Explore "A Blue Book" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I have thought it of some value to contemporary history to preserve the following document, which concerns the discovery and survey of an island in the North Atlantic, which upon its discovery was annexed by the United States in the first moments of their imperial expansion, and was given the name of "Atlantis."
The island, which appears to have been formed by some convulsion of nature, disappeared the year after its discovery, and the report drawn up by the Commissioners is therefore very little known, and has of course no importance in the field of practical finance and administration. But it is a document of the highest and most curious interest as an example of the ideas that guided the policy of the Great Republic at the moment when the survey was undertaken; and English readers in particular will be pleased to note the development and expansion of English methods and of characteristic English points of view and institutions throughout the whole document.