Microscopic Evidence of a Lost Continent

A second look at the St. Paul's rocks as being evidence of a lost Atlantis.

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Excerpt:

MUCH interest has been attached to St. Paul's rocks, situated in the mid-Atlantic nearly under the equator; since they were stated by Darwin to be unlike any rock he had ever met, and that they were not volcanic. Darwin's words have caused these rocks to be looked upon as forming a portion of the lost Atlantis; those holding that view overlooking the fact that Darwin simply meant that they were not rocks of volcanic origin such as those he had any acquaintance with.

That they were not eruptive or volcanic of earlier date than the other islands in the Atlantic, he was not in a position to assert, and evidently did not intend to do so. Being of different material from the other Atlantic islands, they might even be of comparatively modern origin, and still hot show especial traces of their eruptive character. Situated as these islands are, no relation of the rocks of which they are composed to the adjacent rocks can be ascertained: hence the only resort is to study the structure and composition of the rock-mass itself, and to ascertain what evidence it may afford.

When these rocks were examined in situ by the members of the Challenger expedition, they were thought by Mr. Buchanan to be referable to the serpentine group, but by Prof. Wyville Thomson to have been formed by the 'ejecta of sea-fowl.'

In this state of affairs, the material collected was wisely placed by Mr. John Murray, who had charge of the Challenger material, in the hands of a competent lithologist, Rev. A. Renard, S.J., curator of the royal museum of natural history at Brussels.