Page:Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx.djvu/33

 on Plato's Timæus," says: "The famous Atlantis exists no longer, but we can hardly doubt that it did once, for Marcellus, who wrote a history of Ethiopian affairs, says that such and so great an island once existed, and that it is evidenced by those who composed histories relative to the external sea, for they relate that in this time there were seven islands in the Atlantic sea sacred to Proserpine; and, besides these, three of immense magnitude, sacred to Pluto, Jupiter, and Neptune; and, besides this, the inhabitants of the last island (Poseidonis) preserve the memory of the prodigious magnitude of the Atlantic island as related by their ancestors, and of its governing for many periods all the islands in the Atlantic sea. From this isle one may pass to other large islands beyond, which are not far from the firm land near which is the true sea."

It is well to notice that, like all the Maya authors who have described the awful cataclysms that caused the submergence of the "Land of Mu," Proclus mentions the existence of ten countries or islands, as Plato did. Can this be a mere coincidence, or was it actual geographical knowledge on the part of these writers ?

Inquiries are often made as to the causes that led to the interruption of the communications between the inhabitants of the Western Continent and the dwellers on the coasts of the Mediterranean, after they had been renewed by the Carthaginians.

It is evident that the mud spoken of by the Egyptian priests had settled in the course of centuries, and that the seaweeds mentioned by Hamilco had ceased to be a barrier sufficient to impede the passage, since Carthaginians reached the shores of Yucatan at least five hundred years before the