caring for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the
possession of gold and other property;" a time when, as the chants of
the Delaware Indians stated it (page 109, ante), "all were willingly
pleased, all were well-happified." While the description given by Murray
in the above extract of the degeneracy of mankind in the land of the
gods, "a period of constant quarrelling and deeds of violence, when
might was right," agrees with Plato's account of the Atlanteans, when
they became "aggressive," "unable to bear their fortune," "unseemly,"
"base," "filled with unrighteous avarice and power,"--and "in a most
wretched state." And here again I might quote from the chant of the
Delaware Indians--"they became troubled, hating each other; both were
fighting, both were spoiling, both were never peaceful." And in all
three instances the gods punished the depravity of mankind by a great
deluge. Can all these precise coincidences be the result of accident?

May we not even suppose that the very word "Olympus" is a transformation
from "Atlantis" in accordance with the laws that regulate the changes of
letters of the same class into each other? Olympus was written by the
Greeks "Olumpos." The letter a in Atlantis was sounded by the ancient
world broad and full, like the a in our words all or altar; in these
words it approximates very closely to the sound of o. It is not far to
go to convert Otlontis into Oluntos, and this into Olumpos. We may,
therefore, suppose that when the Greeks said that their gods dwelt in
"Olympus," it was the same as if they said that they dwelt in "Atlantis."

Nearly all the gods of Greece are connected with Atlantis. We have seen
the twelve principal gods all dwelling on the mountain of Olympus, in
the midst of an island in the ocean in the far west, which was
subsequently destroyed by a deluge on account of the wickedness of its
people. And when we turn to Plato's description of Atlantis (p. 13,