The Matto Grasso: The prologue
of this book starts off with an overview of past exploration of the Amazon
basin. In particular, Colonel Fawcett is
prominently mentioned. Colonel Percy Harrison
Fawcett believed that a lost race inhabited a city deep within the
Brazilian jungle -- the green hell known as the Matto Grosso. In 1928, the former military engineer sat off
on an expedition to locate this lost city.
Accompanying him on this expedition were his son Jack and
The real
identity of David Hutton comes from an entry in his diary made ten years before
the present: To-day I leave on my
attempted flight from
In August
1927, aviator Paul Redfern left
Dent may have also been tipping his hat, so to speak, at another famous explorer who was prominently in the news.
In 1935, aviator Jimmie Angel discovered Angel Falls, a three thousand-foot high waterfall deep within the Venezuelan wilderness. It remains the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world. Angel was both an adventurer and aviator and was searching for a lost gold deposit he had first visited a decade earlier. This persona was a rugged stereotype Dent repeatedly used in his adventure stories.
It is notable
that this adventure begins in
Oddity: There is an anomaly in the story that doesn't relate to our present topic.
Renny, using binoculars, said, "Monk and his pet ape would sure be at home down there."
Chemistry, of course, is Ham's pet, not Monk's. What lies behind this mistake - an editor's goof-up, ghostwriter, or a simple error?
Western Historical Manuscript Collection: A small reference to birth control was removed from the printed version.
Some comedic background text was edited out in Chapter 3. The two different musical bands end up playing different songs at the same time. It reads like something that would have been in the Doc Savage movie. Other than the above instances, the manuscript and the published version are identical. However, the outline does differ from the final story version.
Amber ONeel starts out as
Mental Telepathy: The subject takes a huge leap forward with the person of "Z" who can not only read minds but also exert a form of mind control over others, including Doc Savage and his men.
Spiritualism: Early on in the story Doc is shot with a poison dart. Doc's men forget he is wearing a bulletproof vest and take for granted he is killed. They dash off to apprehend his killer. A short time later Doc contacts his men via a special short-wave radio they all carry. Renny responds.
"Holy cow! It can't-these durned micro-wave radios never have tuned in-a spirit message-we must 'a'-well, holy cow!"
That's it. You get a call from someone you thought was dead and your first reaction is that you are communicating with a spirit! The idea that that person was not really dead and you were mistaken about their death never crosses your mind. This is an unconventional though to say the least. But it is a way for the author to introduce an idea to his readers.
The scene where Z rejoins
her father is a little strange.
"The girl went to him and bestowed upon him a very ardent and quite
Americanized kiss." I'm not sure
exactly what's going on here...
Religion: In The Mental Wizard we meet a captive who was a missionary spreading Christianity some twenty years earlier.
March 1937 The first issue of Detective Comics is published.
March 4, 1937 A fourth gold shipment, worth $150 million, heads to the special repository at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
March 11, 1937 The fifth shipment of gold bullion is loaded onto a special armored train bound for the United States Bullion Depository in Kentucky.
March 15, 1937 H. P. Lovecraft dies.
March 17, 1937 - The Atherton Report is released.
March 18, 1937 A gas explosion in New London, Texas kills 295 children and adults.
March 25, 1937 The United States Assay Office sent out the seventh shipment of gold ($180 million) to the Federal repository at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
March 26, 1937- Cartoon character Popeye gets his own statue provided by the spinach growers of Crystal City, Texas.
