Why, ask the scholars, are there so many remarkable similarities between the ancient cultures of th Old and New Worlds? Why do we find the same plants and animals on continents thousands of miles apart when there is no known way for them to have been transported there? How did the primitive peoples of many lands construct technological marvels, such as Stonehenge in Britain, the huge statues of Easter Island in the Pacific and the strange sacred cities of the Andes? Were they helped by a technically sophisticated race that has since disappeared?  Above all, why do the legends of people the world over tell the same story of an overwhelming natural disaster and the arrival or godlike beings who brought with them a new culture from a far? could the catastrophe that sank Atlantis have sent tidal waves throughout the glove, causing terrible havoc and destruction? And were the 'gods' the remnants of the Atlantean race - the few survivors who were not on or near the island continent when it was engulfed?

Even without Plato's account, the quest for answers to these mysteries might have led to the belief by some in a 'missing link' between the continents - a land-bridge populated by a highly evolved people in the distant past. Nevertheless, it is the Greek philosopher's story that lies at the heart of all arguments for or against the existence of such a lost continent.

Plato intended writing a trilogy in which the Atlantis story plays an important part, but he completed only one of the works, Timaeus, and part of the second, Critias. Like Plato's other writings, they take the form of dialogues or playlets in which a group of individuals discuss various political and moral issues. Leading the discussion is Plato's old teacher, the Greek philosopher Socrates. His debating companions are Timaeus, an astronomer from Italy, critias, a poet and historian who was a distant relative of Plato, and Hermocrates, a general from Syracuse. Plato had already used the same cat of real-life characters in his most famous dialogue, The Republic, written some years previously, and he planned his trilogy as a sequel to that debate, in which the four men had talked at some length about ideal government.

Plato set the meeting of the four men in Critia's house in June 421 B.C. Timaeus begins on the day following the debate recorded in The Republic, and the mens tart by recalling their previous conversation. Then Hermocrates mentions "a story derived from ancient tradition" that Critias knows. Pressed for details, Critias recalls how, a century and a half earlier, the great Athenian statesman Solon had visited Egypt (Solan was a real person and he did visit Egypt, although his trip took place around 590 B.C., so 20 years earlier than the date given b Plato.) Critias says that while Solon was in Sais, an Egyptian city having close ties with Athens, a  group of priests told him the story of Atlantis - "a tale that, though strange, is certainly true." Solon made notes of the conversation, and intended recording the story for posterity, but he did not do so. Instead he told it to a relative, Dropides, who passed it on to his son, Critias the elder, who eventually told his grandson, another Critias - the man who features in Plato's dialogues.

In Timaeus Critias gives a brief account of what the priests had told Solon. According to ancient Egyptian records there had been a great Athenian empire 9000 years earlier (that is, in about 9600 B.C.) At the same time there had been a mighty empire of Atlantis based on an island or continent west of the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) that was larger than North Africa and Asia Minor combined. Beyond it lay a chain of islands that stretched across the ocean to another huge continent.

The Atlanteans ruled over their central island and several others, and over parts of the great continent on the other side of the ocean. Then their armies struck eastward into the Mediterranean region, conquering North Africa as far as Egypt and southern Europe up to the Greek borders. "This vast power, gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at one blow our country and yours," said the Egyptian priests, "and the whole of the region within the strait. . ."Athens, standing alone, defeated the Atlanteans. "But afterward there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of destruction all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in a like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is so much shallow mud in the way, caused by the subsidence of the island."

Socrates is delighted with Critias' story, which as "the very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction." However, the rest of Timaeus is taken up with a discourse on science, and the the story of Atlantis is continued in Plato's next dialogue, the Critias, where Critias gives a much fuller description of the island continent. He goes back to the island's very beginning when the gods were apportioned parts of the earth, as is usual in ancient histories. Poseidon, Greek god of the sea and also of earthquakes, was given Atlantis,a nd there he fell in loe with a mortal maiden called Cleito. Cleito dwelled on a hill in Atlantis, and to prevent anyone reaching her home, Poseidon encircled the hill with alternate rings of land and water, "two of land and three of water, which he turned as with a lathe." He also laid on abundant supplies of food and water to the hill, "bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly from the soil."

