t extended to the south, I gather three
things clearly towards the understanding of all that invites attention.
The first is that the Atlantic Island began less than two leagues from
the mouth of the strait, if more it was only a little more. The coast of
the island then turned north close to that of Spain, and was joined to
the island of Cadiz or Gadiz, or Caliz, as it is now called. I affirm
this for two reasons, one by authority and the other by conjectural
demonstration. The authority is that Plato in his Critias, telling how
Neptune distributed the sovereignty of the island among his ten sons,
said that the second son was called in the mother tongue "Gadirum,"
which in Greek we call "Eumelo." To this son he gave the extreme parts
of the island near the columns of Hercules, and from his name the place
was called Gadiricum which is Caliz. By demonstration we see, and I have
seen with my own eyes, more than a league out at sea and in the
neighbourhood of the island of Caliz, under the water, the remains of
very large edifices of a cement which is almost imperishable[24], an
evident sign that this island was once much larger, which corroborates
the narrative of Critias in Plato. The second point is that the Atlantic
Island was larger than Asia and Africa. From this I deduce its size,
which is incredible or at least immense. It would give the island 2300
leagues of longitude, that is from east to west. For Asia has 1500
leagues in a straight line from Malacca which is on its eastern front,
to the boundary of Egypt; and Africa has 800 leagues from Egypt to the
end of the Atlantic mountains or "Montes Claros" facing the Canary
Islands; which together make 2300 leagues of longitude. If the island
was larger it would be more in circuit. Round the coast it would have
7100 leagues, for Asia is 5300 and Africa 2700 leagues in circuit, a
little more or less, which together makes 7100 leagues, and it is even
said that it was more.

[Note 24: Dr Peitschmann quotes from Juan Bautista Suarez de
Salazar, _Grandezas y antigueedades de la isla y ciudad de Cadiz_ (Cadiz,
1610)---"That which all those who traverse the sea affirm was that to
the south, the water being clear, there is seen beneath it at a distance
of a league, ruins of edifices which are good evidence that the ocean
has gained upon the land in this part." He refers also to a more recent
history of Cadiz and its province by Adolfo de Castro (1858), and to the
five first bo