xt7n2z12p231 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7n2z12p231/data/mets.xml Durrett, Reuben T. (Reuben Thomas), 1824-1913. 1908  books b92-57-27063469 English J.P. Morton, : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. America Discovery and exploration Welsh. Traditions of the earliest visits of foreigners to North America, the first formed and first inhabited of the continents  / by Reuben T. Durrett. text Traditions of the earliest visits of foreigners to North America, the first formed and first inhabited of the continents  / by Reuben T. Durrett. 1908 2002 true xt7n2z12p231 section xt7n2z12p231 




































































































REUBEN     r. DUKRREI1, A.I.. I.L..., AM.. 1.1..).
             PsidC  o The Film Ciif.


 







FILSON CLUB PUBLICATIONS No. 23



              TRADITIONS

                     OF THU


Earliest Visits of Foreigners

                      TO

            NORTH AMERICA

    The First Formed and First Inhabited of the
                   Continents


                      BY
          REUBEN T. DURRETT
                A.B., LL.B., A.M., LL.D.
              President of The Filson Club


                    3Uus atit



   LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
JOHN P. MORTON  COMPANY
        (Incorporated)
   PRINTERS TO THE FILSON CLUB
          I 908


 



































     COPMRIGHT, 1908,



THE FILSON CLUB


    All Rights Reserved


 


INTRODUCTION



A     T the beginning of our Civil War there lived in
id    Louisville an elderly gentleman by the name of
      Griffin, who, though belonging to neither of the
learned professions, had read many books and stored
his excellent memory with much useful information. He
was of Welsh descent, and proud of the long line of Cam-
brians he numbered among his ancestors. I knew him
well, and was fond of talking with him about the many
interesting things that occurred while Louisville was pro-
gressing from a straggling row of log cabins and ponds
along unpaved Main Street, between First and Twelfth,
to the mansions of brick and stone along the many paved
streets now occupied by wealth and fashion.
   Knowing that he prided himself upon being of Welsh
descent, I asked him one day what he thought of the
tradition that Madoc, a Welsh prince, had planted a col-
ony of his countrymen in America in the Twelfth cen-
tury. He answered that he had become interested in the
subject when he was young in years; that he had read
all he could secure of what had been printed about it;
that he had also learned some things from tradition which
had not gotten into print, and that this country in early


 


iv                   Introduction

times had many traditions on the subject which came
originally from the Indians. He added that he considered
the Madoc tradition as plausible and as worthy of belief
as any of the stories of the pre-Columbian discoveries of
America.
    I then asked him if any of the traditions he had heard
were connected with the Falls of the Ohio, and if they
were so related would he much oblige by giving them to
me He answered that he was not at the Falls of the
Ohio when Louisville was founded, but that he knew some
of the pioneers, such as General Clark, Squire Boone,
James Patten and others whose lives had been prolonged
to his times. These pioneers had intercourse with friend-
ly Indians, who frequently visited the Falls for the pur-
pose of trade, and from them the following traditions con-
nected with the Falls were obtained.
   On the north side of the river, where Jeffersonville
now stands, some skeletons were exhumed in early times
with armor on which had brass plates bearing the Mer-
maid and Harp, which belong to the Welsh coat-of-arms.
On the same side of the river, further down, a piece of
stone supposed to be part of a tombstone was found with
the date i i86 and what seemed to be a name or the ini-
tials of a name so effaced by time as to be illegible. If
that piece of stone was ever a tombstone over a grave,


 


Introduction



the party laid beneath it must have been of the Welsh
colony of Madoc, for we have no tradition of any one
but the Welsh at the Falls so early as ii86. In early
times the forest along the river on both sides of the Falls
for some miles presented two kinds of growth. Along the
margin of the river the giant sycamores and other trees
of the primeval forest stood as if they had never been
disturbed, but beyond them was a broad belt of trees of
a different growth, until the belt was passed, when the
original forest growth again appeared. This indicated
that the belt had been deprived of its original forest for
agricultural or other purposes, and that a new forest had
grown up in its stead. He said, however, it was possible
that the most important of these traditions learned from
the Indians concerned a great battle fought at the Falls
of the Ohio between the Red Indians and the White In-
dians, as the Welsh Indians were called. It has been a
long time ago since this battle was fought, but it was
fought here and won by the Red Indians. In the final
struggle the White Indians sought safety on an island
since known as Sandy Island, but nearly all who sought
refuge there were slaughtered. The remnant who escaped
death made their way to the Missouri River, where by
different movements at different times they went up that
river a great distance. They were known to exist there