Poseidon and Cleito produced 10 children - five pairs of male twins - and Poseidon divided Atlantis and its adjacent islands among these 10 sons to rule as a confederacy of kings. the first born of the eldest twins, Atlas (after whom atlantis was named), was made chief king. The kinds in turn had numerous children, and their descendants ruled for many generations.

Ass the population of Atlantis grew and developed, the people accomplished great feats of engineering and architecture. They accomplished great feats of engineering and architecture. The built palaces and temples, harbors and docks, and reaped the rich harvest of their agricultural and mineral resources. The kings and their descendants built the city of Atlantis around Cleito's hill on the southern coast of the island continent. It was a circular city, about 11 miles in diameter, and Cleito's hill, surrounded by its concentric rings of land and water, formed a citadel about three miles in diameter, situated at the very center of the impressive city.

The kings built bridges to connect the land rings, and tunnels through which ships could pass from one ring of water to the next. The rings of land were surrounded by stone walls plated with precious metals, and another wall ran around the entire city. The outermost ring of water became a great harbor, crowded with shipping.

A huge canal, 300 feet wide and 100 feet deep, linked the great harbor with the sea at the southern end, and joined the city to a vast irrigated plain, sheltered by lofty mountains, which lay beyond the city walls in the north. This rectangular plain, measuring 230 by 340 miles, was divided into 60,000 square lots, assigned to farmers. The mountains beyond housed "many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows, supplying food for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work."  the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the country were "a vast multitude having leaders to whom they were assigned according to their dwellings and villages." These leaders and the farmers on the plane were each required to supply men for the Atlantean army, which included light and heavy infantry, cavalry, and chariots.

Plato and Critias paint a vivid picture of Atlantean engineering and architecture with an attention to detail that bears the hallmark of a very factual account. Critias tells how the stone used for the city's buildings was quarried from beneath the island (Cleito's hill) and from beneath the outer and inner circles of land. "One kind of stone was white, another black, and third red, and as they quarried they at the same time hollowed out docks within, having roofs formed of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put together different stones, which they intermingled for the sake of ornament, to be a natural source of delight." But it was into their magnificent temples that the Atlanteans poured their greatest artistic and technical skills. In the center of the citadel was a holy artistic and technical skills. In the center of the citadel was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon and this was surrounded by an enclosure of gold. Nearby stood Poseidon's own temple, a superb structure covered in silver, with pinnacles of gold. The roof's interior was covered with ivory, and lavishly decorated with gold, silver, and orichate - probably a fine grade of brass or bronze - which "glowed like fire." Inside the temple was a massive gold statue of Poseidon driving a chariot drawn by six winged horses and surrounded by 100 sea nymphs on dolphins. This was so high that its head touched the temple roof. Gold statues of Atlantis' original 10 kings and their wives stood outside the temple.

Critias tells of the beautiful buildings that were constructed around the warm and cold fountains in the center of the city. Trees were planted between the buildings, and cisterns were designed - some open to the heavens, others roofed over - to be used as baths. "There were the kinds' baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; and there were separate baths for women, and for horses and cattle , and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was suitable.  Of the water that ran off they carried some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil, while the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts along the bridges to the the outer circles; and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and others for horses in both of the two islands formed by the zones (rings of water) ; and in the c enter of the larger of the two there was set apart a racecourse of a stadium (about 607 feet) in width, and in length allowed to extend all around the island, for horses to race in.

