Matthew Fontaine Maury, the Pathfinder of the Seas

by Charles Lee Lewis

The lukewarmness of Great Britain toward such a conference, and the Crimean War into which both that country and France entered, interfered with its meeting. But Maury continued to advocate a universal system of meteorological observations for the United States. He declared that it would cost no more to extend the system to the land than it had cost to spread it over the sea, and that, should it at any time be judged expedient so to enlarge the field of his researches as to include agriculture as well as commercial meteorology, he was ready at the bidding of the Department to submit a detailed plan for its consideration. The first fruits of his system of observations, which would be reported daily by telegraph and announced in the newspapers, would be, he said, that the farmers, merchants, and public in general would know with something like certainty the kind of weather to be expected, one, two, or more days in advance.

Maury addressed the United States Agricultural Society on the subject in Washington on January 10, 1856; and the question having been carried to the Agricultural Committee of the Senate, a bill was drawn in April to appropriate $20,000 to establish a system of daily observations. In June, Maury thought that Congress was disposed to enlarge on the idea and establish an Agricultural Bureau, but in August he wrote sadly that political events of a different nature had turned public attention away from meteorology and the advancement of science and directed the legislation of Congress to other subjects.

The bill was still pending, however, in the Senate early in 1857, and the details of Maury’s plan were presented in Senator Harlan’s report, made on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture. The following extract from this report will indicate to what extent those who afterwards established the United States Weather Bureau were indebted to Maury’s plan: “It is believed that the Superintendent of the Observatory can obtain the necessary coöperation to enable him to subject the atmosphere to this system of research by an appeal to the farmers similar to that made to the mariners, if the Government will furnish appropriate instruments and defray the expense of transmitting this intelligence to the Hydrographical Office. In order that these observations might be reliable, the instruments with which they are to be made must be correct. An appropriation of a small sum of money would be necessary for the purchase of a few standard sets, to be distributed among the states and territories, for use and comparison, under suitable regulation to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Navy. It would be highly desirable, also, to be able to receive from all parts of the country daily reports by telegraph. In this way, the condition of the atmosphere in every part of the country, the presence of a storm in any quarter, its direction, its force, and the rapidity of its march could be known at every point any hour of the day; simultaneous reports from the various stations of the character of the weather, being received and combined at the central office, could not fail to afford results of the highest interest and advantage to every industrial pursuit. Storms, having their origin in one part of the world and taking up their line of march for another, may be thus narrowly watched by the mariner in communication with the land, in many instances for days before they would reach his shipping. Being forewarned, he could adopt the necessary means to evade their fury. The same intelligence thus communicated to the farmer and out-door laborer would be equally useful in its results. Every intelligent farmer, who is willing to note his observations, would become a sentinel on the watch-tower to admonish his fellow-laborers in the fields, as well as his co-laborers on the sea engaged in carrying his produce to distant markets, of approaching foul weather and consequent danger; and it is confidently maintained by those whose opinions are entitled to the greatest weight that with such a system of observation the laws that govern the course of those storms would soon be so well known that, in most cases, shipmasters and out-door laborers could be forewarned of their approach. Lieutenant Maury has also suggested that by mapping the skies, for example, of the United States, and adopting a system of signs and symbols, these telegraphic observations may be so projected on this map as to convey to the observer at a glance a knowledge of the appearance of the sky all over the whole country any hour in the day; and that by this means the change of the appearance of the sky, and subsequent changes of weather all over a continent, may be seen and studied from day to day; from which it is believed that science would deduce results of the highest importance.... It has been suggested by Lieutenant Maury, and approved by your memorialists that the number of observers may be multiplied indefinitely by inviting the farmers, like the mariners at sea, to make voluntary observations of the weather, crops, soil, and flora, and report regularly to a common superintendent, by whom they also shall be discussed and classified”.

This bill failed to become a law, and Maury’s ambitious but reasonable plan for a system of land meteorology came to grief. The defeat of the measure was brought about largely through the opposition of Professor Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, who considered that Maury’s plan would be a rival to that proposed by him for the Smithsonian. Maury bitterly regretted this opposition, and in an address delivered in October, 1859 before the North Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical Association at Decatur he said, “Some years ago I proposed, you recollect, a system of agricultural meteorology for farmers, and of daily weather reports by telegraph from all parts of the country for the benefit of mankind. The Smithsonian Institution and the Agricultural Bureau of the Patent Office stole this idea and attempted to carry it out, but with what success let silence tell. Take notice now that this plan of crop reports is ‘my thunder’, and if you see some one in Washington running away with it there, recollect if you please where the lightning came from”.

