I think that North America or South America was mistaken for Atlantis. The legend says Atlantis was bigger than Libya and Asia combined. And we know it was probably beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. Back then no one knew how big Asia and Libya were exactly and the Americas were probably about the right size to mistaken for that in the Ancient World.

No, Atlantis was described as an island. There is no way that the Americas could be thought of as an island.
Most likely Atlantis was Antarctica before it moved southward. Maybe before the most recent poleshift Antarctica was more hospitable and Plato was just plagerizing,who knows?

The ancient easterners knew the region s of Asia and lybia combined were extremely long because many have traversed its lands. As the explorers travelled west by ship and reached the northern part of North America, they would travel south along the coast all the way to the bottom tip of South America and determine that the western land was as big as lybia and Asia combined.
But here is where the Atlantis legend comes in:

A modern traveller like Christopher Columbus would say different because North and South America are divided by the Caribbean Ocean.

If the ancient explorers traversed the same seas and continents, wouldn't they conclude North and South America was divided also? How could these two great continents be counted as one giant one?

The answer is that the Caribbean Ocean was not present long ago. There was a great land mass in that area. This region was where the capital of Atlantis was. North and South America was the great empire of Atlantis. The great city center and place of great magnificence existed in the Caribbean area.

[Edited on 5-3-2004 by lostinspace]

one problem: north or south america didnt sink into the ocean

Originally posted by ashley
No, Atlantis was described as an island. There is no way that the Americas could be thought of as an island.
Most likely Atlantis was Antarctica before it moved southward. Maybe before the most recent poleshift Antarctica was more hospitable and Plato was just plagerizing,who knows?

Just because some scientist saw almost related jigsaw puzzle pieces of the continents he assumed that they must have come from the same piece.
If they were all just one piece once, then the rest of the planet would have been water. Sounds like an unbalance world to me. There would have been equal geological distribution in the beginnings of the earths molten state. Venus' surface has probably had the same geological state for millions of years as well.

So a moving continent of Antartica ,within the lifetime of the human race is out of the question.