The Project Gutenberg eBook, Matthew Fontaine Maury, by Charles Lee Lewis

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY
THE PATHFINDER
OF THE SEAS

By
CHARLES LEE LEWIS
Associate Professor
United States Naval Academy

ILLUSTRATED

1927
THE UNITED STATES NAVAL INSTITUTE
ANNAPOLIS

Copyright, 1927
The United States Naval Institute
Annapolis, Maryland

TO MY WIFE
LOUISE QUARLES LEWIS

Richmond, Virginia.
October 25, 1927.

It is eminently appropriate that a life of Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury should be written in the environment of Annapolis, and by a professor in the United States Naval Academy, and The Maury Memorial Association is deeply appreciative of this splendid tribute to the name and fame of one of America’s greatest naval officers and benefactors.

Mrs. E.E. Moffitt.
President, The Maury Association.

Wide World Photo

Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd, U. S. Navy (Retired)
Who has written the Foreword of this biography

FOREWORD

I believe that the most instructive form of reading is biography. In the story of a man’s life one can see in quick review the struggle that man went through to attain or to fail to attain his heart’s desire.

For the professional man, life stories of his colleagues and predecessors focus down to the particular problems of the profession. This is essentially the case with the story of a man like Maury. As a naval officer, Maury’s work will always remain outstanding. He was one of our pioneer investigators of the geography of the sea and the physics of the air. And at the same time he never lost sight of the intrinsic needs of his Service.

Since travel in the present age has become so common Maury may be looked upon as one of our great benefactors. His professional work turned out to be of happily wide application, not only for the seafaring man, but for the flier.

As an inspirational character Maury was also a noteworthy American. His life was marked by that persistent industry peculiar to the successful research worker. There is little indication that he ever saw ahead of him immediate reward of any great size. But his toil was ever directly applied for the adventure of discovering something new or different in the maritime fields in which he worked.

Because I am soon to start on my own expedition towards the South Pole I am particularly interested in a letter Maury wrote under date of August 20, 1860, in which he said: “I have reason to believe that there is, about the South Pole, a comparatively mild climate. The unexplored regions there embrace an area equal in extent to about one-sixth of all the known land on the surface of the earth. I am quietly seeking to create in the minds of some an interest upon the subject, hoping thereby to foster a desire in right quarters for an Antarctic expedition.”

Richard E. Byrd
Commander, U. S. Navy (Retired)

September 26, 1927

PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT

Measured by man’s calendar it has been a long stretch of time since he first ventured forth in crude canoes on the waters skirting his early habitations.

The art of handling ships—seamanship and navigation—began before man could read or write; it was ships that first quickened his imagination and enabled him to measure his skill against Nature’s elements and released him from the encirclement of small operations.

Western Europe and its civilization saved themselves from being pushed into the Atlantic by the flanking movement afforded by ships—increased knowledge of navigation.

No single individual has done more for his fellow man in lessening the hazards of navigation than has Matthew Fontaine Maury.

For the safe navigation of aircraft the world is waiting to-day for another Maury. Aerology is in its infancy.

No other life of this distinguished naval officer and scientist has been published in America and the author has spent the greater part of four years in its preparation.

To Commander Byrd the author and the publisher are indebted for the Foreword.

To the Hydrographic Office, Navy Department, appreciation for assistance and advice rendered is expressed.

That Maury’s fame and honor may ever grow greater and that his life’s work may be an inspiration for a future Pathfinder of the Air appears a sufficient reason for the publication of this biography by his brother officers of the Navy.

United States Naval Institute

September 27, 1927

PREFACE

This biography is based chiefly upon the Maury Papers, comprising letters, diaries, scientific notebooks, and other manuscripts, which were presented to the United States Government in 1912 by Maury’s only living child, Mrs. Mary Maury Werth, and other descendants, and then deposited in the Division of Manuscripts, Library of Congress. Other valuable sources are the letter books, numbering many volumes, in the Office of the Superintendent of the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, and the official papers relating to Maury in the Navy Department Library. Miscellaneous Maury letters are to be found in the New York Public Library, the Public Library of the City of Boston, the United States Naval Academy Museum, the Peabody Institute Library of Baltimore, the Virginia State Library, the Virginia Historical Society Library, and the Yale University Library. Mrs. C. Alphonso Smith, Raleigh, North Carolina, has one Maury letter and some fifty others, written by contemporaries in reference to the Maury Testimonial which was presented to him in England after the Civil War. Of great importance, also, are Maury’s own voluminous writings, and the numerous references to him in the periodicals and newspapers of his time.

