there was an island larger than Asia (Minor) and Libya combined," called
Atlantis? And suppose we found that the Azores were the mountain peaks
of this drowned island, and were torn and rent by tremendous volcanic
convulsions; while around them, descending into the sea, were found
great strata of lava; and the whole face of the sunken land was covered
for thousands of miles with volcanic debris, would we not be obliged to
confess that these facts furnished strong corroborative proofs of the
truth of Plato's statement, that "in one day and one fatal night there
came mighty earthquakes and inundations which ingulfed that mighty
people? Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea; and then that sea became
inaccessible on account of the quantity of mud which the ingulfed island
left in its place."

MAP OF ATLANTIS, WITH ITS ISLANDS AND CONNECTING RIDGES, FROM DEEP-SEA
SOUNDINGS

And all these things recent investigation has proved conclusively.
Deep-sea soundings have been made by ships of different nations; the
United States ship Dolphin, the German frigate Gazelle, and the British
ships Hydra, Porcupine, and Challenger have mapped out the bottom of the
Atlantic, and the result is the revelation of a great elevation,
reaching from a point on the coast of the British Islands southwardly to
the coast of South America, at Cape Orange, thence south-eastwardly to
the coast of Africa, and thence southwardly to Tristan d'Acunha. I give
one map showing the profile of this elevation in the frontispiece, and
another map, showing the outlines of the submerged land, on page 47. It
rises about 9000 feet above the great Atlantic depths around it, and in
the Azores, St. Paul's Rocks, Ascension, and Tristan d'Acunha it reaches
the surface of the ocean.