CHAPTER LXXV.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE JAREDITE RECORDS—CORIANTUMR—ETHER—THE DISPERSION AT BABEL—THE JOURNEY OF THE JAREDITES—ATLANTIS.
LET us return to the year 123 B. C. At that time the Nephites in the land of Nephi were suffering sore afflictions at the hands of the Lamanites. In this extremity Limhi, their king, sent a company of forty-three men, with instructions to discover, if possible, their brethren in the land of Zarahemla, that peradventure they would bring them succor and deliverance. The expedition was unsuccessful, so far as its immediate object was concerned. The company missed the land of Zarahemla, pushed northward into Central America, and how far beyond we cannot tell. At last they discovered the remains of an ancient people who had apparently been destroyed in battle. Among other things they found twenty-four plates of gold, covered with engravings. This treasure, with some other relics of the vanished race, they took back to king Limhi.
When, shortly after, this section of the Nephite people escaped from their Lamanite task-masters and returned to Zarahemla, the twenty-four golden plates were presented to king Mosiah, the younger, and he being a seer, translated them by the aid of the Urim and Thummim.
These plates were found to contain the history of the world from the creation to the time of the building of the Tower of Babel, and of the race whose remains had been found by the people of Limhi scattered on the land northward.
This was, however, not the first intimation that the Nephites had of the existence of this extinct people; for in the days of the elder Mosiah a large engraved stone was brought to him that had been discovered by the people of Zarahemla. It gave a very brief account of this same race, known to us as the Jaredites, but more particularly referred to its last ruler, named Coriantumr; who had himself been known to the Zarahemlaites; for he had, previous to his death, resided in their midst for nine months.