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"Which brings us back to the question we've asked ourselves a hundred ti Celtic Druidess come to be entombed on as once an island in the Caribbean five thousand miles from her homeland in Europe?"

Boyd turned and nodded at Chisholue John Wesley may have some extraordinary answers to your question"

"But first," interrupted Sandecker--he turned to Yaeger--"have you and Max been able to discover how the structure ca under fifty feet of water?"

"Early geological records for the Caribbean are all but nonexistent," replied Yaeger, fanning out a file of loose papers on the table in front of him "We know more about prehistoric o than we know about geological upheavals three thousand years ago The best projections froists e've questioned is that Navidad Bank, once an island, sank during an underwater earthquake somewhere between eleven hundred and one thousand bc"

"How did you arrive at that date?" asked Perle bulk in a chair too small for him

"Through various cheical studies, scientists can read how old the encrustations are and how long they took to form on the rock walls, the amount of corrosion and deterioration of the artifacts and the age of the coral surrounding the structure"

Sandecker, reaching in his breast pocket for a cigar and not finding one, began tapping a pen on the table "The hype- Atlantis has been found"

"Not Atlantis" Chisholm shook his head and smiled "I tossed that one in the air for years My own opinion is that Plato wrote a fictitious account of the disaster using the eruption of Santorini in sixteen fifty bc as background material"

"You don't think Atlantis was in the Caribbean?" said Summer somewhat facetiously "People claim to have found sunken roads and cities deep under the water"

Chishol more If Atlantis had existed somewhere in the Caribbean, why hasn't one"--he paused for effect--"just one potsherd or artifact of ancient origin been discovered? Sorry, Atlantis did not exist on this side of the

ocean"

"According to paleontology records in er, "the Arawak Indians found by the Spanish when they arrived in the New World were the first hurated from South America around twenty-five hundred BC, or fourteen hundred years before the lady was laid to rest in her tomb"

"Soets there first," said Perle European-built ships abandoned on an island beach"

"I can't tell you how she got there," said Chisholht on who she was"

He pressed a button on the ree found by Dirk and Summer appeared on the monitor The scene shohat appeared to be a fleet of ships in procession landing on a shoreline They looked siboats, but much stubbier, with flat bottoms that enabled thele masts supported square sails that appeared to be ht of Atlantic gales The hulls had high bows and sterns for sailing through rough seas Banks of oars extended through locks on the top rails of the hulls