Lost lands aplenty

The lost island of Atlantis continues to fascinate mankind. It harks back to a Golden Age when things were different. But of course, it couldn't last. Not if it involved man. So man caused the gods to destroy his paradise. It is a typical story -in one way it echoes our lives, in that when we've got it good, we tend to upset things, as if we're a self-destructive species. However, Atlantis is not the only supposed lost land from the past. Lyonesse: Many western cultures have myths of lost lands, where once lived our great ancestors. Typical is Lyonesse, a fabled land once said to exist between Land's End and the Scilly Isles, off the British coast. On this land stood the city of Lions and some 140 churches. Folk tales, and later poets such as Tennyson, kept the fable alive by associating it with King Arthur. Thought to be the place of his birth, his death has also been associated with the lost land. Logically, it seems the fable arose from its association with the Breton town St-Pol-de-Leon, know to the Roman's as Leo's Castle. Atland: Another such fable concerns Atland. First coming to popular attention in 1848, when antiquarian Cornelius Over de Linden first produced his Pera Linda Book, Atland is said to be an ancient land off the Dutch Frisian coast. With a sub-tropical climate and well advanced, happy population, a catastrophe struck in 2l93BC, destroying the land. Survivors went on to travel the world, founding Egyptian, Greek and Indian civilisations. The Oera Linda Book was written on cotton paper and de Linden claimed it came from 1256, copied from an even older work.

Published in 1876, many people consider it a fraud. Lemuria: Some lost lands are more modern, and said to be rationally theorised to have existed. For instance, there is a problem with a primitive group of primates called lemurs. They are found only on Madagascar, off the African coast. But they have close relatives in the bushbabies of Africa and the lorises of India. Prior to the understanding of continental drift, zoologists realised this was mysterious.