Mesomphalos of the earlier Greeks, and the Omphalium of the Cretans,
dominating the Elysian fields, upon whose tops, bathed in pure,
brilliant, incomparable light, the gods passed their days in ceaseless
joys."

"The Buddhists and Brahmans, who together constitute nearly half the
population of the world, tell us that the decussated figure (the cross),
whether in a simple or a complex form, symbolizes the traditional happy
abode of their primeval ancestors--that 'Paradise of Eden toward the
East,' as we find expressed in the Hebrew. And, let us ask, what better
picture, or more significant characters, in the complicated alphabet of
symbolism, could have been selected for the purpose than a circle and a
cross: the one to denote a region of absolute purity and perpetual
felicity; the other, those four perennial streams that divided and
watered the several quarters of it?" (Edinburgh Review, January, 1870.)

And when we turn to the mythology of the Greeks, we find that the origin
of the world was ascribed to Okeanos, the ocean. The world was at first
an island surrounded by the ocean, as by a great stream:

"It was a region of wonders of all kinds; Okeanos lived there with his
wife Tethys: these were the Islands of the Blessed, the gardens of the
gods, the sources of nectar and ambrosia, on which the gods lived.
Within this circle of water the earth lay spread out like a disk, with
mountains rising from it, and the vault of heaven appearing to rest upon
its outer edge all around." (Murray's "Manual of Mythology," pp. 23, 24,
et seq.)

On the mountains dwelt the gods; they had palaces on these mountains,
with store-rooms, stabling, etc.