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The flood legends form the cornerstone of the Atlantis myth. A colourful politician named Ignatius Donnelly was responsible for the revival of interest in AOanris in the late nineteenth century. He collected hundreds of fragments of archaeological erratics and wrote a number of best selling books. He also managed to find time to serve as a U.S. congressman and state senator and even ran for vice-president on the Populist ticket in 1901. Donnelly's Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is still in print and makes some sense, even though it fails to prove the existence of Atlantis. It does prove that other civilizations existed before the present epoch. Donnelly also advocated a theory claiming that a visiting comet had upset the balance of the Earth in earlier times and produced catastrophic effects. Hdrbiger carried the theory several steps con further. Comets have always served as a kind of scientific catchall. Although we actually know very little about these celestial objects (since we've never managed to catch one), astronomers like to be- lieve that these fireballs are made of ice and that the huge chunks of ice that have crashed out of the sky for centuries were really from the tails of comets. In recent years many prominent scientists have seriously explained flying saucers as being the debris from comets* tails. During the UFO flap of 1966 the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy sent out form letters stating that, 'One explanation of this phenomenon connects the lights that are seen with the gaseous tails of comets." If a comet ever did strike the Earth, it might make life here rather uncomfortable. Scientists have estimated that if a solid meteorite only a mile in diameter should strike the planet intact, the impact and concussion could destroy a large part - or all - of life here. There are a number of large meteor craters, all very ancient, which prove that such collisions have taken place. Ancient civilizations could have been destroyed by any one of these potential catastrophes as well as such things as enormous earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Our planet is really unstable. Mountains are always blowing up. The crast is constantly shifting, generating earthquakes which take a frightening toll in lives and property every year. Rivers overflow and floods occur with appalling regularity. Enigmatic fireballs can sweep down oat of the sky sud- denly and unexpectedly and burn up whole cities like Chicago. On top of all these hazards, we have the most dangerous factor -man himself. He has made war an economic and political necessity. The ruins of the Middle Hast and Europe stand as testimony to his ability to destroy whole civilizations by himself without any outside help. Among the traditions of the Hopi Indians is the story of Kuskurza. the third world or epoch, which lay ‘in the east' (Atlantis again!). They developed flying machines called patuwn>otas, according to Frank Waters in his Book of the Hopi: ‘Some of them made a patu-wvota, and with their creative power made it fly though the air. On this many of the people flew to a big dty, attacked it, and returned so fast no one knew where they came from. Soon the people of many cities and countries were making patuwvotas and flying on them to attack one another. So corruption and war came to the Third World as it had to the other.*