Message #160299

[Autolocus]

LOCATION AND SIZE OF ATLANTIS

The location of Atlantis, according to Plato, is fairly clear.
It was in the ocean, "then navigable," beyond the Pillars of
Hercules; also beyond certain other islands, which served it as
stepping-stones to the continental mass surrounding the Mediter-
ranean. This effectually disposes of all pretensions in behalf of
Crete or any other island or region of the inner sea. Atlantis must
also have lain pretty far out in the ocean, to allow space for the in-
tervening islands, which may well have been, at least in part, the
Canary Islands or other surviving members of the eastern Atlan-
tic archipelagoes; still it could not have been too distant to pro-
hibit the transfer of large forces when means of transportation
were slow and scant. This rules out America, apart from the fact
that America (like Crete) still exists, whereas Atlantis foundered,
and the further fact that America is continental, while Atlantis is
described as merely a large island. Besides, what evidence is there