Thinking about Atlantis

Grove Koger

I don’t know of any myth in the Western World that has attracted so much ink as that of Atlantis, the great island that supposedly sank into the ocean sometime in the distant past.

However, the word myth can have several different meanings, and it’s important to understand what kind we’re talking about in discussing Atlantis. (That’s it at the top of today’s post in a map by Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, who’s oriented his map with north at the bottom).

Plato’s retelling of the story appears in two of his dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, the latter of which lacks a conclusion. Plato provides the story with a pedigree, claiming to base his information on the works of Athenian statesman Solon, who is said to have visited Egypt in the 5th century BCE. However, we have only Plato’s word for what his source might have learned.

The truth is that Atlantis seems to have sprung full-blown from the head of Plato (seen above in a Roman copy of a bust by Silanion) in much the same manner that Athena was thought to have sprung from the head of her father, Zeus. Plato’s dialogues constitute the very first mentions of the island, which he described as lying “in front of … the Pillars of Hercules.” These pillars are usually understood to be promontories at the western end of the Mediterranean Sea, but—and this is only one of the many, many buts in the story of Atlantis—ancient authorities placed the pillars in any number of places, and even, on occasion, considered them to be metaphors. (For details, I encourage you to consult the entry in the invaluable online Atlantipedia.)

In any case, it’s important to keep in mind that the story of Atlantis has no precursors. It seems fairly obvious that Plato was teaching a lesson about the ideal state and about what happens when the citizens of that state turn away from the ideals that have sustained it. However, his story has been seized upon by subsequent philosophers, novelists, archaeologists (many of them amateurs), and crackpots, with the result that a small library could be filled to overflowing with their works.

The most popular location for Atlantis has proven to be the eastern North Atlantic Ocean, largely due to the modern identification of the Pillars of Hercules with Gibraltar in the north and Monte Hacho (or possibly Jebel Musa) in the south. As a result, prime candidates for the remains of the lost island have included three of the archipelagoes of Macaronesia—the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores. A. Samler Brown, for instance, dealt a little too carelessly with the subject in early editions of his guidebooks. More recently, some archaeologists have seized upon the catastrophic eruption of the volcano at the Greek island of Santorini, or Thera, which occurred some 3,600 years ago. However, they overlook the central point that Atlantis didn’t erupt, it sank.

Among novelists, Jules Verne described how his travelers visited the ruins of Atlantis in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1869-70), and Pierre Benoit placed his character Antinea, a descendant of the rulers of Atlantis, rather ingeniously in a cave in the Sahara Desert in his 1919 novel Atlantida. More recently, Lawrence Durrell suggested in his 1953 travel memoir Reflections on a Marine Venus that “islomanes”—those “who find islands somehow irresistible”—are “direct descendants of the Atlanteans, and it is towards the lost Atlantis that their subconscious yearns throughout their island life.” And on and on …

Several years ago, realizing that few writers of any stripe have dealt Plato’s inner life, I wrote a modest story I called “An Incident from the Childhood of Plato.” But when I submitted it to a market I thought I had a good working relationship with, I received a remarkably obtuse response. The editor suggested that I was trivializing Plato’s use of the myth, and that the physical actions I describe were simply unrealistic. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was trivializing anything at all, since, quite the contrary, I had connected the myth with what I thought could have been a profoundly important childhood experience. In addition, the physical events I describe in the story were perfectly consistent with reality, as I proved to the editor when I provided him with links to several news reports of similar events. In any case, I went on to submit the story to the publication Altered Reality, whose perceptive editor accepted it within a couple of days. You can read it here.

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The Boundless Sargasso Sea

Grove Koger

When we talk about “the sea,” we usually mean the world’s oceans in general. When, on the other hand, we’re talking about “a sea,” we usually mean a smaller body of salt water, largely or partly (or sometimes wholly) bounded by land.

The one exception to these very general definitions is the Sargasso Sea, which you’ve probably heard of but just as probably not given a lot of thought to. The first unusual fact about the Sargasso (seen above in an 1891 map) is that it’s the only sea without a coast. It lies entirely in the North Atlantic Ocean and seems to be the product of what’s known as the “north Atlantic subtropical gyre,” a series of endlessly rotating currents. Clockwise from the west, those are the Gulf Stream, the North Atlantic Current, the Canary Current, and the North Atlantic Equatorial Current.

The Sargasso’s name is derived from the strands of Sargassum seaweed—a large genus of what are known as holopelagic (freely floating) golden drift algae—that clump in long drifts or mats on its surface. Their buoyancy is due to little berry-like air-filled bladders known as pneumatocysts. In all, the genus Sargassum is made up of more than 300 species found worldwide, but the two found in the Sargasso are S. natans and S. fluitans. However, the algae are only the most obvious feature of the Sargasso. Nearly 150 species of invertebrates make their home on them, and some 80 species of fish are associated with the sea’s waters.

