the illustrious dialogue, the sole
existing copy of which you held in your hands a little while ago. It
established past controversy the location of the stronghold of the
Atlantides, and demonstrated that this site, which is denied by
science, was not submerged by the waves, as is supposed by the rare
and timorous defenders of the Atlantide hypothesis. He called it the
'central Mazycian range,' You know there is no longer any doubt as to
the identification of the Mazyces of Herodotus with the people of
Imoschaoch, the Tuareg. But the manuscript of Denys unquestionably
identifies the historical Mazyces with the Atlantides of the supposed
legend.

"I learned, therefore, from Denys, not only that the central part of
Atlantis, the cradle and home of the dynasty of Neptune, had not sunk
in the disaster described by Plato as engulfing the rest of the
Atlantide isle, but also that it corresponded to the Tuareg Ahaggar,
and that, in this Ahaggar, at least in his time, the noble dynasty of
Neptune was supposed to be still existent.

"The historians of Atlantis put the date of the cataclysm which
destroyed all or part of that famous country at nine thousand years
before Christ. If Denis de Milet, who wrote scarcely three thousand
years ago, believed that in his time, the dynastic issue of Neptune
was still ruling its dominion, you will understand that I thought
immediately--what has lasted nine thousand years may last eleven
thousand. From that instant I had only one aim: to find the possible
descendants of the Atlantides, and, since I had many reasons for
supposing them to be debased and ignorant of their original splendor,
to inform them of their illustrious descent.

"You will easily understand that I imparted none of my intentions to
my superiors at the University. To solicit their approval or even
their permission, considering the attitude they had taken toward me,
would have been almost certainly to invite confinement in a cell. So I
raised what I could on my own account, and departed without trumpet or
drum for Oran. On the first of October I reached In-Salah. Stretched
at my ease beneath a palm tree, at the oasis, I took infinite pleasure
in considering how, that very day, the principal of Mont-de-Marsan,
beside himself, struggling to control twenty horrible urchins howling
before the door of an empty class room, would be telegraphing wildly
in all directions in search of his lost history professor."

M. Le Mesge sto