V


 


Introducron



by different parties who came from there and talked
Welsh with the pioneers. Some Welshmen living at the
Falls of the Ohio in pioneer times talked with these White
Indians, and although there was a considerable difference
between the Welsh they spoke and the Welsh spoken by
the Indians, yet they had no great difficulty in under-
standing one another. He further said, concerning this
tradition of a great battle, that there was a tradition
that many skeletons were found on Sandy Island min-
gled promiscuously together as if left there unburied after
a great battle, but that he had examined the island a
number of times without finding a single human bone,
and that if skeletons were ever abundant there they had
disappeared before his time.
   Mr. Griffin in the foregoing statement added but little
to the Madoc tradition as it had already appeared in the
text and appendix of the publication under consideration,
but as far as he went he confirmed the statement of oth-
ers. As these traditions are fully set forth in the text
and appendix they will be left there to speak for them-
selves. There are stranger things in Welsh history than
these traditions. The Welsh stand out in history as one
of the most remarkable of peoples. Their patriotism and
endurance and courage have seldom been surpassed by
any nation. The legions of Rome were not able to sub-



Vi




 






























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Introduction



due them in five hundred years; the Saxons, Angles, Jutes,
and Danes failed to conquer them in another five hundred
years, and the Anglo-Normans, after all the bloody work
of their predecessors, failed to subdue them. They were
not subdued until the reign of Edward the First of Eng-
land, and were then the victims of fraud. When David
and Llewellyn, the last princes chosen by the people,
were gotten rid of by the foulest of means and the prince-
dom of Wales without an acceptable sovereign, King Ed-
ward had an act of Parliament passed attaching Wales
to England. But when he came to the appointing of
a Prince of Wales the Welsh gave him to understand
that they would never submit to a prince of English ap-
pointment unless the prince chosen were a native of Wales,
who spoke the Welsh language and whose life was spot-
less. King Edward, seeing that the Welsh were in earn-
est in their demands for a prince and being anxious for
such a peace in the country as would enable him to in-
vest certain Welsh estates in his English friends, be-
thought him of a fraud to satisfy the Welsh. His wife
Eleanor was soon to become a mother, and he had her
removed from England to Caernarvon Castle in Wales,
where she soon gave birth to a son. King Edward then
summoned the barons and chief men of Wales to meet
him at Ruthin Castle, also in Wales. When they were



vii


 


Introduction



assembled he told them he was now prepared to give
them a prince who was a native of Wales, who could not
speak a word of English, and whose life no one could
stain. He then made his infant son Prince of Wales,
and the firstborn of the English sovereign has ever since
been Prince of Wales. The fraud-which was quite un-
worthy of a King of England-had the effect of subdu-
ing the Welsh after the Romans, the Saxons, the Jutes,
the Danes, and the Normans had failed to conquer them
in a thousand years. They fought against odds among
their protecting mountains, and could neither be con-
quered nor driven from their rugged homes nor made to
submit to a foreign ruler. After twelve centuries of hard
but successful fighting against frightful odds and after
many frauds and deceptions practiced both by themselves
and the English, they at last were captured by a fraud
and deception which it would seem ought not to have
deceived them under the circumstances. They had often
before been deceived by the English to their cost, and
ought not to have given credence to the words and prom-
ises of a king whose words and promises they had often
before found unworthy of belief.
   It has been the habit of The Filson Club to illustrate
its publications with a likeness of the author and such
other pictures as were deemed appropriate. When it


 


