Now this is not very clear, but it may signify that there was continuous land communication between Atlantis and the islands of the half-submerged ridge, and from the islands to the continent of America.  It would seem to mean more than a passage-way by boats over the water, for that existed everywhere, and could be traversed in any direction.

I have quoted on p. 372, ante, in the last chapter, part of the Sanskrit legend of Adima and Héva, as preserved in the Bagaveda-Gita, and other sacred books of the Hindoos.  It refers very distinctly to the bridge which united the island-home of primeval humanity with the rest of the earth.  But there is more of it: 

When, under the inspiration of the prince of demons, Adima and Héva begin to wander, and desire to leave their island, we read: 

“Arriving at last at the extremity of the island”—­

We have seen that the bridge Bifrost was connected with the extremity of Asgard—­

“they beheld a smooth and narrow arm of the sea, and beyond it a vast and apparently boundless country,” (Europe?) “connected with their island by a narrow and rocky pathway, arising from the bosom of the waters.”

This is probably a precise description of the connecting ridge; it united the boundless continent, Europe, with

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the island; it rose out of the sea, it was rocky; it was the broken crest of a submerged mountain-chain.

What became of it?  Here again we have a tradition of its destruction.  We read that, after Adima and Héva had passed over this rocky bridge—­

“No sooner did they touch the shore, than trees, flowers, fruit, birds, all that they had seen from the opposite side, vanished in an instant, amidst terrible clamor; the rocks by which they had crossed sank beneath the waves, a few sharp peaks alone remaining above the surface, to indicate the place of the bridge, which had been destroyed by divine displeasure.”

Here we have the crushing and instant destruction by the Drift, the terrific clamor of the age of chaos, and the breaking down of the bridge Bifrost under the feet of the advancing armies of Muspel; here we have “the earth” of Ovid “settling down a little” in the ocean; here we have the legends of the Cornishmen of the lost land, described in the poetry of Tennyson; here we have the emigrants to Europe cut off from their primeval home, and left in a land of stones and clay and thistles.

It is, of course, localized in Ceylon, precisely as the mountain of Ararat and the mountain of Olympus crop out in a score of places, wherever the races carried their legends.  And to this day the Hindoo points to the rocks which rise in the Indian Ocean, between the eastern point of India and the Island of Ceylon, as the remnants of the Bridge; and the reader will find them marked on our maps as” Adam’s Bridge” (Palam Adima).  The people even point out, to this day, a high mountain, from whose foot the Bridge went forth, over which Adima and Héva, crossed to the continent; and it is known in modern geography as “Adam’s Peak.”  So vividly have the traditions of a vast antiquity come down to us!  The legends