It is an old doctrine among most of the Orientals and even among the early Greeks as well as the Roman Stoics, that the world comes to an end at certain long intervals of equal duration. This periodical death, which is always followed by a rebirth, is held accountable for such catastrophes as the sinking of Atlantis and the destruction of Lemuria. When the earth's axis last moved its direction to the one it now occupies, bringing an end to Atlantis, the length of the year was changed in consequence by an additional five days. According to this doctrine, these great changes in the global crust are due to a declination of the plane of the ecliptic to the plane of the equator--that is, to a change in the angle which the plane of the ecliptic makes with the plane of the equator. The larger this angle formerly was, the warmer were the polar regions, so that there was once a time when human and animal beings were living there in numbers and in comfort. As the planet moves in its curved orbit its cosmically preordained destiny moves on with it.
-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 4 : World Crisis > # 97
