Content 1959 Begins
Jules Verne and Atlantis- E. Sykes (a
summary)
"Where was I? Where was I? I wanted to know this at
any cost, I wanted to speak, I wanted to tear off the sphere of copper which
imprisoned my head. But Captain Nemo came to me and stopped me with a gesture.
Then picking up a fragment of chalky stone, he moved towards a rock of basalt
on which he wrote this word:
'Atlantis'.
"With a flash it all came to me . Atlantis, the
ancient Meropidae of Thermopomus, the Atlantis of Plato, this continent denied
by Origen, Porphry, Jamblichus, d'Anville, Malte-Brun, Humboldt, who put its
disappearence as a legend, admitted Posidenous, Pliny, Ammianus, Marcellinus,
Tertullian, Engel, Sherer, Tournefort, Buffon, d' Avezac, and I had it before
my eyes, still bearing irrefutable proofs of the catastrophe! This was the
drowned region which was outside of Europe, of Asia, of Lybia, past the columns
of Hercules, where had lived this powerful Atlantean race, against which had
been made the first wars of ancient Greece."
"I was touching with my hand these ruins aged by a
thousand centuries and contemporary with the geological epochs! I was walking
where had walked the contemporaries of earliest man! I was crushing with my
boots the skeletons of the animals of this fabulous time, which had once
enjoyed the shade of these fossilised trees!" "Why was time so short!
I would have liked to go down the steep slopes of this mountain, to cover the
whole vast continent, which had doubtless linked Africa and America, and to
have visited its great pre diluvial cities. There, perhaps, before my eyes, lay
stretched Machimos the warlike; Eusebius the peaceful, whose gigantic
inhabitants lived for centuries, and who had the strenght to pile up these huge
blocks of stone which still resist the force of the waters. One day, perhaps
some submarine eruption would throw these sunken ruins to the surface."
E. Sykes- Bearing in mind that this was written when modern
submarines had scarcely made their appearance, this episode of the Nautilus
resting on the upper flanks of one of the submarine mountains of the Atlantic,
and seeing the ruins of Atlantis may happen any day from now. At the moment it
is not possible for human beings to actually leave the submarines to inspect
soil, but this can be done equally well by television cameras. I have always
maintained that anywhere on the slopes of the Azores or the canaries would be a
most suitable spot to discover the remains of Atlantean culture. Submarine or
bathosphere or just a television camera lowered down into the sea, it matters
little which means is employed, only let it be soon!
The Azores as an Atlantean Centre-E. Sykes
Thirty five years of research into the problem have
convinced me that the Dolphin Ridge, of which the Azores form the northern most
point, must once have been the mountainous backbone of Atlantis and that it
will be found any traces that still remain after 13,000 years. Just ten years
ago on a golden autum morning, the Swedish schooner Albatross nosed her way up
the muddy waters of the Thames Estuary and docked in london on her way to
Gothenburg. There were no brass bands and waving flags to welcome and her decks
were cluttered with modern scientific instruments. Instead of rich trophies of
newly conquered lands, but Albatross was returning from a triumphant from a
modern voyage of discovery that may well prove as dramatic in its world-wide
implications as Columbus' discovery of the New World. For in the hundreds of
samples of sand and rock deposits carefully raised from the bed of the Atlantic
during her 15 months voyage lay answers to a secret that has baffled enquiring
minds since the time of Plato. Shortly afterwards, Prof. Hans Pettersson, the
Leader of the Expedition stated in the "Times" of London, that the
Atlantic Ridge, from the Azores down to Ascension island, was mainly above
water 15,000 years ago, in other words at the time of the existence of
Atlantis. The publication of the full results of the Albatross Expedition,
which are now about due, should both confirm and extend the pioneer work of the
German expedition ship, Gauss, which in 1901 sounded the Romanche Deep and
brought up a sediment core showing that between 20,000-10,000 years ago, the
bottom suddenly subsided some 3,000 fathoms to its present depth, and of the
U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey of 1936, which revealed a change of 12,000 feet
down and then up again along strip between the north eastern Atlantic Coast and
the Congo.
Dr. Rene Malaise believed that the mid atlantic ridge in
many sections was above water before the last great ice age and that this land
sank due to the cooling influence of the ocean.
