THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1950.
WAS THIS
THIS THE CRADLE OF THE HUMAN RACE'?
Seeking the lost continent under
the Atlantic
By GEORGE HOWARD
OME time this year a Mediterranean, from Baby. London archaeologist lon to Mexico, and Egypt to hopes to find a few Panama, records from the pieces of carved stone or dim twilight of time refer brick which will render the to it as a land of beauty, world's history books out of fertility, and highly date.
ganised life.
ur.
#
Those relics
be But to modern anthro- brought to the surface of the pology and geology its exis
un from the submerged fence during the half continent of Atlantis. million years in which man They will prove-iť dis- has lived on earth is a sub- envered that a civilisation jeel of acute controversy. existed in
area Bow covered deep under the Western Atlantic.
In legend and folklore Atlantis is no mystery. In almost every country bor-
dering the organ and the
CV.R. Thompson
Planning is costly
FACT-FABLE 5,000 books on it
IN a house in Chelsea the
extra-
A remarkable fact "But he about the Ridge is that gives descrip- tions of the its shape fits with
country, its mode of gov ordinary detail into the con- tours of the coasts on either ernment, en- gineering side of the ocean.
works for It is the missing piece of
irrigation and a jigsaw puzzle which needs transport, only to be pushed together industries, to become one great mass. and buildings Geologists are salished in great de- that America has slowly
Lall. drifted away from Europe and Africa. It is still doing
The break which left the apinal column of the mass by itself must have occurred millions of years before any form of mammalian life
M. who knows more about Atlantis of fact and fable than anyone else. Mr appeared. Egerton Sykes, is organis- ing an expedition with two hathyspheres and under water cameras, which he hopes will definitely identify
the lost continent.
What are the facts about Atlantis? Experts believe it to have been the cradle of the human race. And they believe that its destruc- tion put back the progress of the human race by many thousands of years. NEW YORK. WERYTHING is sul-
An enormous mass of Edenly beginning to cost literature exists on the sub-
little
more.
But there has always been concerning the argument time at which the isolate
and disappeared beneath
the waves.
PLATO WROTE Of its culture
CONVENTIONAL scientific views are that the sink- ing was part of the birth throes of the world, like the original separation.
** [} { & $ છું wrote nbout
Atlantis be сличе the subject bad been of great interest 10
SICELANDE
Azores
WHERE THE
DESCENT WILL
BE MADE
AFRICA
SOUTH AMERICA
Ascension
Tristan
da Cunha
"ANTARCTIC OCEAN
pulled by
"I
his ancestor, Solon, who of water were went to Egypt to get details gravity to raise the level of relies of this kind and possibly from the historien! records the Atlantic by many bun- have little doubt that large kept by the priests.
dreds of feet.
can photograph a few
dredge some up to the surface, 1
expedition would soon be REA In a matter of days At-ranged to make a complete rus-
vey." "Not the least interesting lantis.
Was engulfed-but point is that Plato was not before a few of the in- philosopher. He had no in- habitants took to boats and terest in fiction or romance, rafts to carry the tidings to He analysed everything be- the Old and New Worlds, fore he wrote it down."
where their stories became
Plato puts the date of the legends. destruction of Atlantis,
which he says happened in a day and a night, at about This is much 9500 B.C. carlier than any era of re- corded history,
At first, Atlantis may not have been very far under the water. Gradually it has sunk deeper.
However it happened, the Atlantis experts mostly put
FLAT SKULLS Skill as builders
F the lives and habits of the Atlantean peoples Sykes haa amassed considerable detail. They were sun-worshippers, and their religion was carried on in Egypt and Central America afterwards. They had dattened skulls.
The Atlanteans could not write or work in metals, except in the
Plato, the identity of which is unknown, but may have been copper.
In other accounts of the the date of the disaster at natural ore called orichalcum by catastrophe, such the about 10,000 B.C.
119 Biblical story of the Flood,
The Arst true inen were Mr the inundation was not 18 seratching and painting pictures Sykes, "terrestrial changes sudden ALS one day and on bones and rock 10,000 years before that in the caves of Spain the premammal era night.
and South-Western France. naturally don't Ket into
"But," points out Planning. Jeet. There are 5,000 books nature, and a heavy demandin the world's museums are blamed.
devoted to it.
Planning, in the Jorn of They range from Plato's Washington's policy of giving description, written about subsidies to keep up farmers' prices, in responsible for dearer 400 B.C., a revised work by Jurat
Nature, through drought in the corn bolt, is causing wheat prices to climb,
And they will probably go ng again, when the Government forecasts that 200 million bushels of the winter wheat crop
will be lost.
Nature, again, by providing and too much a late spring frust, Is making housewives Pay nearly 20 percent mure for vegetables,
of
folklore.
ENGULFED
But some escaped
These scrutchings suggest considerable training in line, colour, and impressionism-and the men who made them lived within a few days' voyage of the
"Yet stories of a Deluge a great nineteenth-century are universal. They are authority, Ignatius
Dun- found
in the Sugas, the nelly, published last year in Eddas legends
the THERE are several theories fost continent. vf New York.
to account for both the Aztecs, Mayas, and Tolters
sudden and gradual drown. under of Central and South America, as well as in the ing of the continent. records of the Babylonians, Hebrews, and Egyptians,
Today, there is complete
the exist confirmation of ence at one period of a vast tract of land rising high above the rolling plains of the Atlantic sen bed.
