The officers of the Challenger found the entire ridge of Atlantis
covered with volcanic deposits; these are the subsided mud which, as
Plato tells us, rendered the sea impassable after the destruction of the
island.
It does not follow that, at the time Atlantis was finally ingulfed, the
ridges connecting it with America and Africa rose above the water-level;
these may have gradually subsided into the sea, or have gone down in
cataclysms such as are described in the Central American books. The
Atlantis of Plato may have been confined to the "Dolphin Ridge" of our
map.
ANCIENT ISLANDS BETWEEN ATLANTIS AND THE MEDITERRANEAN, FROM DEEP-SEA
SOUNDINGS
The United States sloop Gettysburg has also made some remarkable
discoveries in a neighboring field. I quote from John James Wild (in
Nature, March 1st, 1877, p. 377):
"The recently announced discovery by Commander Gorringe, of the United
States sloop Gettysburg, of a bank of soundings bearing N. 85 deg. W.,
and distant 130 miles from Cape St. Vincent, during the last voyage of
the vessel across the Atlantic, taken in connection with previous
soundings obtained in the same region of the North Atlantic, suggests
the probable existence of a submarine ridge or plateau connecting the
island of Madeira with the coast of Portugal, and the probable subaerial
connection in prehistoric times of that island with the south-western
extremity of Europe.
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