Those species of fish include European, American, and North African eels that breed and grow up in the Sargasso and eventually migrate to the fresh waters of one of the continents. There they mature over a period of several years, only to return eventually to the Sargasso, where they breed—and die. As migrations go, this one strikes me as particularly curious, and while scientists have only recently confirmed the details of the eels’ life cycle, the origin of this complex, multi-year pattern remains a mystery.

I wrote an entry for the Sargasso Sea in the 2018 ABC-CLIO volume The World’s Oceans: Geography, History and Environment, and concluded it with a note about the sea’s appearance in fiction. That’s an intriguing subject in itself, and I’ll write about it another day. Until then, I’ll explain my personal interest in the subject. My first wife and I skirted the Sargasso Sea’s northern edge aboard a freighter, aptly named the Hellenic Destiny, on our way to Greece in 1976. Thinking that we were pretty clever, we fashioned a hook out of a wire coat hanger and attached it to a length of fishing line we begged from a crew member. As we passed through a drift of the algae, we lowered the hook down the side of the ship and managed to pull up a strand that turned out to be a couple of feet long. To our surprise, it was crawling with tiny crabs and shrimp and the like, creatures that I’m sure were likewise surprised at being removed, however briefly, from their watery world.

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The Enigmatic Azores

Grove Koger

If you research the early history of the Azores, the Portuguese archipelago that lies about 870 miles west of Portugal in the North Atlantic Ocean, you encounter quite a bit of uncertainty.

Depending on what source you consult, you may learn that what seem to be the Azores appear on the 1375 map known as the Atles català, or Catalan Atlas. More than half a century later, in 1427, Portuguese explorer Diogo de Silves sighted a group of islands in the same area, and four years after that, in 1431, another Portuguese explorer, Gonçalo Velho Cabral, confirmed the sighting, discovering a desolate bank of rocks that have become known as the Formigas. The following year, Velho Cabral went on to discover a larger island in the area that he named Santa Maria, and, in 1444, yet another, São Miguel. As was customary, Velho Cabral claimed the islands for Portugal and his crew landed herd animals on the larger islands with an eye to future human settlement.

But what explorers, we have to wonder, supplied the information about the mysterious islands to Abraham Cresques, who’s usually credited with creating the Catalan Atlas? Would one report have been sufficient to convince the cartographer, or would he have acted only on multiple reports? In other words, were the islands fairly well known to a number of seafarers?

While it’s unlikely that we’ll ever have satisfying answers to these questions, we’re now in a position to push back the history (that is, the prehistory) of the islands. A team led by evolutionary biologist Jeremy Searle has reported that mice found on the islands share genetic characteristics with northern European mice, suggesting that the far-ranging Vikings reached the islands well before Portuguese explorers did. (The same kind of evidence has linked the Vikings to the Portuguese island of Madeira, which lies a little over 300 miles from the African coast.)

There are other indications of early contacts, although they aren’t conclusive. Ecologists from the University of the Azores have found pollen from non-native crops in lakebed sediment predating the Portuguese presence, along with spores from fungi that live on livestock droppings.

But there may be more evidence still. About ten years ago, Nuno Ribeiro, the president of the Portuguese Association of Archaeological Research, reported that he had found rock art on the island of Terceira dating from the Bronze Age (3300 BCE–1200 BCE). Ribeiro also claims to have identified prehistoric underground structures carved into rocks on three of the islands. However, his claims have yet to be substantiated, and, for the time being, the only convincing case for early European contacts with the islands involves the Vikings.

In conclusion, I’ll mention two tantalizing legends drawn from the early history of the Azores. One involves the tale of a statue that the earliest Portuguese sailors allegedly discovered on Corvo, the northernmost island of the group. It’s said to have represented a man on horseback with his right arm extended and his index finger pointing … west, toward North America. Unfortunately, as statues in legends are wont to do, it broke into pieces as it was being removed. Another legend, this one slightly more creditable, involves the alleged discovery of a small cache of Phoenician coins in the Azores in 1778. The Phoenicians were the greatest mariners of their time, and they established settlements well beyond the Pillars of Hercules on the coasts of what are now Morocco and Portugal. Given their abilities, it’s not impossible that they discovered the Azores two millennia before the Portuguese and settled there for a time. Not impossible …

The photograph of Corvo at the top of today’s post is by Luissilveira; the second photograph of Lagoa do Fogo on São Miguel is by Jwp1234; and the map, which dates from about 1584, is the work of royal Portuguese cartographer Luis Teixeira. All are reproduced courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The image at the bottom is a Phoenician coin showing a ship and the mythological beast known as the hippocampus.

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Defining & Redefining Macaronesia

Grove Koger

The first time I ran across the term “Macaronesia,” I assumed it must be a misprint for “Macronesia,” and that the term must refer to some grouping of large (“macro”) islands. Micronesia, after all, is a region of small (“micro”) islands in the Pacific Ocean.