For assistance in gathering material for this biography I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to various members of the Maury family. In the first place, I wish to mention the “Life of Maury” by his daughter, Diana Fontaine Maury Corbin, which was of considerable help to me. Of his living descendants, Mrs. James Parmelee, a granddaughter, of Washington, D. C., and Mrs. Matthew Fontaine Maury, Jr., a daughter-in-law, of Cincinnati, Ohio gave me much assistance. Mrs. Werth of Richmond, Virginia, and her two daughters, Mrs. N. Montgomery Osborne of Norfolk, Virginia, and Mrs. Littleton Fitzgerald of Richmond, very patiently answered my numerous questions and furnished me interesting and very desirable information. The list of all the other persons who have helped me, in one way or another, in the writing of this book would be too long to set down in a preface; but among the many I wish to single out by name the following: Mr. J. C. Fitzpatrick, Assistant Chief, Division of Manuscripts, Library of Congress; Captain Edwin T. Pollock, U. S. Navy, Superintendent, and Mr. William D. Horigan, Librarian, of the United States Naval Observatory; Captain Dudley W. Knox, U. S. Navy (Retired), Superintendent, and Miss Nannie Dornin Barney, Archivist, of the Naval Records and Library of the Navy Department; Mr. Andrew Keogh, Librarian, Yale University Library; Mr. H. M. Lydenberg, Reference Librarian, New York Public Library; Mr. Charles F. D. Belden, Director of the Public Library of the City of Boston; Miss Helen C. Bates, Reference Librarian, Detroit Public Library; Dr. William G. Stanard, Corresponding Secretary and Librarian, Virginia Historical Society; Mr. Edward V. Valentine, Acting President of the Virginia Historical Society; Dr. H. R. McIlwaine, Librarian of the Virginia State Library; R. H. Crockett, Esq., Miss Susie Gentry, and Mr. Park Marshall, Vice President of the Tennessee Historical Society,—all of Franklin, Tennessee; Mr. John Trotwood Moore, State Librarian and Archivist, and Mr. A. P. Foster, Assistant Librarian and Archivist, Tennessee State Library, Nashville; President A. B. Chandler, Jr., State Teachers College, Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Mrs. V. M. Fleming, President of the Kenmore Association, Fredericksburg; Mr. John W. Herndon, Alexandria, Virginia; Harold T. Clark, Esq., of Squire, Sanders and Demsey, Counsellors at Law, Cleveland, Ohio; William M. Robinson, Jr., Augusta, Georgia; Mr. Gaston Lichstenstein, Corresponding Secretary of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Association, Richmond; and, last but by no means least, Assistant Professor Richard Johnson Duval, Librarian, Mr. Lewis H. Bolander, Assistant Librarian, and Mr. James M. Saunders, Cataloguer, of the United States Naval Academy Library, Annapolis, Maryland.

C. L. L.

Annapolis, Maryland.

“When I became old enough to reflect, it was the aim at which all my energies were directed to make myself a useful man. I soon found that occupation, for some useful end or other, was the true secret of happiness.”

(Maury to Rutson Maury, August 31, 1840.)

“It’s the talent of industry that makes a man. I don’t think that so much depends upon intellect as is generally supposed; but industry and steadiness of purpose, they are the things.”

(Maury to Frank Minor, July 25, 1855.)

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Tentative Model of the Maury Monument

Soon to be erected in Richmond, Virginia. The monument will be 28 feet high; diameter of globe, 9 feet; height of Maury, 7 feet (1½ life size); figures of group, life size. Through the efforts of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Association a sum of over $60,000 was raised for this beautiful memorial. Sculptor F. William Sievers. See page 251.

CHAPTER I
His Early Years

No other great American has ever received so many honors abroad and so little recognition at home as has the oceanographer, Matthew Fontaine Maury. While his own country was but meagerly, and sometimes grudgingly, rewarding him, there was hardly a civilized foreign country that did not bestow upon him some mark of distinguished consideration. This was not merely a case of distance lending enchantment to the view, but rather one of perspective; those near him with but few exceptions had only a partial and incomplete view of the man, while foreigners at a distance saw the complete figure of the great scientist unobscured by the haze of professional jealousy or political and sectional prejudice. But there is another kind of perspective,—that produced by the lapse of time; hence it is that we now are enabled to appreciate the greatness of a man irrespective of the side he took in the War between the States in those “unhappy things and battles long ago”. It is this perspective of time that makes possible the writing of this biography with the confidence that the time has now come when throughout our entire country Maury’s greatness as a scientist and as a man will be seen in its true proportions, and his fine struggle against obstacles to attain his ideals and accomplish his purposes will serve as an inspiration and a challenge to every American.

Whatever the obstacles were that Maury had to contend with, there was no handicap in his ancestry, for he was distinctively well-born. Through his father, Richard Maury, he was descended from a very distinguished Huguenot family which came to Virginia in 1718. His mother, Diana Minor, was of Dutch ancestry, being descended from Dudas Minor, who received in 1665 a grant of land in Virginia from King Charles II. The Minors intermarried with the colonial aristocracy of the Old Dominion, and there was accordingly added to the mixed Huguenot and Dutch ancestry of Matthew Fontaine Maury some of the best English blood in the colonies. Thus it was that he inherited pride of family, an inclination to scholarly pursuits, a deeply religious nature, and the character and bearing of a gentleman.

Matthew Fontaine Maury was born, the fourth son in a large family of five sons and four daughters, on January 14, 1806, on his father’s farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia, and named after his paternal great-grandfathers. There had been many migrations from Spottsylvania and Albemarle counties to the free lands of the Old Southwest; and when Matthew was but five years old, his father determined to attempt to better his fortunes by following his uncle, Abram Maury, who had already established himself on the Tennessee frontier. Practically no details as to the incidents that occurred on this long and toilsome trek have been preserved; but there is a tradition in the family that all the goods and chattels were transported in wagons, and that, when little Matthew grew tired of walking or cramped from riding in the rough, jolting wagons, he was frequently carried on the back of one of his sisters. Their experiences were, no doubt, similar to those of thousands of other early pioneers who went to the Old Southwest to lay the foundations of new commonwealths.

