That Atlantis might really have existed[410] and disappeared, leaving the Atlantic islands as remnants, was too evident to escape notice. Ortelius suggested that the island of Gades might be a fragment of Atlantis,[411] and the doctrine was early a favorite. Kircher, in his very curious work on the subterranean world, devotes considerable space to Atlantis, rejecting its connection with America, while he maintains its former existence, and holds that the Azores, Canaries, and other Atlantic islands were formerly parts thereof, and that they showed traces of volcanic fires in his day.[412]
Las Casas in his history of the Indies devoted an entire chapter to Atlantis, quoting the arguments of Proclus, in his commentary on Plato, in favor of the story, though he is himself more doubtful. He also cites confirmative passages from Philo and St. Anselm, etc. He considers the question of the Atlantic isles, and cites authorities for great and sudden changes in the earth’s surface.[413]
The same view was taken by Becman,[414] and Fortia D’Urban. Turnefort included America in the list of remnants; and De la Borde followed Sanson in extending Atlantis to the farthest Pacific islands.[415] Bory de St. Vincent,[416] again, limited Atlantis to the Atlantic, and gave on a map his ideas of its contour.
D’Avezac maintains this theory in his Iles africaines de l’Océan Atlantique,[417] p. 5-8. Carli devoted a large part of the second volume of his Lettere Americane to Atlantis, controverting Baily, who placed Atlantis in Spitzbergen. Carli goes at considerable length into the topographical and geological arguments in favor of its existence.[418] The early naturalists, when the doctrine of great and sudden changes in the earth’s surface was in favor, were inclined to look with acquiescence on this belief. Even Lyell confessed a temptation to accept the theory of an Atlantis island in the northern Atlantic, though he could not see in the Atlantic islands trace of a mid-Atlantic bridge.[419] About the middle of this century scholars in several departments of learning, accepting the evidences of resemblances between the product of the old and new world, were induced to turn gladly to such a connection as would have been offered by Atlantis; and the results obtained at about the same time by studies in the pre-Columbian traditions and civilization of Mexico were brought forward as supporting the same theory. That the Antilles were remnants of Atlantis; that the Toltecs were descendants from the panic-stricken fugitives of the great catastrophe, whose terrors were recorded in their traditions, as well as in those of the Egyptians, was ardently urged by Brasseur de Bourbourg.[420]
In 1859 Retzius announced that he found a close resemblance between the skulls of the Guanches of the Canaries and the Guaranas of Brazil, and recalled the Atlantis story to explain it.[421] In 1846 Forbes declared his belief in the former existence of a bridge of islands in the North Atlantic, and in 1856 Heer attempted to show the necessity of a similar connection from the testimony of palæontological botany.
In 1860, Unger deliberately advocated the Atlantis hypothesis to explain the likeness between the fossil flora of Europe and the living flora of America, enumerating over fifty similar species; and Kuntze found in the case of the tropical seedless banana, occurring at once in America before 1492 and in Africa, a strong evidence of the truth of the theory.[422]
A condensed review of the scientific side of the question is given by A. Boué in his article Ueber die Rolle der Veränderungen des unorganischen Festen im grossen Massstabe in der Natur.[423]
The deep-sea soundings taken in the Atlantic under the auspices of the governments of the United States, England, and Germany resulted in discoveries which gave a new impetus to the Atlantis theory. It was shown that, starting from the Arctic plateau, a ridge runs down the middle of the Atlantic, broadening toward the Azores, and contracting again as it trends toward the northeast coast of South America. The depth over the ridge is less than 1,000 fathoms, while the valleys on either side average 3,000; it is known after the U. S. vessel which took the soundings as the Dolphin ridge. A similar though more uniformly narrow ridge was found by the “Challenger” expedition (1873-76), extending from somewhat north of Ascension Island directly south between South America and Africa. It is known as the Challenger ridge. There is, beside, evidence for the existence of a ridge across the tropical Atlantic, connecting the Dolphin and Challenger ridges. Madeira, the Canaries, and the Cape Verde Islands are cut off from these ridges by a deep valley, but are connected by shoals with the continent. Upon the publication of the Challenger chart (Special Report, vii. 1876), those who favored the theory of communication between the continents were not slow to appropriate its disclosures in their interests (Nature, Dec. 21, 1876, xv. 158). In March, 1877, W. Stephen Mitchell delivered a lecture at South Kensington, wherein he placed in juxtaposition the theory of Unger and the revelations of the deep-sea soundings, when he announced, however, that he did not mean to assert that these ridges had ever formed a connecting link above water between the continents.[424] Others were less cautious,[425] but in general this interpretation did not commend itself as strongly to conservative men of science as it might have done a few years before, because such men were gradually coming to doubt the fact of changes of great moment in the earth’s surface, even those of great duration.
In 1869, M. Paul Gaffarel published his first treatise on Atlantis,[426] advocating the truth of the story, and in 1880 he made it the subject of deeper research, utilizing the facts which ocean exploration had placed at command.[427] This is the best work which has appeared upon this side of the question, and can only be set against the earlier work by Martin.[428] The same theory has been supported by D. P. de Novo y Colson, who went so far as to predict the ultimate recovery of some Atlantean manuscripts from submarine grottoes of some of the Atlantic islands,—a hope which surpasses Mr. Donnelly.[429]
Winchell found the theory too useful in his scheme of ethnology to be rejected,[430] but it was reserved for Ignatius Donnelly to undertake the arrangement of the deductions of modern science and the data of old traditions into a set argument for the truth of Plato’s story. His book,[431] in many ways a rather clever statement of the argument, so evidently presented only the evidence in favor of his view, and that with so little critical estimate of authorities and weight of evidence, that it attracted only uncomplimentary notice from the scientific press.[432] It was, however, the first long presentation of the case in English, and as such made an impression on many laymen. In 1882 was also published the second volume of the Challenger Narrative, containing a report by M. Renard on the geologic character of the mid-Atlantic island known as St. Paul’s rocks. The other Atlantic islands are confessedly of volcanic origin, and this, which laymen interpreted in favor of the Atlantis theory, militated with men of science against the view that they were remnants of a sunken continent. St. Paul’s, however, was, as noted by Darwin, of doubtful character, and Renard came to the conclusion that it was composed of crystalline schists, and had therefore probably been once overlaid by masses since removed.[433] This conclusion, which tended in favor of Atlantis, was controverted by A. Geikie[434] and by M. E. Wadsworth,[435] (the latter having personally inspected specimens,) on the ground that the rocks were volcanic in origin, and that, had they been schists, the inference of denudation would not follow. Dr. Guest declared that ethnologists have fully as good cause as the botanists to regard Atlantis as a fact.[436] A. J. Weise in treating of the Discoveries of America adopted the Atlantis fable unhesitatingly, and supposes that America was known to the Egyptians through that channel.[437]