present, but having a
period of twelve thousand years ago as its central date. It happens that
we have traditions of a great dispersion from the very centre we have
been led to fix, the neighborhood of Atlas or Gibraltar, and that to
this dispersion tradition has given a date over eleven thousand years
ago; but to this side of the subject we cannot more fully allude; it
would take us too far afield.

We have gone far enough to make it tolerably certain, first, that these
great and wonderful monuments were built when uniform conditions of
order, uniform religious beliefs and aspirations, and a uniform mastery
over natural forces extended throughout a vast region spreading
northward and eastward from Mount Atlas or Gibraltar; we have seen,
next, that these conditions were furnished when a well-defined race,
whom we have called Atlantean, was spread as the dominant element over
this whole region; and, finally, we have seen reason to fix on a period
some eleven or twelve thousand years ago as the central period of that
domination, though it may have begun, and probably did begin, many
centuries earlier. The distribution of the cromlechs is certain; the
distribution of the race is certain; the age of one characteristic group
of the monuments is certain. Further than this we need not go.

When we try to form a clearer image of the life of this tall archaic
race of cromlech-builders, we can divine very much to fill the picture.
We note, to begin with, that not only do they always hold to the
Atlantic ocean as something kindred and familiar, but that they are
found everywhere in islands at such distances from the nearest coasts as
would demand a certain seamanship for their arrival. This is true of
their presence in Malta, Minorca, Sardinia; it is even more true of
Ireland, the Western Isles of Scotland, the Norwegian Isles; all of
which are surrounded by stormy and treacherous seas, where wrecks are
very common even in our day. We must believe that our tail, dark
invaders were a race of seamen, thoroughly skilled in the dangerous
navigation of these dark seas; Caesar marveled at, and imitated, the
ship-building of the natives of Brittany in his day; we equally admire
the prowess of their sons, the Breton fishermen, in our own times. We
find, too, that in the western districts and ocean islands of our own
Ireland the tall, dark race often follows the sea, showing the same
hereditary skill and daring; a skill which certainly m