Introduclion



came to selecting illustrations for the twenty-third publi-
cation but little that was deemed appropriate seemed to
be in reach. It was at last determined to illustrate the
Madoc tradition, which is the principal part of the book,
with pictures from Wales, the native land of Madoc and
his colony.   In a book entitled "Wales Illustrated"
enough and more than enough beautiful steel engravings
were found to answer the purpose. Many of the originals
of these illustrations were connected with Prince Madoc
by having been in the possession of different members of
his family, which made the pictures particularly appro-
priate. There are but few lands which present such an
array of natural and artificial scenes of beauty and gran-
deur as Wales. The antiquarian will find there castles
and the remains of castles, churches and the remains of
churches, cathedrals and the wrecks of cathedrals, abbeys
and the ruins of abbeys which the Welsh built in different
ages from the ancient Celts to the modem English. The
buildings show the style of architecture used in fortifica-
tions by the Celts, the Romans, the Saxons, the Danes,
and the Anglo-Normans as the centuries advanced from
the First to the Thirteenth, and during these centuries
castles were built on the mountains' heights at almost
every accessible point, until the whole country seemed
to be covered with castles and castellated structures to



ix


 


Introduction



secure the inmates from the assaults of those on the out-
side. Abbeys and churches and cathedrals were also erec-
ted in the valleys on which the mountains frowned, at
places enough to indicate that the Welsh had early been
converted to Christianity and that they had kept the
faith through the centuries. The lover of nature will
look in vain to find elsewhere so many striking views
of mountains and valleys, of picturesque villages, of
cataracts and of natural passes between mountain
peaks.
   One of the most charming of these illustrations is the
picture of the village of St. Asaph and its cathedral which
dates back to the middle of the Sixth century. In pioneer
times the name of this Welsh village was given to a sta-
tion erected by General Ben Logan in Lincoln County,
Kentucky, in I775. Logan afterward, in 178i, donated
a part of his land to the District of Kentucky for a court
house and other public buildings, and the town of Stan-
ford was built thereon and took the place of the original
St. Asaph. Who in the wilderness of Kentucky could
have suggested the name of St. Asaph
   Another is the castle of Caernarvon, which is perhaps
the finest castellated structure in Wales. It was chosen
by the King of England as an abode worthy of royalty
when Edward removed his Queen Eleanor there from



X


 


Introduction



England and she there gave birth to the first English
Prince of Wales.  He was born in fraud, made prince
in fraud, and was nothing more than a fraud all his
life.
   Another is the castle of Harlech, which was besieged
and taken by Owen Gwynnedd, the father of Prince Ma-
doc, in II44. The assault was desperate against a for-
tress up to that time deemed impregnable, but Owen
Gwynnedd, a prince of exceptional courage, endurance,
and tact, by perseverance reduced walls that had stood
firm since the days of William Rufus.
   These illustrations, with but a single exception, repre-
sent scenes in Wales with which Prince Madoc and his
colony must have been familiar. That exception is a view
of the Falls of the Ohio as they existed in their primeval
state, when Madoc and his Welsh colony are said by
tradition to have been here in the Twelfth century. The
picture was drawn by Thomas Hutchins while viewing
the Falls in I766, before the white man had felled a tree
or in any way interfered with the work of nature. The
picture drawn by Hutchins, who was a fine engineer and
accomplished artist, shows well beside the Welsh pictures,
and if it had had the advantage of a steel plate, as they
have had, it would have equaled some of them as a
striking landscape.



xi


 


Introducion



    A picture might be drawn of the fleet of Prince Madoc
leaving Wales, of the passing through the Sargasso sea,
and of the landing in America, but it would only be a
picture of imagination. So might an artist take from
Southey's poem of Madoc fine word-pictures of the battles
between Madoc's men and the Mexicans and convert them
into descriptive pictures, but they would also be pictures
which added the doubt of tradition to the illusion of the
imagination. On the contrary, the pictures presented
from Wales-the landscapes, the castles, the churches,
the cathedrals, the abbeys, the cataracts, the villages, etc.,
are all realities drawn by the finest of artists and engraved
on steel by eminent engravers. They are all worthy of
artistic admiration, and we seem while looking at them
to be viewing the originals from which they have been
taken.
   All that is known of Prince Madoc and his colony of
Welshmen in America in the Twelfth century is tradition.
No authentic history comes to our relief in telling or hear-
ing the story. All that is claimed of the daring prince
sailing across unknown seas and into an unknown world
may be true and it may be false. But even when all is
apparent tradition there may be some hidden truth worthy
of our further research. The wise Humboldt, when allud-
ing to the Madoc tradition, said " I do not share the scorn



