates much with the variation of the agencies which account for its presence, but this Office does not possess any authentic records to show that it has ever materially impeded vessels. 32 Perhaps these statements are influenced by present or recent conditions. It is obvious that giant ropelike seaweeds in masses would more than materially impede the action of the galley oars, which were the main reliance in time of calm of the ancient and medieval navigators. Also it is hardly to be believed that small sailing vessels could freely drive through them with an ordinary wind. If the weeds were so unobstructive, why all these com- plaints and warnings out of remote centuries? In the days of powerful steamships and when the skippers of sailing vessels have learned what area of sea it is best to avoid, there may well be a lack of formal reports of impediment; but it certainly looks as though there were some basis for the long established ill repute of the Sargasso Sea. SUMMARY For the genesis of Atlantis we have then, first, the great idealist philosopher Plato minded to compose an instructive pseudo- historical romance of statesmanship and war and actually making a beginning of the task; and, secondly, the fragmentary cues and suggestive data which came to him out of tradition and mariners' tales, perhaps in part through Solon and intervening transmit- ters, in part more directly to himself. Of this material we may name foremost the vague knowledge of vast impeded regions in the Atlantic believed to be shallow and requiring a physical ex- planation; then rumors of cataclysms and sunken lands in the same ocean; then legends of ancient hostilities between dwellers 82 Reprint of Hydrographic Information: Questions and Answers, No. 2, June 2, 1910, Hydrographic Office, Washington, D. C., p. 17.