Maury continued to agitate this question by both letters and public addresses particularly among the people of the Great Lakes region and of the South, until the outbreak of the Civil War. This put an end for the time being to Maury’s attempts to establish a system of land meteorology in the United States and to his endeavors to bring together another international conference at which a scheme could be devised for making universal land and sea meteorological observations. But after the war was over, he returned to the question, as will be noted later, with his characteristic persistence and energy.

In 1848 Maury’s mind was intent on the shortening of communications by sea, and out of that problem grew his interest in the first trans-continental railroad. His opinion at first was that the most direct route to China would be by rail from Memphis to Monterey on the Pacific, and thence by great circle sailing by way of the Fox Islands which were convenient for coaling stations. He enthusiastically wrote that, if there were a canal already cut from Chagres to Panama, the circuity of the route and the loss of time compared with what was to be gained by the proposed line from Memphis to Monterey would in time cause the abandonment of the former and the completion of the latter. Meanwhile the gold rush to California had begun, and Maury then decided that both a railroad across the continent and a canal, or railroad, across the Isthmus of Panama should be constructed. As president of the Memphis Convention of representatives from fourteen states, which met October 23, 1849, he urged both projects, and eventually each of the two routes was made available as a highway of transportation between the East and the West.

In connection with Maury’s advocacy of the Isthmian route, there was a story told by his nephew which throws light upon his uncle’s sterling character. It appeared that some papers of his upon the advantages of a route to the East by way of the Isthmus attracted much attention, and a Northern firm wrote him a letter, enclosing a check for $500 in token of approbation of his views which strongly promoted the interests of their business. He was asked to continue his advocacy of that route, and was assured that the enclosure was but a mere earnest of what they would pay for his continued support. “Please to look at this”, Maury said; “these people seem to think money the chief object of all endeavor”. He returned the check then with a courteous note of thanks explaining that he could not admit personal interest into his discussions of measures for the general good of the people.

Another question of great importance, to which Maury gave his voice and pen for many years, was the financial and maritime interests of the South and West. As early as January, 1839, he wrote an article for the Southern Literary Messenger on “Direct Trade with the South”, in which he called upon the people of that section to establish a line of steam packets between Norfolk and Havre. In the year 1845, he wrote for the same magazine his “Letters to Clay”, in which he advocated the establishment of a dockyard, a school for apprentices, and a naval academy at Memphis, the construction of a canal from the upper Mississippi to the Lakes, the establishment of a naval base at Pensacola as well as at some other point on the Atlantic coast south of Norfolk, and the placing of fortifications at Key West and the Dry Tortugas for the protection of the Gulf. These measures he continued to advocate in season and out of season.

After Congress passed on June 15, 1844, an act for establishing a naval dockyard and depot at Memphis, Maury concentrated his batteries upon the need for a canal to connect the Mississippi with Lake Michigan through the Illinois River. He claimed that this would be of great benefit to commerce in time of peace, and that, if war with England should come, the United States would then be prepared to meet her halfway. “Let this work be completed”, he added, “and it will be a dragon’s tooth planted in the West to bring forth for the defense of the country a harvest of steam-clad warriors, ever brave, always ready”.

This question he took up again at the meeting of the Memphis Convention of Southern and Western States, on November 12, 1845, where he was the veritable spokesman of those two sections. Another important matter which he advocated at this convention was what was called “A Warehousing System and Direct Trade with the South”. This, he said, would foster shipping for Southern ports, enable ships to be loaded both ways and thus make cheaper rates, and prevent trade in high-dutied articles from concentrating in New York where there was the greatest amount of ready capital on hand. Other measures which Maury urged at this convention were the following: bakeries at Chicago for supplying better bread for the navy, a school of engineers at Memphis, mail and snag-boats as a nucleus for a river fleet in time of war, river marks or gauges as an aid to safer navigation, the deepening of the river below New Orleans at Southwest Pass, more lighthouses on the Florida and the Gulf Coast, and a monthly mail to Oregon.