Message #160303

[Autolocus]

TERMIER'S THEORY OF AN ANCIENT ATLANTIC
CONTINENTAL MASS

Nevertheless, inquiries as to an ancient Atlantic continental
mass have an interest. We may cite a few of the recent outgiv-
ings. Termier tells us of an east-and-west arrangement of ele-
vated lands across the Atlantic in earlier ages, as opposed to the



20 ATLANTIS

present north-and-south system of islands and raised folds. By
the former there was

a very ancient continental bond between northern Europe and North
America and . . . another continental bond, also very ancient, between
the massive Africa and South America. . . Thus the region of the
Atlantic, until an era of ruin which began we know not when, but the end
of which was the Tertiary, was occupied by a continental mass, bounded
on the south by a chain of mountains, and which was all submerged long
before the collapse of those volcanic lands of which the Azores seem to be
the last vestiges. In place of the South Atlantic Ocean there was, likewise,
for many thousands of centuries a great continent now very deeply en-
gulfed beneath the sea. 9