Xii


 


                      Introduction                    xiii

with which national traditions are so often treated, and
am of the opinion that with more research the discovery
of facts entirely unknown would throw much light upon
many historical problems."
   Tradition, however, has but little to do with that part
of the book under consideration which attempts to show
that America was the first formed and the first inhabited
of the continents. All that is claimed on this part of
the subject is the result of scientific research. Tradition
could not well go back to the rising of our globe above
the universal ocean, because there was no one there to
hand the matter down from father to son through the
generations. But geology has examined the structure of
the earth and found the first sedimentary rocks along
the line which separates the United States from Canada,
and claims that here was the first continent begun. There
is no tradition in the facts of this, and none in the con-
clusion drawn from them. All is science, with facts gath-
ered from the rock-ribbed globe and conclusions drawn
from them.
   Neither is the assertion that America was the first
of the continents which was inhabited by man dependent
upon tradition. Man could not well have started a tra-
dition about the first of his race and sent it down his
descending line through the centuries. He would have


 


Introduction



had to employ some such machinery as the Greeks and
Romans had in their numerous gods to account for his
own origin. Immortals might give the information, but
it would be beyond the scope of plain mortals. Again,
science has taught us what we know about the subject.
It has gathered facts from the bones and works of man
found in the caverns and hidden places of the earth, and
from these drawn conclusions as to where and when and
how he first existed. Science may not be able to prove
its conclusions to the satisfaction of others, but it would
be equally hard to prove the contrary. It would be as
difficult to prove any well-known tradition void of historic
truth as to prove the nebulous origin of our solar system
and the millions of years our planet has been in progres-
sion before reaching its present state, void of scientific
determination. We should not aim to know too much
and to know that all we know is truth. If tradition can
amuse us without injury, if the doubtful story of King
Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table can give us
pleasure, it may be as well not to spend too much time
in learning whether the story is true or false. There are
many such stories that are just as good as if they were
true, and let us have them as they are.
   The story of Madoc I would give as I have given it
in this monograph whether I believed it or not. It was



Xiv




 




































ST. ASAPH VILLAGE



ST.ASAPH CATHEDRAL


 
This page in the original text is blank.


 


                     Introduction                    xv

believed by Kentuckians in pioneer times, and that is
reason enough for repeating it in later times. It amused
the patriarchs of our country and gave them many happy
moments as it was told in their log cabins. And not
only this, but it amused many of our cultured pioneers
as they recited it and believed it. We put in books many
things of the truth of which we know no more than we
do about Madoc and his Welsh colony, and if the tradi-
tion is here repeated at this late day as an historic story
it will do no harm.
                                   R. T. DURRETT.


 
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                    CONTENTS

