RANSVESTIA

whereas with a live bull the bull does the running and the person waits for him. This civilization fell about 1450 years B.C., or nearly 3500 years ago. It was here that Theseus slew the Minotaur in Greek myths. But like most myths there was some basis in fact, because if you take the word Minotaur apart it becomes Minos, the king; and -taur or taurus, the bull. Bulls were sacred and Minos was a very powerful king. Apparently the story of Theseus slaying the Minotaur really meant that he broke (slew) the power of the Cretan court, represented by the bull, over Athens, which was being oppressed by Crete at the time. Modern study of Greek myths has led to the conclusion that there was some core of truth and reality at the bottom of them. Anyway I really enjoyed Crete and Knossos.

We left Crete about 1 PM and arrived at the island of Santorini (Thera) about 5 PM on an overcast day. We had to lighter off to the foot of the cliffs, and then we mounted mules that were led up the interminable steps to the top where the village of Thera is located. The main attraction of this island to me was in its geology. I have printed three pictures of it - one taken from the rim shows far outlying islands which are in reality part of the remains of the crater wall, for this is in reality one gigantic crater. It exploded about 1450 B.C. in what must surely have been one of the world's greatest volcanic blasts. The tidal waves set up are presumed to be respon- sible for the destruction of the Cretan civilization on the island of Crete, which is only about 60 miles away. Terribly violent earthquakes occurred at the same time, and practically all buildings on Crete were destroyed along with the famous Cretan fleet. It has been suggested by several au- thorities that this was the origin of the myth of Atlantis, since Crete had a very highly advanced civilization in the arts, sciences and trade and it all disappeared almost overnight. The pictures show an island in the middle of the bay which is just volcanic ash that was pushed up centuries later. You can get an idea of how gigantic an explosion it must have been if you visualize a mountain volcano whose edges were the present cliffs of San- torini and the outlying islands. Not only did all that earth disappear, but as you see from the pictures the crater wall in many places blew out to well below sea level, which allowed the sea to flow in. The steam and smoke that must have formed would have filled the air with dust literally for generations, so it must have been many times greater than the explo- sion of Krakatoa in the East Indies in the early part of our century and dust from that explosion remained in the air for years and years. After our muleback ride up and down the cliffs we re-embarked on the Jupiter and sailed back to Athens.

After another night in the Hilton it was off by bus for a tour of impor-

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