At alternate intervals of five and six years the 10 kings of Atlantis met in the temple of Poseidon to consult on matters of government and to administer justice. During this meeting a strange ritual was enacted. After offering up prayers to the gods, the kings were required to hunt bulls, which roamed freely within the temple, and to capture one of them for sacrifice, using only staves and nooses. The captured animal was led to a bronze column in the temple, on which the laws of Atlantis were inscribed, and was slain so that its blood ran over the sacred inscription. After further ceremony, the kings partook of a banquet and when darkness fell they wrapped themselves in beautiful dark-blue robes. sitting in a circle they gave their judgements, which were recorded at daybreak on tablets of gold.

In the course of time, the people of Atlantis began to lose the love of wisdom and virtue that they had inherited from Poseidon. As their divine nature was diluted and human nature got the upper hand, they became greedy, corrupt, and domineering. Whereupon, says Plato, "Zeus, the god of gods, who rules by law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honorable race was ina most wretched state, and wanting to punish them that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into his most holy abode, which, being placed into his most holy abode, which, being placed in the center of the universe, sees all things that partake of generation.  And when he had called them together he spoke as follows..."

And there, enigmatically, and frustratingly, Plato's story of Atlantis breaks off, never to be completed. Some regard the Critias dialogue as a rough draft that Plato abandoned. Others assume he intended to continue the story in the third part of his trilogy, but he never even started that work. He went on, instead, to write his last dialogue, The Laws.

Controversy has raged over Plato's story ever since he wrote it 2300 years ago. Was his account fact, part-fact, or total fiction? Each explanation has its inherents, and each has been hotly defended over the centuries. Plato's story certainly presents a number of problems. Critics of the Atlantis theory claim that these invalidate the story as a factual account. Supporters maintain that they can be accepted as poetic license, exaggeration, or understandable mistakes that have crept in during the telling and retelling of the story over many centuries before Plato reported it.

The greatest stumbling block is the date that the Greek philosopher gives for the destruction of Atlantis. The Egyptian priests are said to have told Solon that Atlantis was destroyed 9000 years before his visit, in about 9600 B.C., which is far earlier than any known evidence of civilization. Supporters of Atlantis point out that modern discoveries are constantly pushing back the boundaries of human prehistory and we may yet discover that civilization is far older than we think. However, Plato makes  it clear that in 9600 B.C., Athens was also the home of a mighty civilization that defeated the Atlanteans. ARchaeologists claim that their knowledge of Greece in the early days of its development is sufficiently complete to rule out the possibility of highly developed people in that country as early as 9600 B.C. Their evidence suggests that either Plato's story is an invention or he has the date wrong.

Assuming that Plato's facts are right but his date wrong, what evidence do we have to support his account of the origin of the Atlantis story? Bearing in mind that the war was principally between Atlantis and Athens, it seems odd that there were no Greek records of the battle, and that the account would have originated in Egypt. However Plato has an explanation for this.  The Egyptian priests are said to have told Solon that a series of catastrophes had destroyed the Greek records, whereas their own had been preserved. The problem here is that if the Egyptian disappeared as completely as Atlantis itself.

Supposing that Solon did hear about Atlantis during his Egyptian trip, is it credible that such a detailed story could have been passed down through the generations as Plato asks us to believe?  This is not impossible, because the art of accurate oral transmission was highly developed in the ancient world. Moreover, Solon is said to have taken notes of his conversation with the priests, and Critias claims that these were handed down to his relatives. However, here again we encounter a difficulty. For whereas in one place Critias states that he is still in possession of Solon's notes, in another he declares that he lay awake all night ransacking his memory for details of the Atlantis story that his grandfather had told him. Why didn't he simply refresh his memory from Solon's notes? And why didn't he show the notes to his three companions as incontrovertible proof of the truth of his rather unlikely story?

Yet another problem is that Plato dates the meeting of Socrates, Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates, during which Atlantis is discussed, as 421 B.C. Plato may have been present during their conversation, but as he was only six years old at the time, he could hardly have taken in much of their discussion, let alone made detailed notes of it. Either his account is based on records made my someone else, or the date is wrong, or this part of his story at least is an invention.

