Elisee Reclus, author of The Earth, a Descriptive History of the Phenomena of the Life of the Globe, and one of the highest authorities on physical geography, in speaking of an isthmus which once connected "the few clumps of mountains which formed, as it were, the rudiments of our Europe," with the American coast, also says:
This isthmus was the Atlantis, and the traditions which Plato speaks of about this vanished land were perhaps based upon authentic testimony. It is possible that man may have witnessed the submergence of this ancient continent, and that the Gunches of the Canary Islands were the direct descendants of the earliest inhabitants of this primeval land.[[12]]
I also commend to the reader a recent volume on the subject by Ignatius Donnelly, published by Harpers, 1898, under the title Atlantis, and while I do not accept all the theories advanced by the author with reference to Atlantis, I recognize the fact that he has collected a great amount of evidence tending to establish the existence and the subsidence of Plato's island-continent. Of course, for many ages Plato's story has been regarded as a fable, but, as Donnelly remarks, "there is an unbelief which grows out of ignorance, as well as a skepticism which is born of intelligence," and then he adds:
For a thousand years it was believed that the legends of the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were myths: they were spoken of as "the fabulous cities." For a thousand years the educated world did not credit the accounts given by Herodotus of the wonders of the ancient civilizations of the Nile and the Chaldae. He was called "the father of liars." Even Plutarch sneered at him. Now, in the language of Frederick Schlegal, "the deeper and more comprehensive the researches of the moderns have been, the more their regard and esteem for Herodotus has increased." Buckle says, "His minute information about Egypt and Asia Minor is admitted by all geographers." There was a time when the expedition sent out by Pharaoh Necho to circumnavigate Africa was doubted, because the sun was north of them; this circumstance, which then aroused suspicion, now proves to us that the Egyptian navigators had really passed the equator, and anticipated by 2,100 years Vasquez de Gama in his discovery of the Cape of Good Hope.[[13]]
It is not, however, upon the probability of the elevation and subsidence of this island-continent that I depend for support of my views with reference to the changes being considerable that have taken place in the western continents in comparatively modern times. There is enough evidence that is matter of record within recent years to establish the possibility of such changes having taken place. Le Conte, in his Compendium of Geology, says:
But great earthquakes are oftener associated with bodily movements of extensive areas of earth-crust. Thus, for example, in 1835, after a severe earthquake on the western coast of South America, it was found that the whole coast-line of Chili and Patagonia were raised from two to ten feet above sea-level. Again, in 1822, the same phenomenon was observed in the same region after a great earthquake. Again, in 1819, after a severe earthquake which shook the delta of the Indus, a tract of land fifty miles long and sixteen miles wide was raised ten feet, and an adjacent area of 2,000 square miles was sunk, and became a lagoon. In commemoration of the wonderful event the elevated tract was called "Ullah Bund," or "mound of God." Again, in 1811, a severe earthquake—perhaps the severest ever felt in the United States—shook the valley of the Mississippi. Coincidently with the shock, large areas of the river-swamp sank bodily, and have ever since been covered with water. In commemoration of the event, this area is still called the sunken country. In all these cases, probably, and in the last two certainly, there was a great fissure of the earth-crust, and a slipping of one side on the other.[[14]]
Passing a number of descriptions of land elevations and subsidences which Sir Charles Lyell relates as occurring in Chili, in the nineteenth century, in order that I may give more attention to the lands supposed to have been occupied by the Nephites, I quote the following statement of this eminent geologist concerning the earthquake at Bogota, in 1827:
On the 16th of November, 1827, the plain of Bogota, in New Granada, or Colombia, was convulsed by an earthquake, and a great number of towns were thrown down. Torrents of rain swelled the Magdalena, sweeping along vast quantities of mud and other substances, which emitted a sulphurous vapor and destroyed the fish. Popayan, which is distant two hundred geographical miles south-southwest of Bogota, suffered greatly. Wide crevices appeared in the road of Guanacas, leaving no doubt that the whole of the cordilleras sustained a powerful shock. Other fissures opened near Costa in the plains of Bogota, into which the river Tunza immediately began to flow. It is worthy of remark, that in all such cases the ancient gravel bed of a river is deserted and a new one formed at a lower level; so that a want of relation in the position of alluvial beds of the existing water-courses may be no test of the high antiquity of such deposits, at least in countries habitually convulsed by earthquakes. Extraordinary rain accompanied the shocks before mentioned; and two volcanoes are said to have been in eruption in the mountain chain nearest to Bogota.[[15]]
The Encyclopedia Britannica, referring to the geographical formation of Colombia, also says:
The fundamental formations throughout Colombia are igneous and metamorphic, the great mass of the cordilleras consisting of gneiss, granite, porphyry and basalt. In many places the carboniferous strata have attained considerable development, though they have been thrown into strange confusion by some unknown disturbance.[[16]]