Edwin Swift Balch (1856-1927) was an American lawyer and explorer. In an article in The Geographical Review in May 1917[151] he expressed favour for Crete as the inspiration for Plato’s Atlantis. He noted that the idea of a Cretan Atlantis, which he favoured, could not have developed before the expulsion of the Turks in 1898, as they had forbidden excavations there.