Darwin, Charles

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is reported in Wikipedia ^(a) to have been “dismissive of the ideas that others had put forward of sunken continents like Atlantis.” This opinion is dated to around 1855.

Edward Forbes was one of the first, in 1846 ^[1471], to hypothesise the existence of a continent in the Atlantic linking Ireland, the Azores and the Iberian Peninsula, which was popularly called ‘Atlantis’. Charles Darwin  described his idea as ‘speculative’.

This would appear to conflict with Marco Ciardi, who claimed that Darwin had accepted the existence of Atlantis, I presume later, but did so “under the influence of, among others, the botanist J. D. Hooker” and “reverted to the hypothesis of a lost continent to which the Atlantic islands testified since they constituted the tips of its highest mountains.” This information was cited by Pierre Vidal-Naquet in The Atlantis Story ^[580.xxii].

Ignatius Donnelly sent a copy of his Atlantis to Darwin, but received a less than enthusiastic response^(b).

^(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Darwin%27s_theory

^(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/friday-odds-and-ends-on-aliens-atlantis-and-more