Free Atlantis Pyramids Floods by Dennis Brooks Page A

allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race
in.
    Also there were guardhouses at
intervals for the guards, the more trusted of whom were
appointed—to keep watch in the lesser zone, which was nearer the
Acropolis while the most trusted of all had houses given them
within the citadel, near the persons of the kings. The docks were
full of triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite ready
for use.
    Enough of the plan of the royal
palace. Leaving the palace and passing out across the three you
came to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was
everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbor,
and enclosed the whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the
channel which led to the sea.
    The entire area was densely crowded
with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbors were
full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from
their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices, and
din and clatter of all sorts night and day.
    I have described the city and the
environs of the ancient palace nearly in the words of Solon, and
now I must endeavor to represent the nature and arrangement of the
rest of the land.
    The whole country was said by him to
be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the
country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level
plain, itself surrounded by mountains, which descended towards the
sea. It was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in
one direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland
it was two thousand stadia. This part of the island looked towards
the south, and was sheltered from the north.
    Note : Here
Plato describes the plain of Atlantis as being lofty and
precipitous on the side of the sea. Reading on will show that this
is the second clue helping us to calculate the height of the water
level.
    The surrounding mountains were
celebrated for their number and size and beauty, far beyond any
which still exist, having in them also many wealthy villages of
country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows supplying food
enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of various
sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work.
    I will now describe the plain, as it
was fashioned by nature and by the labors of many generations of
kings through long ages. It was, for the most part, rectangular and
oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the
circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were
incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in
addition to so many others, could never have been artificial.
Nevertheless, I must say what I was told.
    It was excavated to the depth of a
hundred, feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was
carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia
in length. It received the streams which came down from the
mountains, and winding round the plain and meeting at the city, was
there let off into the sea.
    Note: Here
Plato describes the ditch as being dug to a depth of 100 feet. This
is the third clue that helps to determine the water level at the
plain.
    Further inland, likewise, straight
canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the
plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to the sea. These
canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they
brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed
the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from
one canal into another, and to the city.
    Twice in the year they gathered the
fruits of the earth—in winter having the benefit of the rains of
heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by
introducing streams from the canals.
    As to the population, each of the lots
in the plain had to find a leader for the men who were fit for
military service. The size of a lot was a square of ten stadia each
way, and the total number of all the lots was sixty