                                                     PAGE
THE ATLANTIS TRADITION.......                           2
THE PHENICIAN TRADITION        .     .     .           7
THE CHINESE TRADITION.                  .     .        11
THE NORSE TRADITION-                      .13
THE IRISH TRADITION.                                   15
THE MADOC TRADITION        .      .     .              17
THE MADOC TRADITION IN EUROPE      .   .    .19
THE MADOC TRADITION FROM HAKLUIT   .    .   .20
THE MADOC TRADITION IN WELSH HISTORY.       .22
THE MADOC TRADITION IN AMERICA INTRODUCED BY JOHN SMITH   28
REVEREND MORGAN JONES' STATEMENT.......               3.......... 0 3
LETTERS FROM REVEREND MORGAN EDWARDS HISTORY OF
   BAPTISTS.34. ................                      34
CAPTAIN ISAAC STEWART'S STATEMENT .35
CHARLES BEATTY'S STATEMENT........                     38
BENJAMIN SUTTON'S STATEMENT .38
REVEREND JOHN WILLIAMS' INQUIRY INTO THE TRUTH OF THE
   MADOC TRADITION                                    38
LEVI HICKS' STATEMENT....                              39
GEORGE BURDER 'S WELSH INDIANS .........   ........       42
GEORGE CATLIN'S WORK ON THE INDIANS..       .          44
BRYANT  GAY'S POPULAR HISTORY.                       45
THE MADOC TRADITION IN KENTUCKY......                  46
FILSON'S ACCOUNT OF THE TRADITION.                     46
OPINIONS OF PROMINENT KENTUCKY PIONEERS AT CLUB
   MEETING    ...................     ...........     48
WHAT FILSON SAYS IN HIS HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.           52
LIEUTENANT JOSEPH ROBERT'S STATEMENT .54
MAURICE GRIFFITHS' STATEMENT...........                57


 



Xviii



Contents



                                                      PAGE
THOMAS S. HINDE'S LETTER ....................... .......  62
DESTRUCTION OF WHOLE TRIBES OF INDIANS .65
AMERICA THE OLDEST OF THE CONTINENTS .70
AGASSIZON AGE OF AMERICA ...................... ....   74
AMERICA FIRST INHABITED OF THE CONTINENTS ................  75
JEFFERSON ON FIRST INHABITANTS OF AMERICA..            77
RELICS OF QUATERNARY MAN FOUND IN EUROPE.. ...... ....   78
RELICS OF TERTIARY MAN FOUND IN AMERICA. ...............  79

IMPLEMENTS IN GLACIAL DRIFT OF DELAWARE RIVER .........  79
RELICS IN AURIFEROUS SANDS OF CALIFORNIA ..80
THE BOURBoIs RIVER MASTODON.                           80
THE MUMMY OF MAMMOTH CAVE, KENTUCKY...............     81
THE FLORIDA REEF SKELETON    .............................  83
THE SKELETON OF THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA            ....  83

THE MOUND BUILDERS                           ......    83
BURIAL OF PIONEER WIDOW 'S SONS                        85
OUR LOVE OF THE ANCIENT NATURAL                        86

APPENDIX .      ...............................................  91
CATLIN ON EXTINCTION OF THE MANDANS                    91

CATLIN ON WELSH COLONY                                 97
WINDSOR 'S HISTORY OF ISLAND OF ATLANTIS.. .          104
BRYANT  GAY'S HISTORY OF MADOC TRADITION .   .       108

BANCROFT ON ATLANTIS AND ABORIGINAL RACES OF AMERICA.. 113
GEORGE CROGHAN TO GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE .117

SPEECH OF CARACTACUS BEFORE CLAUDIUS .......... .......  120
DESCRIPTION OF THE WELSH BY GIRALDUS .122
THE 'UNIVERSAL HISTORY" ON THE MADOC TRADITION .      124
THE WELSH A MARITIME PEOPLE .126

JOHN WILLIAMS ON CULTURE OF THE WELSH .129
INFORMATION FROM GENERAL BOWLES                       130
WHAT MORGAN JONES KNEW OF THE WELSH INDIANS           132

BINON 'S ACCOUNT OF WELSH INDIANS    .     ............. 133


 




                         Con/en/s                      xix

                                                       PAGE
SPEECH OF THE EMPEROR MONTEZUMA ........................ 135
SELECTIONS FROM THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE .....   ........ 137
UNBELIEVERS IN THE MADOC TRADITION ......   .............. 143
LORD LITTLETON ON THE MADOC TRADITION .......  ........... 144
WILLIAM ROBERTSON ON THE MADOC TRADITION ............... 148
LIST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE FILSON CLUB ...... ............ 151
BRIEF CATALOGUE OF FILSON CLUB PUBLICATIONS ............. 163
INDEX .................................................  173


 
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                ILLUSTRATIONS

