chapter xxii

, verse 29, Eliphaz, the Temanite, says

When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person."

Where shall he save him? The next verse (30) seems to tell

[1. "The Geology of Brazil," p. 589.]

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"He shall deliver _the island of the innocent_: and _it is delivered_ by the pureness of thine [Job's] hands."

And, as I have shown, in Genesis it appears that, after the Age of Darkness, God separated the floods which overwhelmed the earth and made a firmament, a place of solidity, a refuge, (chap. i, vs. 6, 7,) "in the midst of the waters." A firm place in the _midst_ of the waters is necessarily an island.

And the location of this Eden was westward from. Europe, for we read, (chap. iii, v. 24):

"So he drove out the man; and he placed _at the_ EAST _of the garden of Eden_ cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

The man driven out of the Edenic land was, therefore, driven _eastward_ of Eden, and the cherubims in the east of Eden faced him. The land where the Jews dwelt was eastward of paradise; in other words, paradise was west of them.

And, again, when Cain was driven out be too moved _eastward_; he "dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden," (chap. iv, verse 16.) There was, therefore, a constant movement of the human family eastward. The land of Nod may have been _Od_, _Ad_, Atlantis; and from _Od_ may have come the name of _Odin_, the king, the god of Ragnarok.

In Ovid "the earth" is contradistinguished from the rest of the globe. It is an island-land, the civilized land, the land of the Tritons or water-deities, of Proteus, Ægeon, Doris, and Atlas. It is, in my view, Atlantis.

Ovid says, (book ii, fable 1, "The Metamorphoses")

"_The sea circling around the encompassed earth_. . . . The earth has upon it men and cities, and woods and wild beasts, and rivers, and nymphs and other deities of the

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country." On this land is "the palace of the sun, raised high on stately columns, bright with radiant gold, and carbuncle that rivals the flames; polished ivory crests its highest top, and double folding doors shine with the brightness of silver."

In other words, the legend refers to the island-home of a civilized race, over which was a palace which reminds one of the great temple of Poseidon in Plato's story.

The Atlantic was sometimes called "the sea of ivory," in allusion, probably, to this ivory-covered temple of Ovid. Hence Croly sang:

Now on her hills of ivory Lie giant-weed and ocean-slime, Hiding from man and angel's eye The land of crime."

And, again, Ovid says, after enumerating the different rivers and mountains and tracts of country that were on fire in the great conflagration, and once more distinguishing the pre-eminent earth from the rest of the world:

"However, the genial Earth, _as she was surrounded with sea_, amid the waters of the _main_," (the ocean,) "and the springs dried up on every side, lifted up her _all-productive face_," etc.

She cries out to the sovereign of the gods for mercy. She refers to the burdens of the crops she annually bears; the wounds of the crooked plow and the barrow, which she voluntarily endures; and she calls on mighty Jove to put an end to the conflagration. And he does so. The rest of the world has been scarred and seared with the fire, but he spares and saves this island-land, this agricultural, civilized land, this land of the Tritons and Atlas; this "island of the innocent" of Job. And when the terrible convulsion was over, and the

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rash Phaëton dead and buried, Jove repairs, with especial care, "his own Arcadia."

It must not be forgotten that Phaëton was the son of _Merops_; and Theopompus tells us that the people who inhabited Atlantis were the _Meropes_, the people of Merou. And the Greek traditions[1] show that the human race issued from _Upa-Merou_; and the Egyptians claim that their ancestors came from the _Island of Mero_; and among the Hindoos the land of the gods and the godlike men was _Meru_.

And here it is, we are told, where in deep caves, and from the seas, receding under the great heat, the human race, crying out for mercy, with uplifted and blistered hands, survived the cataclysm.

And Ovid informs us that this land, "with a mighty trembling, sank down a little" in the ocean, and the Gothic and Briton (Druid) legends tell us of a prolongation of Western Europe which went down at the same time.

In the Hindoo legends the great battle between Rama and Ravana, the sun and the comet, takes place _on an island_, the Island of Lanka, and Rama builds a stone bridge sixty miles long to reach the island.

In the Norse legends Asgard lies to the west of Europe; communication is maintained with it by the bridge Bifrost. Gylfe goes to visit Asgard, as Herodotus and Solon went to visit Egypt: the outside barbarian was curious to behold the great civilized land. There he asks many questions, as Herodotus and Solon did. He is told:[2]

"The earth is round, and _without it round about lies the deep ocean_."

[1. "Atlantis," p. 171.

2. The Fooling of Gylfe--The Creation of the World--The Younger Edda.]

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The earth is Ovid's earth; it is Asgard. It is an island, surrounded by the ocean:

"And along the outer strand of that sea they gave lands for the giant-races to dwell in; and against the attack of restless giants they built a burg within the sea and around the earth."

This proves that by "the earth" was not meant the whole globe; for here we see that around the outside margin of that ocean which encircled Asgard, the mother-country had given lands for colonies of the giant-races, the white, large, blue-eyed races of Northern and Western Europe, who were as "restless" and as troublesome then to their neighbors as they are now and will be to the end of time.

And as the _Elder_ and _Younger Edda_ claim that the Northmen were the giant races, and that their kings were of the blood of these Asas; and as the bronze-using people advanced, (it has been proved by their remains,[1]) into Scandinavia from the _southwest_, it is clear that these legends do not refer to some mythical island in the Indian Seas, or to the Pacific Ocean, but to the Atlantic: the west coasts of Europe were "the outer strand" where these white colonies were established; the island was in the Atlantic; and, as there is no body of submerged land in that ocean with roots or ridges reaching out to the continents east and west, except the mass of which the Azores Islands constitute the mountain-tops, the conclusion is irresistible that here was Atlantis; here was Lanka; here was "the island of the innocent," here was Asgard.

