The cross became the coat of arms of the
Phoenicians--not only, possibly, as we have shown, as a recollection of
the four rivers of Atlantis, but because it represented the secret of
their great sea-voyages, to which they owed their national greatness.
The hyperborean magician, Abaras, carried "a guiding arrow," which
Pythagoras gave him, "in order that it may be useful to him in all
difficulties in his long journey." ("Herodotus," vol. iv., p. 36.)
The magnet was called the "Stone of Hercules." Hercules was the patron
divinity of the Phoenicians. He was, as we have shown elsewhere, one of
the gods of Atlantis--probably one of its great kings and navigators.
The Atlanteans were, as Plato tells us, a maritime, commercial people,
trading up the Mediterranean as far as Egypt and Syria, and across the
Atlantic to "the whole opposite continent that surrounds the sea;" the
Phoenicians, as their successors and descendants, and colonized on the
shores of the Mediterranean, inherited their civilization and their
maritime habits, and with these that invention without which their great
voyages were impossible. From them the magnet passed to the Hindoos, and
from them to the Chinese, who certainly possessed it at an early date.
Pages:
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629