Atlantis and the Permanency of the North Atlantic Ocean Bottom.

In 1912 Prof. Pierre Termier, the director of the Geological Survey of France, delivered before the Oceanographic Institute of Paris a very interesting and stimulating lecture on the probable existence of Plato's Atlantis. This lecture is now published in English in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1915 (1916), pages 219-234. In his lecture the speaker drew a conclusion that needs to be examined, as it is of considerable importance in paleogeography whether one is in harmony with it or not. Termier thinks it "A fair conclusion . . . . that the entire region north of the Azores and perhaps the very region of the Azores, of whicli they may be only the visible ruins, was very recently submerged." This means that the area believed to have been submerged is at least equal to 40,000 square miles, and may be even far more than 200,000 square miles; it is said to have sunk quickly about 10,000 feet beneath the surface of the sea. What are the facts that lead Termier to this very important conclusion? He relates them as follows: