Читать книгу Legendary Islands of the Atlantic: A Study of Medieval Geography онлайн

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Nevertheless, inquiries as to an ancient Atlantic continental mass have an interest. We may cite a few of the recent outgivings. Termier tells us of an east-and-west arrangement of elevated lands across the Atlantic in earlier ages, as opposed to the present north-and-south system of islands and raised folds. By the former there was

a very ancient continental bond between northern Europe and North America and ... another continental bond, also very ancient, between the massive Africa and South America.... Thus the region of the Atlantic, until an era of ruin which began we know not when, but the end of which was the Tertiary, was occupied by a continental mass, bounded on the south by a chain of mountains, and which was all submerged long before the collapse of those volcanic lands of which the Azores seem to be the last vestiges. In place of the South Atlantic Ocean there was, likewise, for many thousands of centuries a great continent now very deeply engulfed beneath the sea.20