Page:Atlantis - The Antediluvian World (1882).djvu/463

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ANTIQUITY OF SOME OF OUR GREAT INVENTIONS.
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sentation of a copper coin, two inches in diameter and three lines thick, found nearly a century ago by Ordonez, at the city of Guatemala. "M. Dupaix noticed an indication of the use of the compass in the centre of one of the sides, the figures on the same side representing a kneeling, bearded, turbaned man between two fierce heads, perhaps of crocodiles, which appear to defend the entrance to a mountainous and wooded country. The reverse presents a serpent coiled around a fruit-tree, and an eagle on a hill." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iv., p. 118.) The mountain leans to one side: it is a "culhuacan," or crooked mountain.

We find in Sanchoniathon's "Legends of the Phœnicians" that Ouranus, the first god of the people of Atlantis, "devised

coin from central america.

Bætulia, contriving stones that moved as having life, which were supposed to fall from heaven." These stones were probably magnetic loadstones; in other words, Ouranus, the first god of Atlantis, devised the mariner's compass.

I find in the "Report of United States Explorations for a Route for a Pacific Railroad" a description of a New Mexican Indian priest, who foretells the result of a proposed war by placing a piece of wood in a bowl of water, and causing it to