OCR Text |
Show 1 111 1 jpht$ of T'y O J WALTER 1 NEW YORK TRUMBULL j 1 Dr. Frans tlom, tlie emirieiit arclie-Jologist arclie-Jologist of Tulnne university, rcgtirds liis recent trip tlirouIi the Mayan country of Vueatan, on which he was accomiionicd by a party of sightseers, as the most successful he ever made. Dorothy Dix, a member of the expedition, expe-dition, proclaimed the Maya ruins finer than anything she had ever seen in Greece, Italy or Egypt, which was gratifying. ' Frans Blom is one of the most inter festlng scientists I have ever known, perhaps because he is so enthusiastic and alive. Lie was born In Denmark and as a youngster served his time in the Danish navy. His father, a manu facturer, tried to put him in business, but his talents didn't lie in that direction. direc-tion. He wanted to travel and man aged to get to Mexico just as a revolution revolu-tion was in progress, which made edu cated labor scarce and wages good. It was as a surveyor and mapper for an oil company that he first encountered encoun-tered ancient Indian ruins. These made him an archeologist, first for the Mexican government, later for Harvard, Har-vard, aud still later for the Carnegie institution. For the past seven years he has been connected with Tulane, where he has assembled in the museum mu-seum a striking Central American collection col-lection and also a remarkable library containing some of the oldest Mayan manuscripts known. I had a highly interesting luncheon with some circus people the other day as the guest of Frederick Darius Ben-ham. Ben-ham. Just how he happened to get inv with the big tent dwellers, I don't know, except that Freddy Cenham knows everybody and is likely to be found anywhere. During the war yon could find him all over France. When he went to Braden Military academy, it was to prepare for West Point, but when his family wouldn't permit him to accept an ofler to try out with a major league baseball team, he got a bit discouraged with higher education and went into the moving picture business, busi-ness, although not as an actor. In 191G he returned to military life by enlisting in the French ambulance service. Several of his family had been army men, including his uncle, -Gen. Henry Liarius Benhamwho commanded com-manded the New York engineers in the Civil war. Freddy Benham transferred trans-ferred from the ambulance service to the Foreign Legion, where he became associated with some trench mortars. He was wounded and went to a hospital; hos-pital; from there to olticers' school at Fontainbleau ; from there to aviation school. Somehow, peace found him working as a war correspondent. He 1 got in to see the signing of the peace treaty, came home with Herbert Bayard .Swope, some generals and a pack of police dogs, and has been busy ever since. New York is a city of paradox. At a Park avenue restaurant you pay 90 cents for half a grapefruit A big department store is advertising a three-piece women's sport suit for $3.05. There are places where the subway runs on a high trestle. Cars, which cost ten and twenty thousand dollars, wait outside for owners who are shopping in five and ten cent stores. I know a cellar restaurant, which probably is more expensive than any of the roofs. The museum of the city of New York is one which 1 have never seen, although I intend to see it soon. 1 understand it is to have models of all the famous old-time Manhattan bars. That, of course, would include models of the Hoffman house bar, the bar in |