Paul Couissin (1885-1932) was a French writer on ancient history who wrote of his conviction that Atlantis existed in the Atlantic, offering a stepping-stone between the two continents. He based his views on the similarity between the flora and fauna to be found on both sides of the Atlantic(b).>This linkage was popular in Couissin’s time having been promoted by Ignatius Donnelly and others such as J.T. Short.<
>The concept of an Atlantic landbridge was proposed as early as the 17th century and later by John B. Newman in 1849 [488.8], who wrote that “in former times an island of enormous dimensions, named Atlantis, stretched from the north-western coast of Africa across the Atlantic Ocean and that over this continental tract both man and beast migrated westward.”
The Atlantic landbridge idea became quite popular by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and even as late as the 1970s when it was still espoused by Rene Malaise(a), but is now completely abandoned.<
(a) Atlantis, Vol.27, No.1, Jan-Feb 1974.