Critics of the Atlantis story believe that it is simply a myth invented to put across the great philosopher's views on war and corruption. Plato used real people in his other dialogues, and put his words into their mouths, too, as a dramatic device to present his ideas. There is no reason say the detractors, to assume that Timaeus and critias are different in this respect. but Plato seems to expect his readers to draw different conclusions. He is at great pains to stress the truth of his account, tracing it back to Solon, a highly respected statesman with a reputation for being 'straight-tongues," and having Critias declare that the Atlantis story, "though strange, is certainly true." And why, if his sole intention was to deliver a philosophical treatise, did Plato fill his account with remarkable detail and then stop abruptly at the very point where we would expect the "message" to be delivered?  In spite of the errors and contradictions that have found their way into Plato's account, his story of Atlantis can still be viewed as an exciting recollection of previously unrecorded events.

History provides us with many examples of supposedly mythical places and subsequently being discovered. For example, Homer wrote about the Trojan War and subsequent research has shown that it was based on real historical events. Troy has since been found and dug up. In 1871, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schlieman excavated in Hissarlik and uncovered Troy just where Homer had placed it over 1000 years previously in his epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.  As the Irish scholar J.V. Luce observes in his book The End of Atlantis; "classical scholars laughed at Schlieman when he set out with Homer in one hand and a spade in the other. but he dug up Troy and thereby demonstrated the inestimable value of folk memory Sir Arthur Evans did much the same thing when he found the labyrinthine home of the Minotaur at Knossos." Indeed, sir Arthur Evans revealed that a highly advanced European civilization had flourished on the island of Crete long before the time of Homer, some 4500 years ago.

This should be justification enough to keep an open mind on Plato's account. The problem is that whereas Troy and Knossos were simply buried. Atlantis could be submerged hundred or even thousands of feet beneath the waves. And the force of the destruction may have destroyed the remains beyond recognition. However, if Plato's account is based on fact, then we know that the Atlanteans traded with their neighbors.. In this case there would be some evidence of their influence and culture in lands that survived the catastrophe. Believers in Atlantis have furnished us with a formidable array of such "proofs". Certainly there are scattered around the glove  to lend support to the idea of a highly advanced, Atlantean-type civilization that was responsible.

Although Plato appears to place Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean and early cartographers did likewise, numerous scholars and other Atlantis enthusiasts have since scoured the globe for more likely sites. Surprisingly, these have not always been in the ocean. The lost kingdom of Atlantis has been "found" at various  times in the Pacific Ocean, the North Sea, the Sahara desert, Sweden, southern Spain, Palestine, Cyprus, Crete, the West Indies, and Peru, but to name a few.

THE ATLANTIS MYSTERY DEEPENS

In 1940 the American psychic healer and prophet Edgar Cayce predicted that Atlantis would 'rise again' in 1968 or 19969. So, in 19968, when it seemed that the site of the world's most famous lost land had  finally been located in the eastern Mediterranean, news that underwater vast building off the Bahamas shook Atlantist everywhere. The question of Atlantis was reopened. Could this be Poseidia, described by Cayce as the 'western' section of Atlantis? Were Plato and the other Atlantists right after all when they placed their lost civilization way out in the Atlantic Ocean?

In 19968 two commercial pilots flying over the Bahamas spotted what appeared to be several underwater buildings coming to the surface. The pilots made their sightings just off the coast of Bimini and photographed the underwater formations from the air. Their discovery was immediately hailed by some as the fulfillment of a 28 year-old prophecy concerning the reappearance of Atlantis. Indeed one of the pilots had been keeping a lookout for underwater structures while flying his regular assignments because he believed Atlantis was about to reemerge from the Atlantic in this very area.

