Well

THE CITY OF THE SACRED WELL --T. A. Willard--Century ($4). Here is the story, told by an intimate friend, of Edward Herbert Thompson -- "Don Eduardo", as they call him in Yucatan--to whom is credited the bulk of modern archeological knowledge of the great Mayan civilizations. Reading explorers' books as a boy in snug New England, he connected himself with the Peabody Museum and the American Antiquarian Society, which obtained him the first U. S. consulship in Yucatan and opportunity to devote most of his life to baring the secrets of Chichen Itza, the Mayan capital. Besides constituting a reliable compendium of Mayan culture--Author Willard is himself an accomplished archeologist--the book recites in Thompson's own words the feats of dredging, and then diving, to the bottom of the home of Yum Chac, the Rain God--a limestone sinkhole 160 feet across and 150 feet deep--where virgins and warriors, decked with jade and golden bells, accompanied by balls of copal (aromatic resin), rubber and cotton goods, pottery, engraved golden disks, weapons, tiaras, brooches, mirrors, were flung as sacrifices from the high brink (TIME, Nov. 16, SCIENCE).