The travel-worn family established a new home near Franklin, Tennessee, some eighteen miles north of Nashville. This section of the country was then on the outskirts of the western frontier, and it was in such an environment that young Maury spent the most formative years of his life. As a lad, he had to take his share of the burdensome work on the farm; and it appears from an incident long afterwards related by his brother that he had the distaste for farm work, which is common to boys. Their father had set them to work picking cotton, and Matthew showed his inventiveness by devising a way of shortening their labor. He suggested to his brother that they make short work of the cotton picking by pulling off the cotton balls bodily and cramming them into an old hollow hickory stump that was full of water. The scheme was a good one so long as it was undiscovered, but after a time the watchful eye of their father detected the boys in the act and a flogging was the result. The lives of the children on the frontier, however, were by no means wholly filled with toil. There was ample opportunity to enjoy out-door sports in all seasons of the year, and indoors the Maury family were not without resources for passing the time pleasantly and profitably. There were traditions of culture and even of scholarship in the family, and besides it should be remembered that the homes of the early settlers were rarely without at least a few good books.

Maury’s father, having observed that his own father had been too stern with his children, treated his large family with considerable indulgence; yet he was strict as to their religious training in the home and gathered the children together morning and night each day to read the Psalter antiphonally. In this way Matthew became so familiar with the Psalms of David that years afterwards he could give a quotation and cite chapter and verse as though he had the Bible before him. This early religious influence later colored all Maury’s thinking and writing to a very marked degree. His mother, who was known as a woman of great decision of character, endowed her son with this same quality which is so essential to greatness; while her husband passed on to Matthew much of his amiability and ingenuousness for which he was greatly liked throughout the neighborhood.

Maury received his elementary education in an “Old Field” school, where the seats were made of split logs with peg legs, where there were no blackboards and but few books, and where the pupils studied their lessons aloud. This method of study probably led to the custom of “singing geography”, the pupils being ranged round the room to chant geographical facts. Whether Maury was thus inducted into the mysteries of that science which his researches were afterwards so greatly to enrich is not known, for the only schoolbook that he makes reference to in his letters is the famous Webster’s “Blueback Speller”, which he says was the first book that was ever placed in his hands.

A better education than that afforded in these country elementary schools was, however, destined for Maury. When he was in his twelfth year, a dangerous fall from a tree so injured his back as to cause his father to consider it unwise for the lad to continue to work on the farm. He had already shown such aptitude for study that it was decided to send him to Harpeth Academy, then located about two miles from Franklin. In this school, Maury had as teachers the Reverend Doctor Blackburn, afterwards Chaplain to Congress; James Otey, who became the first Bishop of Tennessee; and William C. Hasbrouck, who was afterwards a distinguished lawyer in his native state, New York. The impression that Maury made upon these scholarly men was a very favorable and lasting one, and he retained their warm personal friendship as long as they lived.

It was with Dr. Blackburn that Maury began the study of Latin grammar, through which he marched with seven league boots in only seven days; this, of course, was a record for the school. Though he thus showed a capacity for learning languages, both at this time and later in the navy while on foreign stations, yet the field of science held the greatest attraction for Maury. His ambition to become a mathematician was aroused in a curious way. “The first man of science I ever saw in my infant days in the West”, he said, “was a shoemaker—old Mr. Neil. He was a mathematician; he worked out his problems with his awl on leather, and would send home his shoes with their soles covered with little x’s and y’s. The example of that man first awakened in my breast the young spirit of emulation; for my earliest recollections of the feelings of ambition are connected with the aspiration to emulate that man in mathematics”. The ambition to know and achieve early displayed itself in Maury, and in later life he pleasantly recalled to mind his “Tennessee school days when the air was filled with castles”.

Such, in brief, was the life of Maury as a lad in his adopted state,—a state which he came to love and to which he referred years afterwards, when he had traveled extensively and become a famous man, as “the loveliest of lands” and “the finest country I have ever seen”. Here he was nurtured with the best the frontier life had to offer, and given independence of mind, courage, and self-reliance; love of honor and a chivalrous respect for woman; an unassuming modesty which bordered on diffidence and bashfulness; a strongly religious inclination; and a burning desire to know and to achieve. With this equipment he would doubtless have made a name for himself if he had remained in Tennessee; but Providence directed his steps into a broader field where he was able to gain for himself much greater distinction,—one that was not alone national but international in its scope.

One of the well marked characteristics of Maury’s maturity was the breadth of his intellectual vision. His mind loved to exercise itself with large problems, and questions of world-wide interest. This trait in his character could not have been developed so well perhaps in any other career as in the one he chose,—service in the navy of the United States. In this connection, it is interesting to note that Maury’s father wished him to study medicine and promised him financial assistance in such an undertaking. As a physician, he doubtless would have reached great eminence and the science of medicine would almost certainly have received contributions from his original mind; but a military career presented greater attractions for the lad. At one time he considered entering West Point as a cadet, but some one returned from there with an unfavorable report and, besides, the bare mention of such a plan put his father in a rage; hence he decided against the army and instead determined to enter the United States Navy.

There were very good reasons for Maury’s wishing to become a naval officer. Indeed, all his life he had had a close personal interest in that branch of the government service. His eldest brother, John Minor Maury, at the age of thirteen, even before the family had left Virginia, had become a midshipman. He then had thrilling adventures in the South Seas, was with David Porter in the Essex during the bloody battle with the English at Valparaiso, and afterwards fought with Macdonough in the Battle of Lake Champlain. All this was enough to awaken the spirit of adventure and arouse the desire of emulation in the heart of a younger brother. And though John Maury had the misfortune, in 1824, to die of yellow fever on board his ship and be buried at sea off Norfolk, yet Matthew clung firmly to his decision in the face of the opposition of his family, particularly his father, to the entrance of a second son into so hazardous a profession.

