This is the introducion to the text, translated by Ignatius Donnelly



"Let me begin by observing, first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between all those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and those who dwelt within them: this war I am now to describe."



What immediately hits you when you start to look for Atlantis is "the pillars of Heracles". Of all available heroes, it has to be the one overly-present in the greek mythology anyways. Mr.Everybody who has more travelling kilometres in his biography than a modern days Lufthansa pilot.
Then we get this



" when afterward sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to the ocean."


earthquake=> ground-shaking event; mud=> water(symbolicI)+earth; hence the ocean(symbolicII)=> from a place far beyond our easy reach, so naturally I read: had to look for a new habitat, came from a place far away to Earth. Please note, with these old languages, it is all a lot simpler than we communicate today, all these "to, of, an/a, the" are interpretations not text given.



" Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years...there has never been any sediment of the earth flowing down from the mountains, as in other places, which is worth speaking of.
"

and please note the word: de-luges, as in the containing information, from the latin word lugere=> being sad, crying
and we're talking 9000years before +-400b.c.! and we're learning how Atlantis got destroyed by an asteroid. so naturally earth is a sexy planet, mostly craddled by it's surroundings and attributes.

Also when talking about in which direction it is, he always only says "North", if we consider this poor fellow was a while before the idea of flying was born, he of course had no word for the direction up, so he gave it the same name as he would describe "up" on a map "north"