The Great Islands Under The Sea

THE GREAT ISLANDS UNDER THE SEA continued

It was in the vicinity of the Azores that the first modern searches for
Atlantis were instituted and where rocks from the bottom gave evidence of
great explosions and sudden sinkings, just as described in Plato's legend.

A large continent island standing on a series of plateaus on which the pre-
sent Azores and a number of seamounts rest (two of which were appro-
priately named Atlantis and Plato, when being charted) extends into the
central Atlantic from approximately north latitude 50Degrees on a line bet-
ween Newfoundland and northern France and then continues south through
the Sargasso Sea down to north latitude 20Degrees on a line between
Yucatan and Mauritania, Africa.

This underwater plateau is roughly comparable, in modern terms, to the size
of France, Spain, Portugal and the British Isles together. Or, in Plato's terms,
(bearing in mind that when Plato said "Libya" he meant the coastal section of
North Africa and when he said "Asia" he meant Asia Minor), "larger than Libya
and Asia put together."

The approximate dimensions of the island continent given by Plato and support-
ed thousands of years later by the finding of the great mountainous plateau
along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, would be of more than sufficient size to support
the population, commerce, agriculture, navy and maritime culture detailed in
the CRITIAS and TIMAEUS dialogues.