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Show H' Was Atalantis A Real Island? I TJ3RBTOFORB there have been three little H jfj Islands off the southeast coast of Jamaica, '' mostly barren reefs, but Islands on which the sea gulls and pelicans congregate every year ' and cover with their eggs', and the fishermen ' f from Jamaica go over there and steal the eggs and make a business of selling them. Now the report comes that the largest one of these three has disappeared, and that there are six fathoms of water over where it formerly was, and it is believed to be the result of an earthquake. Now it was in that same neighborhood that the famous Island of Atalantis was supposed to be which the Egyptian priest told the Grecian historian his-torian about. That has always been considered a mythical story, but who knows but what It was true? The hieroglyphics of Egypt are very like those of Yucatan. The ruins in Yucatan are laid out In exactly the same way that the ancient structures in Egypt were built. It has always been a wonder how, surrounded by deserts and the sea, the inhabitants of the Nile valley suddenly appeared before the world a civilized people, as monument and temple builders, build-ers, as men gifted in many ways and controlled by civilized customs. Did not the first ones who started that civilization sail from that same island isl-and of Atalantis, pass through the Pillars of Hercules, Her-cules, sail on and on over that inland sea, until they found the mouth of the Nile, found the wonderful valley above the mouth, and began there a civilization such as they had been accustomed ac-customed to at home? It is the most plausible theory ever advanced to account for the intelligence, the learning, the scientific skill displayed by those first Egyptians who, out of the darkness of barbarism, lifted up a light in that valley which eventually attracted the eyes of all men; who went on and built cities and temples, cultivated the soil, finally learned the art of war, finally began to teach a religion of their own, to have their own gods, and at last created a great nation which has been more the concernment of mankind since, than any other. |