And the Norse legends describe this "Asgard" as a land of temples and plowed fields, and a mighty civilized race.

And here it is that Ragnarok comes. It is from the

[1. Du Chaillu's "Land of the Midnight Sun," vol. i, pp. 343, 345, etc.]

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people of Asgard that the wandering Gylfe learns all that he tells about Ragnarok, just as Solon learned from the priests of Sais the story of Atlantis. And it is here in Asgard that, as we have seen, "during Surt's fire two persons, called Lif and Lifthraser, a man and a woman, concealed themselves in Hodmimer's holt," and afterward repeopled the world.

We leave Europe and turn to India.

In the Bagaveda-Gita Krishna recalls to the memory of his disciple Ardjouna the legend as preserved in the sacred books of the Veda.

We are told:

"The earth was covered with flowers; the trees bent under their fruit; thousands of animals sported over the plains and in the air; white elephants roved unmolested under the shade of gigantic forests, and Brahma perceived that the time had come for the creation of man to inhabit this dwelling-place."[1]

This is a description of the glorious world of the Tertiary Age, during which, as scientific researches have proved, the climate of the tropics extended to the Arctic Circle.

Brahma makes man, Adima, (Adam,) and he makes a companion for him, Héva, (Eve).

_They are upon an island_. Tradition localizes the legend by making this the Island of Ceylon.

"Adima and Héva lived for some time in perfect happiness--no suffering came to disturb their quietude; they had but to stretch forth their hands and pluck from surrounding trees the most delicious fruits--but to stoop and gather rice of the finest quality."

This is the same Golden Age represented in Genesis, when Adam and Eve, naked, but supremely happy, lived

[1. Jacolliet, "The Bible in India," p. 195.]

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upon the fruits of the garden, and knew neither sorrow nor suffering, neither toil nor hunger.

But one day the evil-one came, as in the Bible legend the Prince of the _Rakchasos_ (Raknaros--Ragnarok?) came, and broke up this paradise. Adima and Héva leave their _island_; they pass to a boundless country; they fall upon an evil time; "trees, flowers, fruits, birds, vanish in an instant, amid terrific clamor";[1] the Drift has come; they are in a world of trouble, sorrow, poverty, and toil.

And when we turn to America we find the legends looking, not westward, but _eastward_, to this same island-refuge of the race.

When the Navajos come out of the cave the white race goes _east_, and the red-men go _west_; so that the Navajos inhabit a country _west_ of their original habitat, just as the Jews inhabit one _east_ of it.

"Let me conclude," says the legend, "by telling how the Navajos came by the seed they now cultivate. All the wise men being one day assembled, a Turkey-Hen came flying _from the direction of the morning star_, and shook from her feathers an ear of blue corn into the midst of the company; and in subsequent visits _brought all the other seeds they possess_."[2]

In the Peruvian legends the civilizers of the race came _from the east_, after the cave-life.

So that these people not only came from the east, but they maintained intercourse for some time afterward with the parent-land.

On page 174, _ante_, we learn that the Iroquois believed that when Joskeha renewed the world, after the great battle with Darkness, he learned from _the great tortoise_

[1. Jacolliet, "The Bible in India," p. 198.

2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 83.]

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--always the image of an island--how to make fire, and taught the Indians the art. And in their legends the battle between the White One and the Dark One took place in the east near the great ocean.

Dr. Brinton says, speaking of the Great Hare, Manibozho:

"In the oldest accounts of the missionaries he was alleged to reside _toward the east_, and in the holy formula of the meda craft, when the winds are invoked to the medicine-lodge, the _east is summoned_ in his name, the door opens in that direction, and there _at the edge of the earth_, where the sun rises, on _the shore of the infinite ocean that surrounds the land_, he has his house, and sends the luminaries forth on their daily journey."[1]

That is to say, in the east, in the _surrounding_ ocean of the east, to wit, in the Atlantic, this god, (or godlike race,) has his house, his habitation, upon a land surrounded by the ocean, to wit, an island; and there his power and his civilization are so great that he controls the movements of the sun, moon, and stars; that is to say, he fixes the measure of time by the movements of the sun and moon, and he has mapped out the heavenly bodies into constellations.

In the Miztec legend, (see page 214, _ante_,) we find the people praying to God to gather the waters together and enlarge the land, for they have only "a little garden" to inhabit in the waste of waters. This meant an island.

In the Arabian legends we have the scene of the catastrophe described as an island west of Arabia, and it _requires two years and a half of travel to reach it_. It is the land of bronze.

In the Hindoo legend of the battle between Rama, the

[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 177.]

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sun, and Ravana, the comet, the scene is laid on the _Island_ of Lanka.

In the Tahoe legend the survivors of the civilized race take refuge in a cave, in a mountain on an _island_. They give the tradition a local habitation in Lake Tahoe.

The Tacullies say God first created an _island_.

In short, we may say that, wherever any of these legends refer to the locality where the disaster came and where man survived, the scene is placed upon an island, in the ocean, in the midst of the waters; and this island, wherever the points of the compass are indicated, lies to the west of Europe and to the east of America: it is, therefore, in the Atlantic Ocean; and the island, we shall see, is connected with these continents by long bridges or ridges of land.

This island was Atlantis. Ovid says it was the land of Neptune, Poseidon. It is Neptune who cries out for mercy. And it is associated with Atlas, the king or god of Atlantis.

Let us go a step further in the argument.

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