g to still
higher levels. It must naturally be with the periods of culture that
the following remarks will deal, chief among which stands out the
great Toltec era.

Architecture and sculpture, painting and music were all practised in
Atlantis. The music even at the best of times was crude, and the
instruments of the most primitive type. All the Atlantean races were
fond of colour, and brilliant hues decorated both the insides and the
outsides of their houses, but painting as a fine art was never well
established, though in the later days some kind of drawing and
painting was taught in the schools. Sculpture on the other hand, which
was also taught in the schools, was widely practised, and reached
great excellence. As we shall see later on under the head of
"Religion" it became customary for every man who could afford it to
place in one of the temples an image of himself. These were sometimes
carved in wood or in hard black stone like basalt, but among the
wealthy it became the fashion to have their statues cast in one of the
precious metals, aurichalcum, gold or silver. A very fair resemblance
of the individual usually resulted, while in some cases a striking
likeness was achieved.

Architecture, however, was naturally the most widely practised of
these arts. Their buildings were massive structures of gigantic
proportions. The dwelling houses in the cities were not, as ours are,
closely crowded together in streets. Like their country houses some
stood in their own garden grounds, others were separated by plots of
common land, but all were isolated structures. In the case of houses
of any importance four blocks of building surrounded a central
courtyard, in the centre of which generally stood one of the fountains
whose number in the "City of the Golden Gates" gained for it the
second appellation of the "City of Waters." There was no exhibition of
goods for sale as in modern streets. All transactions of buying and
selling took place privately, except at stated times, when large
public fairs were held in the open spaces of the cities. But the
characteristic feature of the Toltec house was the tower that rose
from one of its corners or from the centre of one of the blocks. A
spiral staircase built outside led to the upper stories, and a pointed
dome terminated the tower--this upper portion being very commonly used
as an observatory. As already stated the houses were decorated with
bright colours. Some were ornamented wit