Captain Hans Hain, who commanded the German Naval research
ship 'Meteor' in the North Atlantic Expedition of 1938, described the discovery
of the great meteor bank in a letter to me: "Hitherto the charts of area
had indicated depths of nearly 5,000 meters. Within two hours the soundings
showed a rise from a depth of almost 4,000 meters to 262 meters. On the bank
itself, the soundings indicated an even flat surface." In the Porto Rico
Channel Captain Hain reports the greatest depth yet discovered in the whole
Atlantic Ocean- 8,530 meters. From Captain R. Dahl I received some some years
ago a description of sunken lands which he actually observed from a ship
between Fayal (Azores) and Abaco. "The sun was high, the sea calm and very
clear and I could see very deep down", writes Captain Dahl. Suddenly I
noticed a dark flat area passing slowly by and then several more patches, some
larger and some smaller, and all about the same depth under the surface of the
ocean. I estimated that they were about 90-100 meters distant and I am
convinced that what I saw was the ocean bed and that these were beds of weed on
light colored ground." Though the Hydrographic Institute have assured
Captain Dahl that it is highly improbable he could have seen the ocean bed,
this report is of particular interest. When the Portuguese Prince Henry
discovered the Azores in 1413, they were uninhabited, although they showed
traces of several previous cultures and were well known to the mariners. The
classical islands of Pluvalia and Capraria known to Statius Sebosius the
Classical Geographer have been identified as Santa Maria and San Miguel islands
of the Azores.
It may well be the Azores were the mountaintops of
Atlantis.
Webmasters Notes- Charles Berlitz notes in his 'Eight
Continent' book the Mt. Meteor location on a map inside lining sleeve of the
book and the dolphin ridge if one needed to see what the area roughly looks
like around the Azores in a topographical layout. Also as of 2002 A. D. the
recent reporting of the Azores region southward rising from the Ocean, and
along with the recent splitting and melting of Polar Ice caps is alarming it
would seem Atlantis is not only rising, but she wants some of the land on her
edges now above
water to begin to sink while she begins to rise? The U.S. gov. should note this observation of mine now in
advance.
The Capital City of Atlantis and the
Guyots, By N. Th. Zhirov
Guyots are flat topped submarine peaks (can be volcanic
extinct atolls), first detected in the Pacific by Hess, and subsequently noted
in the Atlantic. They are volcanic cones the tops of which have been erroded by
waves from shallo seas. At the base of the cone there is a ring shaped trench
some hundreds of meters in depth and several kilometers in width. These
volcanic cones rise to a height of 2,000 meters above the sea bottom and
probably maintained this height for a long period of time, after which there
were successive subsidences as many of the guyots have abrased terraces and all
of them have flat tops. The final subsidence put the summits some 1000 to 1500
meters below the surface of the sea. As Miocene Limestone has been found on
some of the Azore Islands, this demonstrates that at this period there was a
shallow sea in the area and that the origin of the mid Atlantic Ridge and of
the Atlantis could have occurred later, probably at the end of the Miocene and
well into the Pliocene, as this geologically short period of the intermediary
time the volcanoes in a shallow sea, a base for future guyots, could not create
the high cones and great ring shaped trenches required. Instead hill-like
elevations alone were formed which continued in existence after the formation
of the Atlantean Continent and on one of them was sited the capital city of
Atlantis. This opinion is supported by the obvious volcanic origin of the hill
on which the capital stood with fountains of hot and cold water, and by the
existence of trenches, terraces, and small hills. In the Platonic account of
the fall of Atlantis, it is stated that these were created by the gods, i.e.
Poseidon (Sea), not by men, which presupposes a natural and not an artificial
origin for the ring canals of the city.
Geographical Symbolism and Atlantis, N.
Th. Zirov
A curious figure from the past which falls under this
heading is Quetzacoatl, the 'Plumed Snake', of Mexico. This Toltec, Aztec, God,
has been named after a non-existent animal or reptile. It is possible that the
name originally meant the 'Man from the Country of the Plumed Snake', and that
he came from a land in the Eastern or Atlantic Ocean. Some of the Indian Tribes
in America had a tradition of a 'Snake Island' in this ocean. The Lenape tribe
record in one of their songs that the land of Kusuaki which was destroyed by
fire was cloven in two by the earth snake: ' Akemenaki'
It is also of interest that in the Scandinavian myth the
Midgard, the land of men which extended from the ice and snow of the glaciers
to the North of Atlantis to the fire and heat of the tropical and volcanic
areas to its south, was surrounded by a giant snake, known as Jormungard, the
sister of Fenrir and daughter of Loki. This serpent defended Mannheim, the land
of men, from the intrusion of the sea. If we take it that this 'Snake Island'
is related to the Atlantic Ocean, we note on a map of the land lying underneath
the waters that there is a huge snake shaped range or mountains, the Mid
Atlantic or Dolphin Ridge, with the cobra like widening for its head just where
the Azores are situated, which may well have been the principle kingdom of
legendary Atlantis. When the Atlantis was above water, and this ridge was
covered with huge forests and glaciers, just as a bird with feathers, then it
may well have been known as the 'Land of the Plumed Snake'. Finally the
reference by Plato to five pairs of twin sons of Poseidon, each of whom ruled
over a kingdom, may be explained by the possibility of five states having been
situated on each side of this mountainous backbone to the continent. Referance
note go to by clicking
here for the list of years for Serpent Island Egyptian story
The Problem of Atlantis,
Prof. N. Boneff, U. of Sofia, and more Th.Zhirov 1959 cont.