In 1869, M. Paul Gaffarel published his first treatise on Atlantis,[426] advocating the truth of the story, and in 1880 he made it the subject of deeper research, utilizing the facts which ocean exploration had placed at command.[427] This is the best work which has appeared upon this side of the question, and can only be set against the earlier work by Martin.[428] The same theory has been supported by D. P. de Novo y Colson, who went so far as to predict the ultimate recovery of some Atlantean manuscripts from submarine grottoes of some of the Atlantic islands,—a hope which surpasses Mr. Donnelly.[429] Winchell found the theory too useful in his scheme of ethnology to be rejected,[430] but it was reserved for Ignatius Donnelly to undertake the arrangement of the deductions of modern science and the data of old traditions into a set argument for the truth of Plato’s story. His book,[431] in many ways a rather clever statement of the argument, so evidently presented only the evidence in favor of his view, and that with so little critical estimate of authorities and weight of evidence, that it attracted only uncomplimentary notice from the scientific press.[432] It was, however, the first long presentation of the case in English, and as such made an impression on many laymen. In 1882 was also published the second volume of the _Challenger Narrative_, containing a report by M. Renard on the geologic character of the mid-Atlantic island known as St. Paul’s rocks. The other Atlantic islands are confessedly of volcanic origin, and this, which laymen interpreted in favor of the Atlantis theory, militated with men of science against the view that they were remnants of a sunken continent. St. Paul’s, however, was, as noted by Darwin, of doubtful character, and Renard came to the conclusion that it was composed of crystalline schists, and had therefore probably been once overlaid by masses since removed.[433] This conclusion, which tended in favor of Atlantis, was controverted by A. Geikie[434] and by M. E. Wadsworth,[435] (the latter having personally inspected specimens,) on the ground that the rocks were volcanic in origin, and that, had they been schists, the inference of denudation would not follow. Dr. Guest declared that ethnologists have fully as good cause as the botanists to regard Atlantis as a fact.[436] A. J. Weise in treating of the Discoveries of America adopted the Atlantis fable unhesitatingly, and supposes that America was known to the Egyptians through that channel.[437]