Atlantic Ocean."

Brasseur de Bourbourg claims that these traditions, on both sides of the
Atlantic, mean the same thing. The "island of Atlantis," larger than
Libya and Asia Minor together, was the extended portion of the American
continent. These concurring traditions can not be devoid of historical
significance. The constant references by ancient Greek writers to the
Atlantes, who are always placed at the extremity of Europe and Africa,
on the ocean which bears their name, may reasonably be regarded as vague
and faded recollections of such a history connected with that ocean as
that implied by what was said of their island in the annals of Egypt. In
support of his view of what is meant by the traditions, he adds this
philological argument:

"The words _Atlas_ and _Atlantic_ have no satisfactory etymology in any
language known to Europe. They are not Greek, and can not be referred to
any known language of the Old World. But in the Nahuatl language we find
immediately the radical _a_, _atl_, which signifies water, war, and the
top of the head. (Molina, _Vocab. en lengua mexicana y castellana_,
etc.) From this comes a series of words, such as _atlan_, on the border
of or amid the water, from which we have the adjective _Atlantic_. We
have also atlaca, to combat or be in agony; it means likewise to hurl or
dart from the water, and in the preterit makes _atlaz_. A city named
_Atlan_ existed when the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the
entrance of the Gulf of Uraba, in Darien, with a good harbor; it is now
reduced to an unimportant pueblo named _Acla_."

In the third place, he quotes opinions expressed without any regard
whatever to his theory to show that scientific men who have considered
the question believe that there was formerly a great extension of the
land into the Atlantic in the manner supposed. The first quotation is
from Moreau de Saint-Mery's "Description topographique et politique de
la Partie Espagnole a l'Isle de Saint-Domingue," published in 1796, as
follows:

"There are those who, in examining the map of America, do not confine
themselves to thinking with the French Pliny that the innumerable
islands situated from the mouth of the Orinoco to the Bahama Channel
(islands which include several _Grenadins_ not always visible in very
high tides or great agitations of the sea) should be considered as
summits of vast mountains whose bases and sides are covered with water,
but who go farther, and sup