“The power to telegraph through these torpedoes is of little consequence, inasmuch as there need be but one station and one operator. Using the testing-fuse manufactured by Abel, and a weak voltaic current, the operator can at any time satisfy himself as to continuity. Thus bridges and gulfs or breaks are not required for the land as they are in sea-mining. Ebonite has the further advantage on land that it takes but a single wire.
“Forts may be protected against assault, and your own rifle-pits from occupation by an enemy, simply by a proper distribution of those new engines of war. They may be planted line within line, and one row above another, and so arranged that volcanoes may be sprung at will under the feet of assaulting columns.
“The only attempt that was made in the late American war to bring the electrical torpedo into play on the land was made by the Confederates at Fort Fisher, in 1865, just before its fall. The narrow landspit over which the attacking party had to advance was mined. The officer in charge used the magneto exploder. But the mines would not go off, owing no doubt to defective arrangement, for the instrument was new to him, and he had not been posted up as to the virtues of the ladder-circuit. The instrument used on this occasion was just such a one as this before you. It was the first that had reached the Confederacy. Here is then a most striking illustration of the importance of previous study and drill in this new and important arm of defense”.
In addition to Wurttemberg, Maury offered this instruction in electric mining to her enemy Prussia, and also to the Governor General of Canada for the sum of 1000 pounds sterling. These offers were not accepted. His experiments had, however, been made known in this way to a number of different governments, later information concerning his discoveries leaked out through his agent in London to other countries, and finally his system became so generally known that his particular contributions to the development of this weapon of warfare were lost sight of, and as a consequence Maury has not been given the credit that is justly due him in histories of the electric mine.
The money which Maury received from these demonstrations of mines came at a time when it was greatly needed, for he had lost practically all his property in the United States through the war and after his last arrival in England he had had the further misfortune to lose, through the failure of a banker, all he had brought from Mexico. At about this time, however, assistance came to him from another source. Indeed, before his departure from England near the end of the war, a “Maury Testimonial” had been begun at the instigation of some of his English friends, especially the Reverend Dr. Tremlett, and by Commodore Jansen. While Maury was in Mexico, these friends solicited funds for him both in England and on the Continent, Tremlett even taking the trouble of traveling through Sweden, Denmark, and Russia for that purpose. A few months after Maury’s return to England this sum had reached the total of 3000 guineas. Holland contributed 1100 pounds, the Grand Duke Constantine gave privately 1000 pounds, and naval officers, scientists, and friends of Maury in England and elsewhere on the Continent subscribed the remainder.
The presentation was made at a special dinner given in Maury’s honor at Willis’s Rooms in London on June 5, 1866. Sir John Pakington, First Lord of the Admiralty, presided, and there were present the Danish, Mexican, and Argentine ministers, six British admirals, high officers of the Swedish and Russian navies, General Beauregard of the Confederate army, Professor Tyndall, and many of Maury’s personal friends like John Laird, Commodore Jansen, and Dr. Tremlett, who was Honorary Secretary of the Testimonial Fund. The purse containing the 3000 guineas was presented in a handsome silver-gilt casket, and was accompanied by the following testimonial: “We the undersigned beg your acceptance of the accompanying purse of Three Thousand Guineas in appreciation and acknowledgment of the eminent and disinterested services which through years of untiring zeal in the cause of science you have rendered to the maritime nations of the world. Receive from us this public testimony of our regard with every wish for your future welfare and happiness”.[22]
In July, 1866, Maury was engaged by Richardson and Company, a publishing house of New York City, to write a series of geographies for the public schools. It was agreed to make the series embrace “First Lessons in Geography”, “Intermediate Geography”, “Manual of Geography”, “Academic Geography”, and “Physical Geography”. Maury was to be paid $10,000, $1000 for each volume on the receipt of the manuscript and $1000 more for each volume three months after publication. He was to receive also $600 for revising each book, for five successive years. The following year an additional agreement was signed for the publishing of “Practical Astronomy for Schools”, Maury to receive $1500 after the delivery of the manuscript and $1500 three months after its publication.
In August, 1866 Maury wrote, “I am hard at work on Geography No. I, ‘Brave’ drawing the maps. Well, I could not wind up my career more usefully—and usefulness is both honor and glory—than by helping to shape the character and mould the destinies of the rising generations”. Most of the work on these school books was completed before he left England to return to Virginia in the summer of 1868, but at that time only the first two of the series; namely, “First Lessons in Geography” and “The World We Live In”, which was the “Intermediate Geography” of the contract, had been published. From the very beginning their reception in the United States was very flattering, and Maury was delighted with his success.
The first little book contained only sixty-two pages. Its preface stated that the pupils were to be taken on imaginary voyages and journeys twice around the world—once by sea and once by land, and it closed with these very significant words: “The teacher should teach, as well as hear recitations”. The second book had just one hundred pages, and was published the same year. These two books were later merged into one, which was entitled “Elementary Geography”, and afterwards called “New Elements of Geography”. In the preface of the 1922 edition of the latter is the following tribute to Maury’s ideas of pedagogy: “Maury refused to follow the plan of all accepted textbooks of that day. His plan was to present, in simple words and in the form of a story, interesting facts about the different peoples of the earth, their homes, their industries, and the lands where they live; and at the same time to call attention to those physical laws which largely determine the condition, the character, and the industries of a people.... When published, these geographies were such a radical departure from the old methods that many teachers were not prepared to accept them; but leading educators have gradually come to Maury’s position, and to-day the principles that he advocated are endorsed by the Committee of Fifteen of the National Educational Association”. The account of the other books in Maury’s geographical series, which were not published until after his return to Virginia, will be found in the next chapter.
When Maury left Mexico he had some hope of becoming connected with the laying of submarine cables in the Atlantic. But the only opportunity that presented itself was the offer of 1000 pounds for the use of his name in connection with the North Atlantic Cable. Maury was unwilling to agree to this, and the proposition did not materialize. He kept up his interest in such engineering work, however, and in July, 1866 he wrote that he had filed “provisional specifications” for a patent to improve the manufacture and laying of deep-sea cables, which would decrease the cost almost one half. But in the final successful laying of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, completed in that very same month, Maury had no part. Though Field had been, before the war, quite ready to accord him due credit for his assistance in laying the first cable across the Atlantic, yet at the banquet given him by the New York Chamber of Commerce at the Metropolitan Hotel, on November 15, 1866, he only casually referred to Maury’s name. Two years later at a dinner in his honor in Willis’s Rooms, London, on July 1, 1868, Field did not even mention, in his speech, the name of Maury, who that very day sailed at last for his home in the United States.