Maury secured his midshipman’s warrant with comparative ease, through General Sam Houston, who was at that time the Representative of that district in Congress. This appointment was gotten, however, without his parents’ knowledge, and when it became known to his father he expressed his disapproval of his son’s conduct in very strong terms and determined to leave him to his own resources. But young Maury was very resourceful and contrived to purchase for seventy-five dollars a gray mare from his cousin Abram Maury’s overseer, which he was to sell upon reaching his destination, and then he was to repay the money. Still he had practically nothing for traveling expenses, but this obstacle was removed by his teacher, Mr. Hasbrouck, who gave him thirty dollars for assistance he had rendered in teaching the younger pupils in the Academy.

On the day of his departure on that Sunday in the spring of 1825, Maury’s father refused to tell him goodbye and turned his back,—it is said, not so much in anger as in sorrow at his leaving home. No doubt the lad’s heart was saddened by this circumstance as well as by the parting from the rest of the family, especially from his favorite brother Richard, only two years his senior, who had always been his inseparable companion. But he put on a brave front, mounted his “snow white steed”, and set forth on the long lonesome ride to Virginia, whence he was to make his way to Washington and there embark on his new career.

The second or third day from home at an inn in East Tennessee, the young traveler fell in with two merchants, Read and Echols, from Huntsville, Alabama, on their way to Baltimore to purchase goods, and in company with these gentlemen he traveled as far as Fincastle, Virginia. Though he greatly enjoyed their company, he was much concerned lest they find out his financial condition, suspect his poverty, and humiliate him by offering him money. His resources were indeed sadly depleted on crossing over into Virginia, where his money had to be exchanged for coin of that state at a ruinous discount of twenty per cent, and when, after a journey of two weeks, he reached the home of his Cousin Reuben Maury near Charlottesville, he had but fifty cents left.

Here a special entertainment was given in his honor, and Maury had his first experience with the society manners of the East which were somewhat more refined than those of the Tennessee frontier. When the negro servant passed him a saucer of ice-cream and a spoon, he very modestly placed only a spoonful in his plate and left the remainder to be passed to the others, thinking that it was some kind of strange sauce. From this place he proceeded to the home of his Uncle Edward Herndon, near Fredericksburg; and while visiting there, he met the young girl who was some years afterwards to become his wife. She was Ann Hull Herndon, the eldest daughter of Dabney Herndon, who was a banker and prominent citizen of Fredericksburg. It was a case of love at first sight with young Maury, who was completely captivated by the blue eyes, auburn hair, and musical voice of his fair cousin; while she in turn was very favorably impressed with this relative from the West with his ruddy complexion which she used to say after they were married reminded her of “David fresh from his sheep with his sling”.

From De Meissner’s “Old Naval Days,” through courtesy of Henry Holt and Company.

U. S. S. “Brandywine,” Commander Biddle, off Malta, November 6, 1831; and U. S. S. “Concord,” Captain Perry, in Background

When he arrived at his destination in Washington, the Secretary of the Navy allowed him fifteen cents a mile as mileage from Franklin, Tennessee, and this fairly put Maury’s head above water financially. After a short visit with relatives here, he went on to New York where he had been ordered to report on board the U. S. Frigate Brandywine.

Here he arrived August 13, 1825, and at once entered into active service in the profession which he had chosen. He has left no record as to what his thoughts and feelings were during those weeks when he, a lad from the West who had never seen a ship before, was adjusting himself to those new and strange surroundings. But that he had made up his mind to succeed in his chosen career, whether he liked it or not, is evident from this sentiment which occurs more than once in his letters: “... to the old rule with which I set out on horseback from Tennessee in 1825, a fresh midshipman, ‘Make everything bend to your profession’”.

CHAPTER II
His Three Cruises

Maury’s early years in the navy afforded the lad from the backwoods of Tennessee wonderful experiences, and excellent opportunities for supplementing the desultory education that he had received. To a young man of his intellectual capacity, these voyages to foreign lands during the most plastic years of his life were invaluable in the development of a mind capable of grappling later with questions and problems which concerned the entire world.

Luckily for the young officer, the very first ship to which he was attached, the Brandywine, was the vessel which had been chosen to convey Lafayette home to France after his memorable visit to the United States. This ship, named from Brandywine Creek, the scene of the battle in which Lafayette was wounded on September 11, 1777, had been launched on June 16 of the year 1825. In equipping her for this special service, the officers had been selected so as to represent as many different states as possible and, where it was practicable, they were to be descendants of persons who had distinguished themselves in the Revolution. This accounted for the large number of midshipmen ordered aboard her, twenty-six instead of the usual eight or ten for a vessel of that size. Maury was thus brought in touch with young officers from various sections of the country; and among the senior officers were Captain Charles Morris, who had made a name for himself in the War of 1812, and Lieutenant David Farragut, who was to become one of the very greatest American naval leaders.

On the 8th of September the Brandywine set sail from the mouth of the Potomac, where Lafayette had been received on board the ship. She passed down the Chesapeake through a brilliant rainbow which was apparently supported on the Virginia and Maryland shores, as if Nature had reserved to herself the honor of erecting the last of the numerous triumphal arches that had been dedicated to the great Frenchman during his extraordinary visit. As the ship made her way to sea, almost the last glimpse which Lafayette had of America was the bluffs of the York River where he had so materially aided the American cause at the Battle of Yorktown.

The voyage turned out to be not a very pleasant one, for the ship had hardly gotten under way when she began to leak and for a time it was thought that she would have to return to port. But as it was reported that the leak was under control, Lafayette advised the captain to continue the voyage, and when the planks of the vessel swelled from immersion in the water the leak gradually diminished. The weather, however, then became stormy, and during most of the passage the distinguished passenger suffered so severely from sea-sickness and gout that he was unable to join the officers at dinner or to visit the deck. They were thus deprived, much to their regret, from listening as much as they desired to the reminiscences of the great general’s interesting and eventful life. There was another unpleasantness that affected the midshipmen in particular. This was caused by a steward who, in cleaning an officer’s uniform, upset a bottle of turpentine, the contents of which ran into a barrel of sugar belonging to the midshipmen’s mess. As a consequence, during the remainder of the voyage they had to eat their desserts strongly flavored with turpentine.

