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Triton

In Worlds in Collision, Chapter VII, Section “Pallas Athene,” Diodorus Siculus and St. Augustine are quoted as claiming that a great lake named Triton disappeared in a great catastrophe connected with the birth of Athene. For this reason Athene was also called Tritogeneia or Tritonia. According to Augustine the catastrophe took place in the days of Ogyges, whom I identified as Agog, the same as Apop, the most powerful king of the Hyksos in the time following the Exodus.

In Earth in Upheaval, section “The Sahara,” I quoted modern authorities to the effect that neolithic implements indicate that the region was densely populated and richly watered. Egyptian rock designs show that such conditions still prevailed when Egypt was already a monarchy.

The Lake (or marsh) Triton occupied most of the region of the present Sahara. The sudden change of an agricultural land to a desert was caused, in my opinion, not only because of a change of elevation and the consequent sealing of the sources of water, but mainly because of the outpouring of naphtha of extraterrestial origin. This means that deserts ought to be rich in petroleum. In 1938 rich petroleum deposits were discovered in Arabia, and much more recently in the Sahara—Algeria, Libya, and later also in the Egyptian part of the desert.