The man concerned is a member of the Association for Research and Enlightenment, an organization based in Virginia Beach, VA, which is dedicated to the study of the teachings and "psychic readings" of the late Edgar Cayce, the "sleeping prophet" and psychic healer. Between 1923 and 1944 Cayce made numerous references to Atlantis in the course of trance interviews concerning the alleged former lives of the people who consulted him. These interviews were recorded verbatim, and much of the material about Atlantis has been published in a book called Edgar Cayce on Atlantis, by Cayce's son Edgar Cayce. It includes this prediction, made in June 1940: "Poseidia will be among the first portions of Atlantis to rise again. Expect it  in ''68 and '69; not so far away!"

According to the Cayce readings, Poseidia was the "western section of Atlantis," and the area off Bimini is the highest point of this sunken land.

Map of Bimini Road drawn after aerial and underwater surveys carried out by the Poseidia '75 expedition, sponsored by the A.R.E.  The road is magnified to approximately twice its actual size in relation to the island of Bimini.  Shaped roughly like a letter J, it is some three quarters of a mile long and composed of huge stone blocks, often 15 feet square. On this map, the X marking the discovery of a stone artifact relates to a fragment of what appeared to be tongue and groove masonry discovered on the Poseidia 75 expedition by one of its members Dr. David Zink.

So the A.R.E. is naturally delighted about the underwater find in the Bahamas, just where and when the famous prophet said something would appear. Until this and similar discoveries have been thoroughly explored, we have to admit that There may yet have an equally plausible rival for the title of Atlantis, right where most people always considered the long-lost continent to be - in the Atlantic.

In his book 'The Mystery of Atlantis' Charles Berlitz comments that "Other underwater ruins have subsequently been found near other Caribbean islands, including what appears to be an entire city submerged off the coast of Haiti, and still another at the bottom of a lake. What appears to be an underwater road (or perhaps a series of plazas or foundations) was discovered in 1968 off north Bimini beneath several fathoms of water. From these numerous findings, it would appear that par of the continental shelf of the Atlantic and Caribbean was once dry land, sunk or flooded during a period when man was already civilized.

Not everyone accepts these underwater features as being of man-made origin. The so-called "Bimini road" is dismissed by skeptics as nothing more than beach rock that just happens to have produced an unusual effect. Berlitz and Dr. Manson Valentine, the American archaeologist and oceanographer who discovered the "road", do not agree. "It should be pointed out." writes Berlitz, "that beach rock does not form great blocks which fit together in a pattern, that haphazardly splitting rock does not make 90- degree turns, nor does it normally have regularly laid-out passageways running between sections of it. Nor, above all, are 'natural' beach rocks, lying on the ocean floor, likely to be found supported by stone pillars precisely placed beneath them!"

Other sightings made off Bimini, at distances up to 100 miles from the shore, include what appear to be vertical walls, a great arch, and pyramids or bases for pyramids under the sea. some 10 miles north of Andros, another island in the Bahamas, pilots have photographed formations on the seabed that look like great circles of standing stones, reminiscent of Stonehenge. Off the coasts of eastern Yucatan and British Honduras seemingly man-made roads stretch far out to sea, and off Venezuela a 100-mile 'wall' runs along the ocean bottom. However, geologists have declared many of these to be natural features, and deem the Venezuelan wall "too big to be considered man-made". According to Berlitz, the Russians have explored an underwater building complex covering over 10 acres of the sea floor north of Cuba, and the French bathyscape Archimede has reported sighting flights of steps carved in the steep continental shelf off northern Puerto Rico.

Do these intriguing finds indicate that Atlantis was, after all, in the Atlantic? it seems we must keep an open mind until they have been investigated more thoroughly. Meanwhile, let us take a fresh look at the Atlantic Ocean to see if the theory of continental drift might still leave room for a missing continent there. When a computer was used to reassemble the continental jigsaw, the fit across the Atlantic was found, with some adjustment, to be fairly satisfactory. but that picture does not take account of a fascinating underwater feature known as the mid-Atlantic Ridge. This mountainous ridge, nearly two miles high and hundreds of miles wide, runs in an S-curve down the Atlantic midway between the Americas and Africa and Europe, following the contours of those continents and marking its course above water with a number of islands, such as the Azores, Ascension Island, and Tristan da Cunha.