At the close of the voyage, the midshipmen presented to Lafayette, as a mark of their personal friendship, a beautiful silver urn appropriately engraved with scenes of the Capitol at Washington, Lafayette’s visit to the tomb of Washington, and the arrival of the Brandywine at Havre. At this French port, Lafayette disembarked, taking with him the flag of the American vessel as a souvenir of the voyage. From here Maury’s ship proceeded to Cowes where she was calked, and then sailed for the Mediterranean, joining Commodore John Rodgers’ squadron at Gibraltar on the 2nd of November. The ship was refitted here during the winter, and the following spring she returned to the United States, arriving at New York in May, 1826.

Such in brief outline was Maury’s first cruise. Though none of his letters giving his impressions of these first months at sea have been preserved, yet it is not difficult to imagine with what eagerness and delight his active young mind observed the strange sights and assimilated the new experiences. Many years afterwards he wrote of how he secured a Spanish work on navigation in order that he might acquire a new language and a science at the same time. In this connection he related how he resorted to various artifices for study while on watch. “If I went below only for a moment or two,” he wrote, “and could lay hands upon a dictionary or any book, I would note a sentence, or even a word, that I did not understand, and fix it in my memory to be reflected upon when I went on deck. I used to draw problems in spherical trigonometry with chalk on the shot, and put them in the racks where I could see them as I walked the deck. That with so much perseverance I should have failed in my prime object, I attribute to the want of books and proper teachers in the navy”. It was this seriousness of purpose and industry that caused Maury soon to become well known among his shipmates for his scholarship, and the story is told that even on this first cruise a certain mathematical problem was passed from steerage to wardroom without solution until he solved it.

After making a short visit to his home in Tennessee, Maury set sail on June 10, 1826 from Norfolk on the frigate Macedonian to which he had been ordered for temporary duty. This ship was bound for Rio Janeiro where she arrived after a passage of sixty-two days. After cruising in Brazilian waters for awhile, the frigate went on down the coast to Montevideo. At this time a war was raging between Brazil and Argentina over Banda Oriental, or Uruguay, which had been a sort of political football between the two countries until 1821, when it was partly subdued by Brazil. In 1825, however, it rose against this empire, and after a long struggle of three years it succeeded in having its independence recognized by the treaty of Rio Janeiro, on August 27, 1828. This state of affairs constituted the principal reason why American ships of war were sent to those waters. Thus was Maury brought into touch with history in the making, and the letters which he wrote at this time show an alert interest in what he was observing and display as well an unusual ability in recording experiences and his impressions of the people.

His name was still carried on the muster and pay rolls of the Brandywine; but that ship did not depart for South American waters until the last of August, 1826, when she set sail from New York with the Vincennes. Eventually it was Maury’s good fortune to be transferred to the latter vessel, in which he was to circumnavigate the globe. He first joined the Vincennes, on March 10, 1827, in Callao Roads, the port of Lima, Peru. The American warships had by this time entered the Pacific and were cruising up and down the South American coast from Valparaiso, Chile to Guayaquil, Ecuador to protect the commerce of the United States, as this part of South America also was then in turmoil.

Bolivar, after liberating the states of northern South America from Spanish rule, was endeavoring to organize Columbia, Peru, Bolivia, La Plata, and Chile into a grand republic, of which he aspired to be the ruler. The union of the first three of these states was practically realized, but the undertaking finally ended in failure because of the jealousy of Bolivar’s former companions in arms and the fickleness of the South American people. This characteristic of the people is humorously set forth in Maury’s letters in which he describes some of the fighting which he witnessed at Guayaquil. The young man’s historical outlook was thus further broadened by this personal contact with the affairs of the great Libertador, Bolivar.

On July 4, 1829, the war meanwhile having come to an end, the Vincennes, under the command of Captain William Compton (Bolton) Finch, set forth from Callao on her voyage across the Pacific. She was to make her first stop at the Washington Islands, now known as the Marquesas, in order, as Captain Finch’s orders read, to secure proper treatment from the natives for any of our defenseless seafaring countrymen who in their lawful pursuits were compelled by necessity to resort to the harbors of the islands for refreshment and supplies; to reclaim those who from improper motives had remained among the islanders; and by exhibiting the moral advancement of America to so raise the American national character in their estimation as to induce a praiseworthy imitation of it on their part. The ship arrived at one of the islands, Nukahiva by name, on July 26, and in order to carry out the spirit of his orders Captain Finch made his vessel a “tabu ship” that he might prevent the gross licentiousness to which ships from Christian lands were usually surrendered in those ports.

For an account of Maury’s experiences on this cruise little is to be derived from his extant letters, but fortunately Chaplain C. S. Stewart wrote a book entitled “A Visit to the South Seas in the U. S. Ship Vincennes during the years 1829 and 1830”, in which he mentions Maury as a member of the shore party which visited the Valley of Taioa and as one of those who went on various other expeditions on the island of Nukahiva under the direction of the chaplain. That these were unforgettable experiences is evident from Stewart’s rapturous descriptions of the people and the scenery of the island which, he declared, “seemed almost a fairy land, scarce less fascinating in its features than the imaginary haunts pictured by the pens of genius as the abode of Calypso, or the happy valley of the Abyssinian prince”.

