Paper.—The same argument holds good as to paper. The oldest Egyptian monuments contain pictures of the papyrus roll; while in Mexico, as I have shown, a beautiful paper was manufactured and formed into books shaped like our own. In Peru a paper was made of plantain leaves, and books were common in the earlier ages. Humboldt mentions books of hieroglyphical writings among the Panoes, which were "bundles of their paper resembling our volumes in quarto."
Silk Mannfacture.—The manufacture of a woven fabric of great beauty out of the delicate fibre of the egg-cocoon of a worm could only have originated among a people who had attained the highest degree of civilization; it implies the art of weaving by delicate instruments, a dense population, a patient, skilful, artistic people, a sense of the beautiful, and a wealthy and luxurious class to purchase such costly fabrics.
We trace it back to the most remote ages. In the introduction to the "History of Hindostan," or rather of the Mohammedan Dynasties, by Mohammed Cassim, it is stated that in the year 3870 B.C. an Indian king sent various silk stuffs as a present to the King of Persia. The art of making silk was known in China more than two thousand six hundred years before the Christian era, at the time when we find them first possessed of civilization. The Phoenicians dealt in silks in the most remote past; they imported them from India and sold them along the shores of the Mediterranean. It is probable that the Egyptians understood and practised the art of manufacturing silk. It was woven in the island of Cos in the time of Aristotle. The "Babylonish garment" referred to in Joshua (chap. vii., 21), and for secreting which Achan lost his life, was probably a garment of silk; it was rated above silver and gold in value.
It is not a violent presumption to suppose that an art known to the Hindoos 3870 B.C., and to the Chinese and Phoenicians at the very beginning of their history—an art so curious, so extraordinary—may have dated back to Atlantean times.
Civil Government.—Mr. Baldwin shows ("Prehistoric Nations," p. 114) that the Cushites, the successors of the Atlanteans, whose very ancient empire extended from Spain to Syria, were the first to establish independent municipal republics, with the right of the people to govern themselves; and that this system was perpetuated in the great Phoenician communities; in "the fierce democracies" of ancient Greece; in the "village republics" of the African Berbers and the Hindoos; in the "free cities" of the Middle Ages in Europe; and in the independent governments of the Basques, which continued down to our own day. The Cushite state was an aggregation of municipalities, each possessing the right of self-government, but subject within prescribed limits to a general authority; in other words, it was precisely the form of government possessed to-day by the United States. It is a surprising thought that the perfection of modern government may be another perpetuation of Atlantean civilization.
Agriculture.—The Greek traditions of "the golden apples of the Hesperides" and "the golden fleece" point to Atlantis. The allusions to the golden apples indicate that tradition regarded the "Islands of the Blessed" in the Atlantic Ocean as a place of orchards. And when we turn to Egypt we find that in the remotest times many of our modern garden and field plants were there cultivated. When the Israelites murmured in the wilderness against Moses, they cried out (Numb., chap. xi., 4, 5), "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic." The Egyptians also cultivated wheat, barley, oats, flax, hemp, etc. In fact, if we were to take away from civilized man the domestic animals, the cereals, and the field and garden vegetables possessed by the Egyptians at the very dawn of history, there would be very little left for the granaries or the tables of the world.
Astronomy.—The knowledge of the ancients as to astronomy was great and accurate. Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander the Great to Babylon, sent to Aristotle a series of Chaldean astronomical observations which he found preserved there, recorded on tablets of baked clay, and extending back as far as 2234 B.C. Humboldt says, "The Chaldeans knew the mean motions of the moon with an exactness which induced the Greek astronomers to use their calculations for the foundation of a lunar theory." The Chaldeans knew the true nature of comets, and could foretell their reappearance. "A lens of considerable power was found in the ruins of Babylon; it was an inch and a half in diameter and nine-tenths of an inch thick." (Layard's "Nineveh and Babylon," pp. 16, 17.) Nero used optical glasses when he watched the fights of the gladiators; they are supposed to have come from Egypt and the East. Plutarch speaks of optical instruments used by Archimedes "to manifest to the eye the largeness of the sun." "There are actual astronomical calculations in existence, with calendars formed upon them, which eminent astronomers of England and France admit to be genuine and true, and which carry back the antiquity of the science of astronomy, together with the constellations, to within a few years of the Deluge, even on the longer chronology of the Septuagint." ("The Miracle in Stone," p. 142.) Josephus attributes the invention of the constellations to the family of the antediluvian Seth, the son of Adam, while Origen affirms that it was asserted in the Book of Enoch that in the time of that patriarch the constellations were already divided and named. The Greeks associated the origin of astronomy with Atlas and Hercules, Atlantean kings or heroes. The Egyptians regarded Taut (At?) or Thoth, or At-hotes, as the originator of both astronomy and the alphabet; doubtless he represented a civilized people, by whom their country was originally colonized. Bailly and others assert that astronomy "must have been established when the summer solstice was in the first degree of Virgo, and that the solar and lunar zodiacs were of similar antiquity, which would be about four thousand years before the Christian era. They suppose the originators to have lived in about the fortieth degree of north latitude, and to have been a highly-civilized people." It will be remembered that the fortieth degree of north latitude passed through Atlantis. Plato knew ("Dialogues, Phædo," 108) that the earth "is a body in the centre of the heavens" held in equipoise. He speaks of it as a "round body," a "globe;" he even understood that it revolved on its axis, and that these revolutions produced day and night. He says—"Dialogues, Timæus"—"The earth circling around the pole (which is extended through the universe) be made to be the artificer of night and day." All this Greek learning was probably drawn from the Egyptians.
Only among the Atlanteans in Europe and America do we find traditions preserved as to the origin of all the principal inventions which have raised man from a savage to a civilized condition. We can give in part the very names of the inventors.
Starting with the Chippeway legends, and following with the Bible and
Phoenician records, we make a table like the appended:
+———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The Invention or Discovery. | The Race. | The Inventors. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | Fire | Atlantean | Phos, Phur, and Phlox. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The bow and arrow | Chippeway | Manaboshu. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The use of flint | " | " | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The use of copper | " | " | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The manufacture of bricks | Atlantean | Autochthon and Technites. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | Agriculture and hunting | " | Argos and Agrotes. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | Village life, and the | " | Amynos and Magos. | | rearing of flocks | | | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The use of salt | " | Misor and Sydyk. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The use of letters | " | Taautos, or Taut. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | Navigation | " | The Cabiri, or Corybantes. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The art of music | Hebrew | Jubal. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | Metallurgy, and the use of | " | Tubal-cain. | | iron | | | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The syrinx | Greek | Pan. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+ | The lyre | " | Hermes. | +———————————————+—————-+——————————————+