Article quoted from Tom Slemen's Website
At Number 62 Rodney Street in Liverpool, England, there is a plaque that reads: 'Gladstone, Four times Prime Minister, born in this house, 29th December 1809'.
Gladstone was an impressive reformer, legislator and legendary orator who dominated politics with his Conservative opponent Disraeli. Gladstone was not an imaginative man who was given to flights of fancy; he was tough politician who produced the Home Rule Bills and strove in the midst of controversy to bring peace to Ireland's troubles. Imagine then, how astonished and bemused the members of the House of Commons were in 1886 when Prime Minister Gladstone got to his feet and attempted to get a bill through Parliament. Not some reform bill - but 'a bill to furnish funds to search for the legendary sunken continent of Atlantis.'
There were hoots and howls of laughter from the benches on both sides of the House. Many thought the 77-year-old Premier had become senile, and Gladstone's amazing proposal was defeated. Many wondered what had convinced the mundane and practical Gladstone to seek funds for such an outlandish expedition. There were two reasons. In secret, Gladstone had read a book about Atlantis, an island that is said to have vanished below the Atlantic in the middle of the night, some 10,500 years before the birth of Christ. That book, by an American Congressman named Ignatius Donnelly, captured Gladstone's imagination. Gladstone had also recently heard about an incredible incident concerning a Lancashire adventurer named James T. Morgan. About two years previously, Morgan had been returning to Liverpool from Brazil, where he had been exploring the Matto Grosso and the Amazon for gold. When the ship was in the middle of the Atlantic, about 900 miles from the Azores, a lookout spotted a strange sight. A dark triangular object was visible in the sea, about 80 miles away. By early evening the ship was within a mile of the object, and the Captain and crew could not believe their eyes. The tip of an enormous black pyramid structure was sticking out of the water. The ship's compass started spinning, as if the pyramid was magnetic. The Brazilian captain intended to sail past the strange object, but Morgan urged him to drop anchor. The captain did this, and he allowed Morgan and four of the crew to row a lifeboat over to the pyramid. The structure was made of basalt, and was estimated to have been twice as high as the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Morgan and the navigator on the ship estimated that the pyramid was a staggering 960 feet in height. The pyramid had ledge-like steps going halfway up the structure, and Morgan tried to climb the steps but they were coated with slippery sea vegetation. Morgan and the crewmen returned to the ship and made further measurements of the pyramid. The structure obviously continued downwards under water for quite a distance, so establishing its true dimensions was impossible. During the night, a strange faint glow like St Elmos fire gathered around the tip of the pyramid, and at three in the morning, the captain of the ship insisted he had to continue to Liverpool to keep his deadline. When other ships surveyed the location near the Azores months later, there was no sign of the pyramid. It was as if it had plunged back into the depths of the Atlantic. Was the pyramid the remains of some Atlantean temple that had been sent to the surface because of volcanic upheavals, only to sink back into oblivion? We may know more one day.
