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When still a mere youth he was appointed by the President of the United States as the first American Consul to Yucatan, the appointment having been urged by the American Antiquarian Society and the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, both of which were anxious to have a trained investigator on the peninsula.

Enthusiastically Mr. Thompson undertook his double mission. For over twenty-five years he remained at his post as consul. During this long period, sometimes at the head of regularly organized expeditions under the auspices of American archæological institutions, at other times with only his faithful native followers, he discovered ruined cities until then unknown to the world and carried on exhaustive researches among those already discovered.

At last Mr. Thompson resigned the consular office, in order to carry on the various scientific undertakings that required all his time and energy. Chief among these was the search for relics that for hundreds of years had lain buried in the mud at the bottom of the Sacred Well.