Before leaving this island Maury had an experience of peculiar interest. It was here that his brother John had spent two years practically cut off from civilization. Just before the War of 1812, he had secured a furlough from the navy and had gone as first officer in a merchantman on a voyage to China. On departing from Nukahiva, the captain of this ship left John Maury and six men on the island to procure sandalwood and other articles of commerce. They were, of course, to be taken off on the return from China; but the war broke out and the ship was blockaded in a Chinese port by the English. Meanwhile the Americans were left to shift for themselves on Nukahiva, and in a war between two tribes, one of which was friendly to them, all the white men were killed except John Maury and another man named Baker. Fortunately, Porter visited the island during the famous cruise of the Essex, and rescued the two survivors. In order that he might learn something about the history of his brother while on the island, Midshipman Maury set about studying the language of the natives, during the three weeks or so of his visit. And shortly before his departure he was able to converse with the old chief who had been his brother’s friend. “The Happas and the Typees”, Maury wrote, “were at war. The latter having just captured three children from the former, we went to the rescue and recovered two, the third had been eaten. When we returned to the Happa Valley from the expedition—it was the valley where dwelt my brother—the men had liberty and the old Happa chief remained on board as a hostage, for his subjects were all a set of savages and the women literally in the fig leaf state. At night when all the men had come off safe and sound, and a few days only before we left, I was sent to take the old fellow ashore. Going ashore, I made myself known to him. He was the firm and fast friend of my brother. Had saved his life. He was then old. He it was that offered me his scepter, his own wife, and the daughter of a neighboring chief if I would remain”.

Needless to say, this flattering offer was rejected, and Maury was on the Vincennes when she sailed away from the island. In leaving the bay, the ship narrowly escaped destruction, for the vessel was at first becalmed and then suddenly carried by the swell toward the breakers. Every face was pale with fear and the silence of the grave hung over the ship, but a timely breath of air filled the topsails and finally slowly carried her out to the open sea. In five days she was seven hundred miles away at Tahiti, one of the Society Islands. Here Maury had the pleasure of joining several shore parties, and was also present at an interesting reception to the Queen of Tahiti on board the Vincennes, when the firing of the salute to the queen greatly alarmed her and caused her to behave in a very humorous and undignified manner.

The ship then set sail, after a month’s visit, for the Sandwich Islands. On the island of Hawaii Maury visited the Cascade of the Rainbow and probably saw also the volcano of Kilauea, about both of which Chaplain Stewart goes into rhapsodies in his account of the voyage. Captain Finch went also to Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, and there presented to King Kamehameha III a pair of gloves and a large map of the United States, and a silver vase to the regent and two silver goblets to the princess. A letter from the Secretary of the Navy was then delivered to the king. This was well received by his majesty, and his reply was in the friendliest possible tone, agreeing to treat American sailors with more consideration and fairness in the future. The purpose of the visit having thus been accomplished, several deserters having been reclaimed, and the settlement of claims for about $50,000 for American citizens having been negotiated, the ship departed for China.

Leaving behind the northern Bashee Islands, which are considered one of the barriers of the Pacific as well as one of the portals to the Celestial Empire, the ship came to anchor on January 3, 1830 in the roads of Macao, a Portuguese city, situated on a small island about seventy miles from Canton. The Vincennes thus gained the distinction of being the second American man-of-war to visit Chinese waters, having been preceded only by the Congress in 1819. After receiving a statement from the American consul and merchants at Canton on the advisability of having American men-of-war make periodic visits to Chinese waters, Captain Finch was off again, this time for the Philippines.

After a brief visit at Manila, the ship turned towards home, and, stopping in the Straits of Sunda and at Cape Town, on the first of May came in sight of the Island of St. Helena. Here ample time was afforded the officers for seeing Longwood House in which Napoleon had lived and also his tomb, from which the body of the great general had not at that time been removed to Paris. After leaving this island, the ship made no other stop until she arrived in New York on the 8th of June, 1830, with her band appropriately playing, “Hail Columbia! Happy Land!”

After almost four years to a day, Maury was home again; but he was no longer the raw lad from the Tennessee backwoods, for the information and experience which he had gained on this cruise of the first American man-of-war to circumnavigate the globe had gone a long way towards taking the place of a college education. Men of the stamp of Commodore Charles Morris, Lieutenant Farragut, Captain Finch, Chaplain Stewart, and dozens of other officers with whom he had come in contact during his first two cruises had contributed, by example at least, in making him into an officer and a gentleman. During all this time he had studied, and read as widely as opportunity afforded, having had the privilege for a portion of the time of using the books of Midshipman William Irving, a nephew to Washington Irving.

That the opportunities for instruction on shipboard were, however, very limited is indicated by the following summary of Maury’s experience with the school system of the navy. “The first ship I sailed in”, he wrote, “had a schoolmaster: a young man from Connecticut. He was well qualified and well disposed to teach navigation, but not having a schoolroom, or authority to assemble the midshipmen, the cruise passed off without the opportunity of organizing his school. From him, therefore, we learned nothing. On my next cruise, the dominie was a Spaniard; and, being bound to South America, there was a perfect mania in the steerage for the Spanish language. In our youthful impetuosity we bought books, and for a week or so pursued the study with great eagerness. But our spirits began to flag, and the difficulties of ser and estar finally laid the copestone for us over the dominie’s vernacular. The study was exceedingly dry. We therefore voted both teacher and grammar a bore, and committing the latter to the deep, with one accord, we declared in favor of the Byronical method—

