''Tom Swift In The Land of Wonders'', or, The Underground Search For the Idol of Gold, is Volume 20 in the original

Tom Swift Tom Swift is the main character of six series of American juvenile science fiction and adventure novels that emphasize science, invention, and technology. First published in 1910, the series totals more than 100 volumes. The character was ...

novel series published by

Grosset & Dunlap Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898. The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of Penguin Random House through its subsidiary Penguin Group. Today, through the Penguin Gro ...

Plot summary

Professor Bumper, introduced in the previous volume, is on the trail of another lost city, this time the lost city of Kurzon, somewhere deep in

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

. The Professor has come into some documents which he thinks will help him locate the city, and the documents make mention of a huge idol made of solid gold. Professor Bumper would very much like Tom Swift to accompany the expedition. As circumstances would have it, Professor Bumpers rival, in the form of Professor Fenimore Beecher, is also on the trail of Kurzon. Unfortunately for Tom Swift, Professor Beecher is also trying to win the heart of Mary Nestor, Tom Swift's sweetheart! Envy, rather than fame or fortune, drive Tom to finally accompany the expedition to Honduras, as Tom hopes to prevent Professor Beecher from discovering the idol and presenting some of the gold to Mary Nestor as a betrothal gift.

Inventions & Innovation

Inventions take a back-seat in this story. Prior to Professor Bumper's arrival, Tom Swift is working on a new

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...

, which was also briefly introduced in the previous volume. In Europe,

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

continues to rage, and several European governments have expressed an interest in Tom Swift's new gyroscope, as safety devices for use in the aerial aspect of the war. When envy drives Tom to join the expedition, Tom hands the gyroscope project over to his father, Barton Swift, and it is not heard of for the rest of the story.

External links

''Tom Swift and the Land of Wonders'' e-text
at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...

* 1917 American novels Tom Swift American young adult novels Novels set in Honduras {{1910s-ya-novel-stub