Among the seven governmental experts sent to investigate the repairs and report on their soundness, there was one who strenuously challenged the views of his colleagues. While the other six agreed that the damage had been remedied beyond possibility of a further disturbance, the seventh (Peliades by name) brought in a vigorous minority report in which he contended that the relief was only temporary. His plea, as I remember it, ran somewhat as follows: “For four or five years--possibly for ten--the repairs will prove adequate; but after that period the damage will re-appear in a much more aggravated form than before. For the cement constitutes a foreign element in the glass, and produces an abnormal bulge, so placing an exceptional strain upon those portions which are still sound. For a while the wall may be able to endure the strain, but in the course of time the additional tension will become too great for the brittle material of the wall to resist; and first small cracks will appear, and then larger, growing by inches and by fractions of inches, until the break spreads towards the surface, and the tremendous pressure of the ocean shatters the remaining barrier. This effect, of course, will take years before it begins to be noticeable; but when finally it becomes apparent, the crack will have spread so far that only heroic measures will be able to save Atlantis. “The remedy, therefore, is to undertake the immediate erection of a new glass bulwark against the affected portion of the wall. Prodigious though this effort will necessarily be, we will probably be able to complete the work in time. But unless we do complete it, we will find ourselves within a hair’s breadth of catastrophe.” Unfortunately--most unfortunately, in view of what ensued--Peliades’ warning was scarcely heeded. In some quarters he was denounced as a crank, a mad alarmist; in other quarters he was openly laughed at, or derided as the victim of hysteria; while the majority paid no attention to him at all. Least sympathetic of his hearers were his fellow specialists; for these, in response to an inquiry by the High Chief Adviser, testified at length as to the scientific unsoundness of Peliades’ theories, and disproved his views to their own satisfaction and that of the people. And so the dissenter’s motions were quietly tabled, and Atlantis returned to its normal duties with confidence in the future. CHAPTER XXIX The Party of Emergence