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Africa--in other words, where the Atlantic Ocean is now. That theory has
found many followers. In support of it one is told that such islands as
Madeira, the Canaries, the Azores, are the topmost peaks of a now partly
submerged range of mountains which once stood upon that vanished
continent. It is also a common belief that Northern Africa underwent the
contrary process, and was pushed up from under the sea. That is why--it
is said--the Sahara Desert, which was formerly, without doubt, an ocean
bed, is now dry and above water.

One has only to look at any map of the entire world to see what really
happened to the earth in days long gone by. Let me first of all tell you
that there never existed a continent between Africa and South America. In
fact, I doubt whether there is as much as a square mile between those two
continents more submerged to-day than it was thousands upon thousands of
years ago.

Here is what really happened. The earth at one period changed its
shape--when, is merely guesswork, and is of no consequence here--and the
crust of the earth--not the core, mind you--split into two great gaps
from Pole to Pole, with a number of other minor fissures. In other words,
the earth opened just like the skin of an over-heated baked apple. The
African and American continents, as well as Australasia, with New Guinea,
the Celebes Islands, the Philippine Archipelago and China, which before
that event formed part of one immense continent, thus became divided,
leaving North and South America isolated, between the two great
Oceans--the Atlantic and the Pacific--which were then, and only then,
formed.

It is easy, by looking intelligently at a map, to reconstruct the former
shape of the world. You will notice that the most western portion of
Africa fits exactly into the gap between North and South America, while
the entire African coast between Dahomey and the Cape Colony fits in
perfectly in all its indentations and projections into the coast line of
South America. The shores of Western Europe in those days were joined to
North America, and find to-day their almost parallel and well-fitting
coast line on the east coast of the United States and Canada. On the
opposite side of the world, the western side of South America, the same
conditions can be noticed, although the division of the two continents
(America and Asia) is there much wider. Fragments were formed, leaving
innumerable islands scattered in the Pacific Ocean,