And, as I have shown, the same great law which gradually depressed the
Atlantic continent, and raised the lands east and west of it, is still
at work: the coast of Greenland, which may be regarded as the northern
extremity of the Atlantic continent, is still sinking "so rapidly that
ancient buildings on low rock-islands are now submerged, and the
Greenlander has learned by experience never to build near the water's
edge," ("North Amer. of Antiq.," p. 504.) The same subsidence is going
on along the shore of South Carolina and Georgia, while the north of
Europe and the Atlantic coast of South America are rising rapidly. Along
the latter raised beaches, 1180 miles long and from 100 to 1300 feet
high, have been traced.
When these connecting ridges extended from America to Europe and Africa,
they shut off the flow of the tropical waters of the ocean to the north:
there was then no "Gulf Stream;" the land-locked ocean that laved the
shores of Northern Europe was then intensely cold; and the result was
the Glacial Period. When the barriers of Atlantis sunk sufficiently to
permit the natural expansion of the heated water of the tropics to the
north, the ice and snow which covered Europe gradually disappeared; the
Gulf Stream flowed around Atlantis, and it still retains the circular
motion first imparted to it by the presence of that island.
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