                                              OPPOSITE PAOB
LIKENESS OF COLONEL R. T. DURRETT......r...... Frontispiece
FALLS OF THE OHIO IN STATE OF NATURE                   vi
ST. ASAPH VILLAGE..   .....................           xiv
ST.ASAPH CATHEDRAL................   .................XiV
M OLDVILLAGE     ............................... ...    8
HARLECH CASTLE .................. .............             8
CHIRKCASTLE.......................................    16
CORWEN VILLAGE.......     ....... ................... 16
DENBIGH CASTLE...........  ......................     24
DENBIGH VILLAGE                   ........... -       24
PONTY CYSSYLLTE ..............................  ....  32
LLANGOLLEN VILLAGE.......3........2........... ....   32
PASSOF LLANBERIS................................      40
RHAIADYR-Y-WENOL......................................40
VIEW NEAR ABER................48................      48
LLYN GWYNANT.................   ......................48
SNOWDON VILLAGE        ...............            .. 56
FALL OF THE OGWEN...........                    .... 56
TREMADOC VILLAGE......................................64
RHAIADYR Du CATARACT............                      64
FLINT  VILLAGE  .....................72..............    .......    72
FLINT   CASTLE  .......................................   ......    72
LLYN OGWEN          ...............            ..... 80
GWRYCH CASTLE.......     ..........       ........... 80
ABERMAW, OR BARMOUTH VILLAGE...........................96
RHUDDLAN CASTLE...................................    96
BEAUMARIS   VILLAGE .....................    ..............   ...  104
ENTRANCE TO BEAUMARIS CASTLE........ -................104


 



xxii                  Illustrations

                                               OPPOSITE PAGE
RUTHIN CASTLE .      .................. ................. 112
HAWARDEN CASTLE.     .    ..................................... 112
WELSH POOL VILLAGE.                                    120
POWIS CASTLE                                           120
CAERNARVON VILLAGE                                     128
CAERNARVON CASTLE                                      128
LLANRWST BRIDGE                                        136
LLANRWST CHURCH.                                       136
BANGOR VILLAGE.                                        144
BANGOR CATHEDRAL ......... ......................... .. 144


 


TRADITIONS



                        OF THE

EARLIEST VISITS OF FOREIGNERS
                         TO
               NORTH AMERICA
       THE FIRST FORMED AND FIRST INHABITED
                 OF THE CONTINENTS

W      C HEN  Kentucky was a part of Virginia there
      was a tradition widespread and generally believed
      that a Welsh prince by the name of Madoc
planted a colony of his countrymen in America about
the year I170. This colony was believed to have been
located for some time at the Falls of the Ohio, where,
after it grew strong and became offensive to the more
numerous aborigines, it was attacked by overwhelming
numbers and nearly all the members slaughtered. Some
remnants who escaped the tomahawk and scalping-knife
were scattered among the different tribes, and absorbed
by them. In this way, a race known as Welsh Indians
came into existence in different parts of the country,
and kept alive the tradition until a comparatively recent
period, when a considerable body of them, located some
sixteen hundred or more miles up the Missouri River,
were exterminated by the smallpox.    This wholesale


 


2       Tradi/irns of the Eariest 4Anericans



destruction by pestilence gradually diminished the gen-
erality of the belief in the tradition and deprived it of
many of its advocates. The belief, however, did not
entirely die, and will bear reviving even at this late
date. It has never been fully written up in this coun-
try, and an historic sketch of it can hardly fail to be in-
teresting. It is of kin to the pre-Colurmbian discoveries
of America, of which quite a number have been credited
and a still greater number rejected. Five of these seem
to be sufficiently divested of myth and absurdity to ap-
proach historic truth, and may be mentioned here as
a kind of introduction to the Welsh tradition which is
the principal subject of this paper, because this Welsh
colony, according to tradition, once resided at the Falls
of the Ohio.

