s at present exceedingly dry and parched. By the second map period
those lakes had disappeared, and it seems natural to conjecture that
the districts where those lakes lay, must, during the eruptions of the
great volcanoes which lay to the south-east (between the present
Australia and New Zealand), have been so raked with red-hot volcanic
dust that the very water-springs were dried up.

[Sidenote: Founding of the Atlantean Race.]

In concluding this sketch, a reference to the process by which the
Fourth Root Race was brought into existence, will appropriately bring
to an end what we know of the story of Lemuria and link it on to that
of Atlantis.

It may be remembered from previous writings on the subject that it was
from the _fifth_ or Semitic sub-race of the Fourth Root Race that was
chosen the nucleus destined to become our great Fifth or Aryan Root
Race. It was not, however, until the time of the _seventh_ sub-race on
Lemuria that humanity was sufficiently developed physiologically to
warrant the choice of individuals fit to become the parents of a new
Root Race. So it was from the seventh sub-race that the segregation
was effected. The colony was first settled on land which occupied the
site of the present Ashantee and Western Nigeria. A reference to the
second map will show this as a promontory lying to the north-west of
the island-continent which embraced the Cape of Good Hope and parts of
western Africa. Having been guarded for generations from any admixture
with a lower type, the colony gradually increased in numbers, and the
time came when it was ready to receive and to hand on the new impulse
to physical heredity which the Manu was destined to impart.

Students of Theosophy are aware that, up to the present day, no one
belonging to our humanity has been in a position to undertake the
exalted office of Manu, though it is stated that the founding of the
coming Sixth Root Race will be entrusted to the guidance of one of our
Masters of Wisdom--one who, while belonging to our humanity, has
nevertheless reached a most exalted level in the Divine Hierarchy.

In the case we are considering--the founding of the Fourth Root
Race--it was one of the Adepts from Venus who undertook the duties of
the Manu. Naturally he belonged to a very high order, for it must be
understood that the Beings who came from the Venus system as rulers
and teachers of our infant humanity did _not_ all stand at the same
level. It is this ci