The United States sloop Gettysburg has also made some remarkable discoveries in a neighboring field.  I quote from John James Wild (in Nature, March 1st, 1877, p. 377): 

“The recently announced discovery by Commander Gorringe, of the United States sloop Gettysburg, of a bank of soundings bearing N. 85 deg.  W., and distant 130 miles from Cape St. Vincent, during the last voyage of the vessel across the Atlantic, taken in connection with previous soundings obtained in the same region of the North Atlantic, suggests the probable existence of a submarine ridge or plateau connecting the island of Madeira with the coast of Portugal, and the probable subaerial connection in prehistoric times of that island with the south-western extremity of Europe.” . . .  “These soundings reveal the existence of a channel of an average depth of from 2000 to 3000 fathoms, extending in a northeasterly direction from its entrance between Madeira and the Canary Islands toward Cape St. Vincent. . . .  Commander Gorringe, when about 150 miles from the Strait of Gibraltar, found that the soundings decreased from 2700 fathoms to 1600 fathoms in the distance of a few miles.  The subsequent soundings (five miles apart) gave 900, 500, 400, and 100 fathoms; and eventually a depth of 32 fathoms was obtained, in which the vessel anchored.  The bottom was found to consist of live pink coral, and the position of the bank in lat. 36 deg. 29’ N., long. 11 deg. 33’ W.”

The map on page 51 shows the position of these elevations.  They must have been originally islands;—­stepping-stones, as it were, between Atlantis and the coast of Europe.

Sir C. Wyville Thomson found that the specimens of the fauna of the coast of Brazil, brought up in his dredging-machine, are similar to those of the western coast of Southern Europe.  This is accounted for by the connecting ridges reaching from Europe to South America.

A member of the Challenger staff, in a lecture delivered in London, soon after the termination of the expedition, gave it as his opinion that the great submarine plateau is the remains of “the lost Atlantis.”

CHAPTER VI.

The testimony of the flora and fauna.

Proofs are abundant that there must have been at one time uninterrupted land communication between Europe and America.  In the words of a writer upon this subject,

“When the animals and plants of the Old and New World are compared, one cannot but be struck with their identity; all or nearly all belong to the same genera, while many, even of the species, are common to both continents.  This is most important in its bearing on our theory, as indicating that they radiated from a common centre after the Glacial Period. . . .  The hairy mammoth, woolly-haired rhinoceros, the Irish elk, the musk-ox, the reindeer, the glutton, the lemming, etc., more or less accompanied this flora, and their remains are always found in the post-glacial deposits of Europe as low down as the South of France.  In the New World beds of the same age contain similar remains, indicating that they came from a common centre, and were spread out over both continents alike.” (Westminster Review, January, 1872, p. 19.)