‘’Tis pleasant to be taught in a strange tongue

By female lips and eyes’;

and continued to defer our studies till we should arrive in the South American vale of paradise, called Valparaiso. After arriving on that station, the commander, who had often expressed his wish that we should learn to speak Spanish, sent down ‘for all the young gentlemen’, as the middies are called, and commenced to ask us one by one—‘Can you speak Spanish?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Then you are no gentleman’. ‘Can you?’ But always receiving the same answer, he sent us out of the cabin as a set of blackguards. As he was as ignorant on this subject as any of us, we included him among the number, and thought it an excellent joke. Thus ended our scholastic duties on that ship. I was afterwards transferred to another vessel in which the schoolmaster was a young lawyer, who knew more about jetsam and flotsam than about lunars and dead reckoning—at least, I presume so, for he never afforded us an opportunity to judge of his knowledge on the latter subjects. He was not on speaking terms with the reefers, ate up all the plums for the duff, and was finally turned out of the ship as a nuisance. When I went to sea again, the teacher was an amiable and accomplished young man, from the ‘land of schoolmasters and leather pumpkin seed’. Poor fellow!—far gone in consumption, had a field of usefulness been open to him, he could not have labored in it. He went to sea for his health, but never returned. There was no schoolmaster in the next ship, and the ‘young gentlemen’ were as expert at lunars, and as au fait in the mysteries of latitude and departure, as any I had seen. In my next ship, the dominie was a young man, troubled like some of your correspondents, Mr. Editor, with cacoethes scribendi. He wrote a book. But I never saw him teaching ‘the young idea’, or instructing the young gentlemen in the art of plain sailing; nor did I think it was his fault, for he had neither schoolroom nor pupil. Such is my experience of the school system in the navy; and I believe that of every officer will tally with it”.[1]

Maury had the privilege of continuing his studies ashore in New York and Washington for several months before he embarked on his next cruise. He was then preparing himself for the examination for the rank of passed midshipman. This examination covered the following subjects: Bowditch’s “Navigation”; Playfair’s “Euclid”, Books 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6; McClure’s “Spherics”; Spanish or French; Mental and Moral Philosophy; Bourdon’s “Algebra”; and Seamanship. The time devoted to each midshipman by the examiners, in the order of his appointment, ranged from fifty minutes to two hours. To judge from the questions in seamanship, the examination was largely of a very practical nature,—on how to handle the sails of a ship and how to navigate her.

In his examination, Maury passed twenty-seven in a class of forty. An explanation of this apparently low standing may be gathered from the following account of the manner of conducting such examinations: “The midshipman who seeks to become learned in the branches of science that pertain to his profession, and who before the Examining Board should so far stray from the lids of Bowditch as to get among the isodynamic and other lines of a magnetic chart, would be blackballed as certainly as though he were to clubhaul a ship for the Board in the Hebrew tongue.... Midshipmen, turning to Bowditch, commit to memory the formula of his first or second method for ‘finding the longitude at sea by a lunar observation’. Thus crammed or ‘drilled’, as it is called, they go before the Board of Examination, where, strange to say, there is a premium offered for such qualification. He who repeats ‘by heart’ the rules of Bowditch, though he does not understand the mathematical principles involved in one of them, obtains a higher number from the Board than he who, skilled in mathematics, goes to the blackboard and, drawing his diagram, can demonstrate every problem in navigation”.[2] Maury, no doubt, wrote this out of his own personal experience; and even though the results of his examination may have indicated that in the ordinary duties of his profession he was not above the average, still it was to be in a special field of the service that his genius was to display itself.

During the winter which Maury spent in Washington he fell completely in love with his cousin, Ann Herndon, who was visiting relatives in Georgetown. Hitherto there had been a certain safety in numbers, as indicated by the numerous references in his letters to the charms of English girls and the “piercing eyes and insinuating smiles” of the Brazilian and Peruvian maidens. But before he went to sea again he became engaged to his cousin, and on his departure he gave her a little seal which was to be used only when she wrote to him; it bore the inscription of the single word Mizpah, that beautiful Biblical parting salutation, “The Lord watch between thee and me when we are absent one from the other”.

This love affair caused Maury to consider resigning from the naval service, but his hope of getting employment as a surveyor did not materialize and he finally concluded that he supposed Uncle Sam would have the selling of his bones to the doctors. Accordingly, in June, 1831 he sailed again for the Pacific, this time in the Falmouth. His ship touched at Rio for a brief visit, then doubled Cape Horn, and arrived at Valparaiso the last of October. The Falmouth remained on this station for about a year, and Maury renewed his former acquaintances and enjoyed the hospitality of Chilean society at dances and dinners without number. The vessel then cruised further north along the coast, visiting various ports and remaining several months at Callao.

One of Maury’s shipmates on this cruise has left some reminiscences which throw considerable light upon his young friend’s qualities as an officer. “I encountered some ridicule”, wrote Captain Whiting, “from my messmates for predicting that Maury would be a distinguished man. I asserted that there was that in him which could not be kept down.... In a survey of San Lorenzo Island while attached to the Falmouth I was an assistant to Maury, and he displayed that perseverance and energy undismayed by difficulty when he had once determined upon accomplishing a result, which ever marked his career. In prosecuting the survey of the Boca del Diables he scaled rocks and crept around the corners of cliffs when I was almost afraid to follow him, but the attainment of his object seemed to be with him the only subject of his thoughts. He landed on the Labos Rocks to the westward of San Lorenzo to make some astronomical and trigonometrical observations while I remained in the boat. When he landed it was almost a dead calm, and the sea comparatively smooth; but by the time he had finished his observations a fresh wind had sprung up from the southwards, the tide had risen, and the sea was raging so as to forbid the near approach of the boat, one minute receding from the rock so as to leave a yawning gulf of twenty or thirty feet depth, then rushing up again with appalling and irresistible force. Calling on me to approach as near as I dared, Maury ascended to the highest point of the rock, took off his jacket, and with a string which he found in his pocket tied in it his watch and sextant, and then threw it with all his might into the sea toward the boat, while the bowman of the boat stood ready to seize it with his boathook before the water had time to penetrate the wrapping. Maury then, watching the culmination of a wave, sprang from the rock himself and being a good swimmer and possessed of much youthful strength reached the boat in safety, but it was a fearful leap”.