As early as 1883 Ignatius Donnelly suggested that the mid-Atlantic Ridge was a remnant of Atlantis. But most modern geologists and oceanographers consider that, far from being the relic of a continent that sank beneath the sea, the ridge was forced upward from the ocean floor, probably by volcanic activity. One theory is that as the continents drifted apart they produce a huge fault line that is a center of earthquake and produce a huge fault line that is a center of earthquake and volcanic action. Some of the earth's molten center has erupted through this crack and built up into a ridge, even rising above the waves in several places. However, there is evidence that this explanation may have to reviewed before too long.

A diver taking part in A.R.E.s Poseidia 75 expedition to Bimini in the Bahamas examines an encrusted marble column found about a mile south of the Bimini Road. In 1968, what appeared to be a vast underwater road was discovered off Bimini, and the next year the columns, of which this is one, were found.

Seabed cores taken from the mid-Atlantic Ridge in 1957 brought up freshwater plants from a depth of two miles. And in one of the deep valleys, known as Romanche, sands have been found that appear to have been formed by weathering when that part of the ridge was above water level. In a 1969 a Duke University research expedition dredged 50 sites along an underwater ridge running from Venezuela to the virgin Islands, and brought up granitic rocks, which are normally found only on continents. Commenting on this discovery, Dr. Bruce Heezen of the Lamont Geological Observatory said: "Up to now, geologists generally believed that light granitic or acid igneous rocks are confined to the continents and that the crust of the earth beneath the sea is composed of heavier, dark-colored basaltic rock. . . Thus, the occurrence of light-colored granitic rocks may support an old theory that a continent formerly existed in the region of the eastern Caribbean and that these rocks may represent the core of a subsided, lost continent.

A recent report on the nature of the Atlantic seabed appears to confirm that there is at least part of a former continent lying beneath the ocean. Under the heading "Concrete Evidence for Atlantis?" the British Journal New Scientist of June 5, 1975 reported, "Although they make no such fanciful claim from their results as to have discovered the mythical mid-Atlantic landmass, an international group of oceanographers has now convincingly confirmed preliminary findings that a sunken block of continent lies in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery comes from analyzing dredge samples taken along the line of the Vema offset fault, a long east-west fracture zone lying between aFrica and South America close to latitude 11 degrees "N".

The report goes on to state that in 1971 two researchers from the University of Miami recovered some shallow-water limestone fragments from deep water in the area. Minerals in the limestone indicated that they came from a nearby source of granite that was unlikely to occur on the ocean floor. More exhaustive analysis of the dredge samples revealed that the limestones included traces of shallow-water fossils, implying formation in very shallow water indeed, a view confirmed by the ratios of oxygen and carbon isotopes found in the fragments. One piece of limestone was pitted and showed evidence of tidal action.

The researchers believe that the limestone dates from the Mesozoic era (between 70 and 220 million years ago) and forms a cap "on a residual continental block left behind as the Atlantic spread out into an ocean."  the New Scientist observes that "the granitic minerals could thus have come from the bordering continents while the ocean was still in it infancy. Vertical movements made by the block appear to have raised it above sea level at some period during it's history.

It would therefore seem that there is a lost continent in the Atlantic, but unfortunately for Atlantists, it evidently disappeared long before man appeared on earth. Most scientist remain convinced that there is no likelihood of finding the Atlantis described by Plato in the area of the mid-Atlantic Ridge. As L. Sprague de Camp comments in his Lost Continents, nearly all of the ridge, except for the small and mountainous Azores region, is under two or three miles of water, "and there is no known way to get a large island down to that depth in anything like the 10,000 years required to fit in with Plato's date for the sinking of Atlantis." He also points to a report published in 1967 by Dr. Maurice Ewing of Columbia University, who announced that "after 13 years of exploring the mid-Atlantic Ridge, he had "found no trace of sunken cities."