But I was wrong. Macaronesia is indeed the correct term and is derived from the Greek phrase makárōn nēsoi, meaning “fortunate isles” or “isles of the blessed”—an enticing but largely mythological reference to the islands that lie, or might lie, west of the Strait of Gibraltar in what we know today as the Atlantic Ocean. In this sense, they were a land of perpetual summer, and, according to Pliny the Elder, abounded in “fruit and birds of every kind.”

But pinning down the term’s modern meaning isn’t quite so simple. The term “Macaronesia” was apparently coined by British botanist Philip Barker-Webb (1793-1854), who included three archipelagoes—Madeira, the Selvagens and the Canary Islands—in the designation, all of them lying off the coast of Northwest Africa. However, later botanists added the Azores, which lie nearly 900 miles west of Portugal, and Cabo Verde, which lies more than 300 miles west of westernmost Africa. (I’m indebted for this information to the authors of “Restructuring of the ‘Macaronesia’ Biogeographic Unit: A Marine Multi-Taxon Biogeographical Approach” in Scientific Reports.)

Of these five groups, Madeira, the Selvagens (which are administered from Madeira), and the Azores are part of Portugal, the Canary Islands are part of Spain, and Cape Verde, which was once a colony of Portugal, is now an independent nation.

If you look at the map at the top of today’s post, however, you’ll notice how widely separated some of them are; the Azores, for instance, are more than 1,500 miles from Cape Verde, and Cape Verde itself is about 1,000 miles from the Canaries. Does it really make sense to group them together?

The authors of “Restructuring of the ‘Macaronesia’ Biogeographic Unit” don’t think so, writing that they “found no support for the current concept of Macaronesia as a coherent marine biogeographic unit.” They reached their conclusion after considering six kinds of marine life, and in light of what they found, they suggested removing Cape Verde and giving it “status of a biogeographical subprovince within the West African Transition province.” They also suggested removing the Azores and establishing them as their own ecoregion, and establishing a new ecoregion made up of Madeira, the Selvagens, and the Canary Islands.

While the scientific terminology involving biogeographical regions may not be familiar, the thrust of the authors’ comments is clear: Philip Barker-Webb got it right, and in his honor, the authors suggest calling the new ecoregion Webbnesia.

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The map at the top of today’s post was created by ArnoldPlaton and is reproduced courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.The first photograph, of a mountain village in Madeira, is by ArunSwamiPersaud (pixabay.com) and is reproduced courtesy of Needpix.com. The second photograph, showing a typical scene in the Selvagens, is by Coimbra68 and is reproduced courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, while the third photograph, taken by laurajane (pixabay.com), is of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and is reproduced courtesy of Needpix.com.

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Flying with Beryl Markham

Grove Koger

As I expand and update When the Going Was Good, I’m posting revised entries from the first edition. Today’s deals with a memoir by Beryl Markham, who was born on October 26, 1902.

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West with the Night (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942)

Born in England but raised from the age of four in the colony (later nation) of Kenya, Beryl Markham grew up a member of the privileged British ruling class of East Africa. Like her father, who taught her to ride, she became a noted breeder and trainer of racehorses, but actually seems to have excelled at everything she turned her hand to. After being introduced to flying by big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton in 1931, she went on to become the first woman in Kenya to earn a commercial pilot’s license. Among her many other friends in Kenya were planter and writer Isak Dinesen and Dinesen’s husband, Bror Blixen.

Markham wrote West with the Night in California, where she had moved in 1939. A bestseller upon publication in 1942, it earned the rare praise of Ernest Hemingway, who had known Markham in Africa. “She has written so well, and marvelously well,” he admits, “that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer.” The book was reprinted in 1983 to even greater acclaim, by which time Markham had returned to Kenya—to raise horses once again.

West with the Night opens with a series of chapters recalling Markham’s experiences as a bush pilot. Others deal with her younger years, when, unlike the Masai girls she knew, she was allowed to take part in hunting warthogs. She writes of course with particular insight of horses, “as much a part of my life as past birthdays.” Soon after she began taking flying lessons, her lover Finch Hatton was killed in a crash—a wrenching event that Isak Dinesen, similarly involved with the man, would also describe in Out of Africa. Yet Markham was undeterred, and went on to become first to cross the Atlantic nonstop from east to west, the accomplishment that gives her graceful, effortlessly evocative memoir its title.

In light of her many experiences, her philosophy is particularly apt: “I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late.”

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The Virago edition (London, 1984) includes an introduction by Martha Gellhorn. A later Virago edition (London, 1989) published as The Illustrated West with the Night is abridged and contains an introduction by Elizabeth Claridge, but the Welcome Enterprises edition (New York, 1994) published as The Illustrated West with the Night contains the complete text.

If you’d like to know more about Markahm, see Ulf Aschan, The Man Whom Women Loved: The Life of Bror Blixen (New York: St. Martin’s, 1987); Mary S. Lovell, Straight on till Morning: The Biography of Beryl Markham (New York: St. Martin’s, 1987); and The Lives of Beryl Markham: Out of Africa’s Free Spirit and Denys Finch Hatton’s Last Great Love (New York: Norton, 1993).

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