              1. THE ATLANTIS TRADITION

   Our first authority for the existence of America, and
its habitation by human beings thousands of years be-
fore the discovery of Columbus, was Plato, the famous
Grecian philosopher. He does not mention America and
its inhabitants in so many words, but when he designates
a large island called Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean op-
posite the Pillars of Hercules, from which the inhabi-
tants passed over to the continent beyond and vice versa,


 


        Traditions of the Earliest Americans         3


the location of the continent is such that we can reason-
ably infer it was America, although it presupposes a knowl-
edge of geography far in advance of the times. This
was about twelve thousand years ago, when our ortho-
dox teachers instructed us there were no human beings
on the earth. Modern ethnologists, however, assure us
that twelve thousand were far too few for the years of
man upon the earth, and different ones give him an ex-
istence here of from twenty to two hundred thousand
or more years. If man was in America twelve thousand
years ago, as Plato says, he was earlier here than any
of the many peoples from which his origin has been erro-
neously claimed, and was therefore the true autochthon
of the land.
   Plato, in his "Timneus" and "Critias," gives the At-
lantis tradition as Solon, the wise man of Greece, learned
it from the Egyptian priests, while visiting their coun-
try in search of knowledge during the later years of his
life. These priests informed Solon that nine thousand
years before that time there was a vast island opposite
the Straits of Gibraltar, in the Atlantic Ocean, and a
number of smaller islands near to it, by which there was
communication with a continent beyond; that this great
island had a dense population of warlike inhabitants,
ruled by powerful kings, who had subdued some of the


 


4       Tradifions of the Earliest Americans



smaller islands and parts of the continent beyond; that
these kings finally combined their forces for the purpose
of conquering the countries inside the Straits of Gibral-
tar, but were repulsed by the Athenians, and that after-
ward the great island and all its inhabitants were sub-
merged by earthquakes and inundations in the depths of
the ocean.
   This island was called Atlantis, and if there ever was
such a body of land between Europe and America, it
might have been easy enough for some of its inhabitants
to have crossed over to America and for the Americans
to have crossed over to Atlantis. There have not been
wanting scientists who believed they had found, in the
modem world, evidence of the existence of this island in
the ancient world. On the southern coast of England
strata of fluviatile deposit two hundred miles long and
two thousand feet thick had been laid down there by a
large river of fresh water running for a long time. The
England of our day does not afford enough land for such
a river, and even if England once joined France, as geolo-
gists teach, such a river running from France or Ger-
many into England would hardly have had land enough
for its course. If Plato's island, however, existed and
joined the British Islands, it would have afforded terri-
tory for such a river running from the southwest. No


 


        Traditions of the Earliest Americans         s

small river coursing through limited territory could form
such a fluviatile deposit. Nothing short of a volume of
water such as flows in the channel of the Amazon, the
Mississippi, the Ganges, or the Nile could have made
such great deposits in any conceivable length of time.
Scientists, moreover, assure us that some of the islands
now in the Atlantic Ocean, between America and Africa,
indicate that they were once mountains or highlands of
a country sunk beneath the sea, and that a ridge of vol-
canic wrecks along the trend of these islands, on the bot-
tom of the Atlantic Ocean, assures us of a sunken conti-
nent or vast island submerged. An island, extending east
and west from the neighborhood of the Straits of Gibral-
tar to the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, with a sufficient
width from north to south, would be large enough for
the Atlantis of Plato and for such a mighty river, and
to leave when submerged such remnants of its former
greatness as the British Isles, the Azores, the Madeiras,
the Canaries, and the Bermudas.
   It was about three hundred and fifty years before the
Christian era when the Egyptian priests told Solon that
nine thousand years before that time the Atlantic island
was sunk in the sea; so that from the date of that catas-
trophe to our times about twelve thousand years have
elapsed. This was time sufficient to have so changed


 


6       Traditions of the Earliest Americans



the geography of the Atlantic Ocean and the surround-
ing continents as to make us moderns unable to deter-
mine whether such an island ever existed.
   It may be wiser, however, to accept as founded in
truth what the Egyptian priests told Solon about Atlan-
tis than to dismiss it as a myth. They lived nearer the
time of Atlantis than we do, and may have known more
about it. They stated that they had records in their
temples about the cataclysm which destroyed the island,
and although nine thousand years seem