Atlantists reply that Dr. Ewing could have been looking in the wrong places, or perhaps too close to the center of the destructive forces that plunged Atlantis into the ocean. Some Atlantists have suggested that the original Atlantic landmass broke up into a least two parts, one of which sank long after the other. Perhaps Plato's Atlantis was a remnant of the continent that oceanographers now appear to have detected in the Atlantic, and perhaps it was not submerged until very much more recent times. The bed of the Atlantic is,after all, an unstable are and one that has given birth to numerous islands, then swallowed them up again. In 1811, for example, volcanic activity in the Azores resulted in the emergence of a new island called Sammrina, which shortly sank back again into the sea. In our own time, the island of Surtsey, 20 miles southwest of Iceland, has slowly risen from the ocean. Surtsey was formed during a continuous underwater eruption between 1963 and 1966.

If Atlantis did exist in the Atlantic above the great  fault line that runs between the present continents, it would certainly have been plagued by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Is it mere coincidence that Plato should have situated his lost continent in an ocean that does apparently contain such a continent, and in an area subject to the very kind of catastrophe he describes? Atlantists think not.

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

On the other hand, there are some Atlantists who believe that the destruction of Atlantis was brought about not by geological events but by a man-made disaster, such as a nuclear explosion. According to the Cayce readings, the Atlanteans achieved an astonishingly high level of technology before the continent sank, around 10,000 B.C. They invented the laser, aircraft, television, death rays, atomic energy, and cybernetic control of human beings, and it was the misuse of the tremendously powerful natural forces they had developed that caused their destruction.

Cayce is best-known for his apparent ability to diagnose illness even in people whom he had never met. This ability was tested by a group of physicians from Hopkinsville and Bowling Green, Kentucky. They discovered that when Cayce was in a state of trance, it was sufficient to give him the name and address of a patient for him to supply a wealth of information about that person, often drawing attention to medical conditions of which the physicians were then unaware, but that subsequent tests on the patient proved to be correct. This work alone would appear to justify the description of Cayce as America's most talented psychic. And if one aspect of his clairvoyant powers could prove so successful, it seems reasonable to give a fair hearing to other psychic statements he made, however, fantastic.

Cayce's sons, who help run the organization set up to study his work, admit that their life would be far simpler if Edgar Cayce had never mentioned Atlantis. Hugh Lynn Cayce comments; "It would be very easy to present a very tight evidential picture of Edgar Cayce's psychic ability and the helpfulness of his readings if we selected only those which are confirmed and completely validated. This would not be fair in total, overall evaluation of his life's work. My brother and I know that Edgar Cayce did not read Plato's material on Atlantis, or books on Atlantis, and that he, so far as we know, had absolutely no knowledge of this subject. If his unconscious fabricated this material or wove it together from existing legends and stories in print or the minds of persons dealing with the Atlantis theory." Edgar Evans Cayce makes the comment that "unless proof of the existence of Atlantis is one day discovered, Edgar Cayce is in a very unenviable position. On the other hand, if he proves accurate on this score he may become as famous an archaeologist or historian as he was a medical clairvoyant."

If, as his sons and thousands of followers believe, Edgar Cayce's readings were supernormal and not the product of reading the works of others, it is certainly an intriguing case. There are, for example, some fascinating similarities between Cayce's descriptions of Atlantis and those of occultists such as Madame Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, and W. Scott-Elliott, including references to the Atlanteans telepathic and other supernormal powers, their advanced technology, their moral disintegration, and the civil strife and misuse of their powers that finally caused their demise. Cayce's readings also mention Lemuria, or Mu. Either Cayce was psychically readings the works of these earlier writers, or he - the they - really were 'tuning in' to the past.