It runs down the middle like an
Deranad has increased the price of British rubber much of the
Ocean
That tyres are on their way up. clongated S, stretching from
"All the peoples of anti- quity tell similar stories of the Garden of Delights, the Hesperides, the Garden of Eden, the Terrestrial Par
So are fuara rubber pillows, Iceland almost 10 the dise, and Atlantis. mattresses, and cushions, now 4 | Antarctic. great Amerien Jud.
"One," explains Mr Sykes, "is that the moon was not a satellite of the earth
at
Mr Sykes plans to search the surface of the sea around the Azores.
Like all Stone Age peoples they had great building skill, astro- basing their designs on nomical Sgures. They had the usual love of ornament, particu- larly jade,
This fact brings yet another grain of evidence of Atlantis to the dossiers collected by Mir Sykes,
Thi
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In the tombs of the Mayas, in?
the Yucatan Peninsula of Central America, jade ornaments have been found.
"When these islands were re- dienvered by the Portuguese they were uninhabited," he says. In the earliest tombs they are
of buildings
In the later ones "Any traces
must quite large. an earlier they are tiny. The supply of jade therefore belong to
had been cut off and becamo lan creasingly scarce.
all, but a planet describing culture. an orbit between those the work and Murs.
of
"It came to close, was captured by the earth's nt- traction for a smaller body, of
and retained a satel. given lite."
TROst reliable
the
"Obviously we cannot hope to find very much, for the area I plan to investigate would have been high on a mountainside,
"It will be much the same as If some future explorer had to rely on relies found on the upper tlopes of Mont Blane to prove the existence of civilisation In Eu-
"The Demand for goena. again Only a few of its highest all the Recounts, mostly British-owned, will soon
peaks-20,000 feet above factually and without make sweets more expensive,
When not the sea bed-emerge above symbolism of folklore, is
this En runaway nation
happened rope. likely. Prices of these things are water to form the islands of that of Plato. It is incom- the upheaval was trumen- The Poles shifted Ascen- plete because it was his last dous.
work.
slightly. Enormous masses
U.S.
s nearly half what they were Tristan da Cunha, at the post-war worst. experts will drop this year and sion, and the Azores. there are plenty of bargains yet,
WANTED-more dollars from
eileet
ورا
Britain. Notice to this Ellis served Wis Armall, president of the Society of independent Motion Picture Producers, as he sailed for Bri- tain aboard the Queen Mary,
He will join the negotiations by flim chief Erie Johnston with the Bourd of Trade's Harold Wilson in an effort to increase the £17,000,000 worth of dollars Hollywood now takes cut of Britain.
Said Arnall: "We shall want more, but we want to work out a ve-and-left-live polizy."
al
POOKMAKERS are now ruti- ning alnost faster than the horses which give dem their lying. They are getting away from New York because bik gamblers are beginning to tell to the authorities. Qne business nan, unnamed as yet, told of a bookmaker who took £7,000 from him In one day. Another listed nearly £150,000 worth of losing bels made, and nit the bookmakers with whom ire made them.
EVERYONE in Mount Vernon.
New York suburb, is most careful 10 My
and "Thank you.' beaut the mayor,
being "Ploro" That is
William Hussey, the soul of courtesy himself, wants Mount Vernon to set the world an examplo.
He has asked all citizens, even the police, to be more polita. "What can I do for you?" he asked affably when I tele- phoned him to
find out Pho reason for this campaign.
His reply: "Lack of courtesy is now world-wide. Many world. problema are caused by in considerate people. .Maybe Mount Vernon can start- ́some-- thing. And thank you for call-
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There are no jade deposits an the American continent neare: than British Columbia Alasko, thousands of miles to the north, where the Mayas never penetrated.
"Tho prehistoric races of America cannot be explained,” Bugitests Sykes, "except by the existence of Atlantis or by m- "But there should be traces: possibly long voyages from Eu- balustrades, terraces, stairways, rope or Polynesia." even a temple.
JOE DOING
ASPHINX
PLENTY OF FOG
¡WITH UNEASY LEGS |
"ABDULLA IGNORING ITRAFIZ RULES
OUTBREAK
OF POLITORISS
AMOLE VÄDIANS
World Crowishi,, Eg uripupoment with Dally Heroldi
Yet they built pyramids like the Egyptians, carved elephant gures like the Indians, and had
a great civilisation while Europe was still in barbarism.
Among the masses of pam- phlets, boots, and maps which bestrew Sykes's office is a no which contains what is probably the most dramatic evidence about Atlantis of all that has been written in the thousands of years that the tople has whetted man's curiosity.
PILOT SAW Submerged hill
THAT evidence is the account
of an experience of an air- man during the war.
He was a ferry pilot, bringing
an aircraft from Natal, ou
coast of Brazil, to Dakar.
the
He reported that he saw the remnants of bulldings on the Decan floor as he neared the African coast.
The setting sun was at an Angle of 90 degrees to the slope of the submerged hill on which the bulkings stood. The rays threw shadows on one side and brought the other into sharp relief.
"It must be remembered," Mr Sykes says, "that this man was trained to keep his eyes open for U-boats, life rafts and anything ununual on or under the sen, and to report it accurately,
"It is very unlikely that ha would have troubled to report a bed mere contour of the sca which by a trick of light gave the Illusion of artificiul construc- Lion.""
So the secret of Atlantis re- mains a secret. But Mr Egerton Sykes belleves he can solve the problem this your.
:
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