"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Sr 020 - Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

Guatemala. A fact I learned from the article and not because I remembered
my geography.''

``I was going to say,'' remarked Ned with a smile, ``that you were
coming it rather strong on the school-book stuff.''

``Oh, it's all plainly written down there,'' and Tom waved toward the
magazine at which Ned was looking. ``As you'll see, if you take the trouble
to go through it, as I did, Copan is, or maybe was, for all I know, one of
the most important centers of the Mayan civilization.''

``What's Mayan?'' asked Ned. ``You see I'm going to imbibe my
information by the deductive rather than the excavative process,'' he added
with a laugh.

``I see,'' laughed Tom. ``Well, Mayan refers to the Mayas, an
aboriginal people of Yucatan.

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The Mayas had a peculiar civilization of their own, thousands of years ago,
and their calendar system was so involved -- -- ''

``Never mind about dates,'' again interrupted Ned. ``Get down to brass
tacks. I'm willing to take your word for it that there's a Copan valley in
Honduras. But what has your friend Professor Bumper to do with it?''

``This. He has come across some old manuscripts, or ancient document
records, referring to this valley, and they state, according to this
article he has written for the magazine, that somewhere in the valley is a
wonderful city, traces of which have been found twenty to forty feet below
the surface, on which great trees are growing, showing that the city was
covered hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.''

``But where does the idol of gold come in?''

``I'm coming to that,'' said Tom. ``Though, if Professor Bumper has
his way, the idol will be coming out instead of coming in.''

``You mean he wants to get it and take it away from the Copan valley,
Tom?''

``That's it, Ned. It has great value not only from the amount of pure
gold that is in it, but as an antique. I fancy the professor is more
interested in that aspect of it. But he's written a wonderful story,
telling how he happened to

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