Jean-Baptiste Izouard Delisle de Sales (1741-1816) was a French philosopher who ventured into the dangerous waters of speculative atlantology with the idea that Atlantis had been originally situated in the Caucasus (Histoire nouvelle de tous les peuples du monde ou Histoire des homes, 1779). In this 52 volume work he then hypothesized that following a catastrophic flood in that region, refugees migrated east and west. Some ended up in the Atlas Mountains from where they got their name. Delisle De Sales believed that the Atlantis of Plato was situated between Italy and Carthage. This view was a consequence of identifying Homer’s Ogygia, the island of Calypso, with Atlantis. He then assumed that Sardinia was a remnant of this island.

It is worth noting that Delisle de Sales included Fabre d’Olivet, the occultist, in his social circle.