nations, appear to have belonged to a higher latitude. By these means we
discover the true site on the globe of the primitive people, proving
against the received opinion that learning came southward from the
north.

Bailly also found that the ancient fables, considered physically,
appeared to belong to the northern regions of the earth.

In 1779, Bailly published a second collection, forming a sequel to the
former, and entitled _Letters on the Atlantis of Plato, and on the
Ancient History of Asia_.

Voltaire died before these new letters could be communicated to him.
Bailly did not think that this circumstance ought to make him change the
form of the discussion already employed in the former series; it is
still Voltaire whom he addresses.

The philosopher of Ferney thought it strange that there should be no
knowledge of this ancient people, who, according to Bailly, had
instructed the Indians. To answer this difficulty, the celebrated
astronomer undertakes to prove that some nations have disappeared,
without their existence being known to us by any thing beyond tradition.
He cites five of these, and in the first rank the Atlantidæ.

Aristotle said that he thought Atlantis was a fiction of Plato's: "He
who created it also destroyed it, like the walls that Homer built on the
shores of Troy, and then made them disappear." Bailly does not join in
this skepticism. According to him, Plato spoke seriously to the
Athenians of a learned, polished people, but destroyed and forgotten.
Only, he totally repudiates the idea of the Canaries being the remains