Whatever the result of future investigations around the splendid temples and palaces of Crete, or in the depths of the Thera basin, there will still be people who continue to look for convincing case for the identification of Plato's Atlantis with the Minoan civilization of the Aegean, but their opponents argue that the existence of such a civilization - however striking it similarities with Atlantis - does not preclude the existence of an even great civilization in the Atlantic. The finds in the Bahamas remain to be verified, and the discovery of what appears to be a submerged continent in the Atlantic adds a new dimension to the Atlantis mystery.

Whatever prompted Plato to write about Atlantis, he could never have dreamed that he would start a worldwide quest for the lost continent. Perhaps, as his pupil Aristotle hinted, "he who invented it, also destroyed it." Yet through a fortuitous accident - or a canny understanding of the human spirit - Plato hit upon a story that has struck a responsive chord in people's minds and hearts down the centuries. Whether his story was fact or fiction, a distorted version of real events or a fable that just happened to tie in with reality, it has managed to enchant, baffle, and challenge mankind for over 2000 years.

The persistence of the Atlantis legend is almost as intriguing as the lost continent itself. What is it that keeps the Atlantis debate alive? Is it a longing for reassurance that men and women once knew the secret of happiness, and really did inhabit a Garden of Eden? Is it the thrill of the search  - the hope of finding a master key to unlock the secrets of the past? Or is it simply man's thirst for mystery itself - for something grand and inexplicable, larger than himself? Certainly popular interest in the mystical side of Atlantis is always most intense when the life of the spirit is in the greatest disarray - during the latter half of the 19th Century, in the aftermath of Darwin's bombshell, for example, and during our own time.

The day may yet come when the key is found and the mystery of Atlantis is solved once and for all. The solution may be simple or complex. It could be sensational or disappointingly dull. We may already suspect the answer, or it may surprise us. Either way, it would rob the world of one of its most fascinating enigmas. Atlantis has intrigued and inspired people for a very long time. Perhaps, for the time being, we should be glad that the answer has not yet been found, and that Plato's lost continent remains just beyond our grasp.

IS ATLANTIS RISING AGAIN?

Subj: EQ MAG 6.2 CARIBBEAN SEA Date: 12/01/1999 5:14:20 PM Central Standard Time From: KOYANAGI@neis.cr.usgs.gov Sender: sedas@ghtmail.cr.usgs.gov U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE INFORMATION CENTER World Data Center A for Seismology The following is from the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: preliminary hypocenter for earthquake of 1999 dec 01, CARIBBEAN SEA, about 105 miles (170 km) E of Swan Island: latitude 17.6 degrees north longitude 82.4 degrees west origin time 19 23 05.4 utc depth shallow, magnitude 6.2 Mw.

99/12/01 19:23:05 17.61N 82.36W 10.0 6.2Mw A CARIBBEAN SEA 99/12/02 10:29:47 17.82N 81.86W 10.0 5.1Mb A CARIBBEAN SEA

CARIBBEAN EARTHQUAKE HISTORY

The Global Grid Solution

The Pyramid at Giza and the Magnetic Null Zone - Grid Links

Other Sources and recommended reading.

SATELLITE DISCOVERIDS

SATELLITE OF BERMUDA ISLANDS

Exorcising the Devil's Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle Fact Sheet

Lost Patrol - Flight 19

The Bermuda Triangle - The Devil's Sea

A Personal Voyage in the Triangle

A Journey into the Bermuda Triangle

Atlantis Resources and References

What is the Bermuda Triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle - A Selective Bibliography

The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved

AUTEC Naval Base

Naval Oceanography Links

The Bahamas - Diving Resources

Diving New Providence Island, Bahamas

Atlantis - The Lost Continent - Now Found

Scott Stones

A Novel Approach to Atlantis

Andros Island History

Cave Diving

Navigating the Shoals

Where was Atlantis?

Answers to Questions about the Grid System of Earth

History of the World Grid Theory

How to Find Latitude and Longitude

Earth: A Crystal Planet?

Edgar Cayce

Edgar Cayce Prophecy Page

TO MAIN INDEX