The study of the Troano MS. will convince any one that the learned author of that book, and no doubt many of his associates, had not only a thorough knowledge of the geographical configuration of the Western Continent and the adjacent islands, but also of their geological formation. The "Lands of the West" are represented by these symbols,
which some have translated Atlan. [1] They leave no room for doubting that the Mayas were acquainted with the eastern coasts of said continent, from the bay of Saint Lawrence in latitude north 48° to Cape St. Roque, in Brazil, in latitude south 5° 28'. The two signs 
or 
of the locality placed under the symbols represent the two large regions of the Western Continent, North and South America; whilst the signs 
and 
seen within the curve figuring the northern basin of the Atlantic, stand for the Land of Mu, that extensive island now submerged under the waves of the ocean.
The sign , as well as this 
that forms the upper part of the symbol, is familiar to all students of Egyptology. These will tell you that the first meant, in the Egyptian hieroglyphs, "the sun setting on the horizon," and the second, "the mountainous countries in the west."
As to the conventional posture given to all the statues of the rulers and other illustrious personages in Mayach it confirms the fact of their geographical attainments. If Ave com- pare, for instance, the outlines of the effigy of Prince Coh discovered by the author at Chicħen-Itza in 1875, with
- ↑ Kingsborough, Mexican Antiquities, vol. i., and Comment, vol. v. Atlan is not a Maya but a Nahuatl word. It is composed of the two primitives Atl, "water," and Tlan, "near," "between." The Maya name for the symbol is Alau.