The seeds of Maury’s later wonderful achievements in the science of the sea were implanted during this cruise of the Falmouth. He was the sailing master of the ship, and naturally wished to make as quick a voyage as possible. Before sailing he had searched diligently for information concerning the winds and currents and the best course for his ship to take, and was astonished to find that there was practically no information on the subject to be secured. The observations of these phenomena of the sea which he accordingly made on this voyage turned his mind toward a series of investigations which later was to make his name known round the entire world.

Maury did not return to the United States in the Falmouth, but shortly before her departure from Callao he was transferred on August 20, 1833 to the schooner Dolphin, in which vessel he performed the duties of first lieutenant. He remained on the little schooner but a few weeks, and then was attached to the frigate Potomac, which had just arrived at Callao under the command of Captain John Downes. This ship had been on duty on the Pacific coast of South America for a little more than a year, after having cruised almost around the world by way of the Cape of Good Hope, the Malay Archipelago, China, and the South Seas.

In a short time, however, the Potomac sailed for home, arriving at Valparaiso the middle of December. Here, according to Captain Whiting, Maury had a very unpleasant experience with a young lady named Manuela Poma with whom he had previously become acquainted. Her hand had been sought by a young officer of the Chilean army, who the evening before the Potomac sailed came on board the ship and told Maury that he had destroyed all his hopes of happiness. He said that the previous day he had made a declaration of his love to Manuela and that she had rejected him, telling him that her affections were already bestowed on the young American naval officer. Instead of priding himself on this conquest, as many young men would have done, Maury was exceedingly distressed as he had considered his relationship with the young girl to have been nothing more than that of friendship, and by a returning ship he sent a long letter to Manuela. Soon after his arrival in Boston he learned that she had died of consumption.

The voyage home round the Horn and by way of Rio was more or less uneventful, except for imminent peril for a time from icebergs off the Falkland Islands. After three years Maury was home again, and according to the decrees of Fate this was to be his last cruise. Hence a distinctive period in his life had come to a close; but his nine years of almost continuous sea duty had been a splendid preparation for the peculiar scientific work that he was soon to undertake.

CHAPTER III
He Resorts to the Pen

When the Potomac arrived in Boston, Maury applied for leave of absence and went directly to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he was married to Ann Herndon on July 15, 1834. In this charming old Virginia town he established his residence for the next seven years, living on Charlotte Street in a two-story frame house with a large old-fashioned garden, which he rented from a Mr. Johnston. He had always been generous with his money to different members of his family, and it is related that, as a consequence, he had but twenty dollars of ready money at the time of his marriage, all of which he gave as a fee to Parson E. C. McGuire. In the same generous way he shared his home for a considerable time with his brother John’s widow and her two sons.

With some leisure at his command, Maury determined to become an author, under the encouragement of the recent appearance in the American Journal of Science and Arts of his first scientific article, “On the Navigation of Cape Horn”. This, the first fruit of his sea experience, described forcefully the dangers of the passage of Cape Horn, and gave specific information concerning the winds and the peculiar rising and falling of the barometer in those latitudes. In the same number of this journal there appeared another article describing Maury’s “Plan of an Instrument for Finding the True Lunar Distance”, the instrument in question having been invented by him. With these beginnings, he ambitiously set to work to finish a book on navigation, which he had commenced during the last part of his recent tour of sea duty. He did not expect to receive much direct profit from such a nautical book, but hoped that it might be of a collateral advantage to him in making his name known to the Navy Department and to his brother officers. As it was the first nautical work of science ever to come from the pen of an American naval officer, he expected to base a claim for promotion on the merits of the book, and had hopes of being made a lieutenant of ten years’ rank with the accompanying back pay amounting to $4,000 or $5,000.

Courtesy of “The Journal of American History,” Vol. IV, Number 3 (1910).

Lieut. M. F. Maury
From a daguerreotype of about the year 1855

These plans of Maury’s did not fully materialize. President Jackson was of the opinion that the young author deserved promotion for his scientific work and reimbursement for the money which he had expended in its publication, but the Secretary of the Navy, Mahlon Dickerson, did not carry out the President’s wishes. The book itself, however, was a great success on its appearance early in the year 1836, under the title of “A New Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Navigation”. The publishers, E. C. and J. Biddle of Philadelphia, soon had the pleasure of printing a long list of favorable opinions of the work from professors and distinguished officers in the navy, among which the commendation of Nathaniel Bowditch gave Maury the greatest satisfaction. His book very quickly took the place of Bowditch’s “Practical Navigator” as a textbook for junior officers in the navy, and when the Naval Academy was established at Annapolis it was used for several years as the basis of the instruction given to midshipmen in navigation. In the title page appeared the significant words, “Cur Non?” (Why not?), the motto adopted by Lafayette when he espoused the cause of the American colonies; this was in effect Maury’s answer to any query that might be made as to why a young naval officer should attempt the writing of a book.

Of the reviews of Maury’s work, one of the most interesting appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger of June, 1836. It was written by Edgar Allan Poe, who was then editor of that magazine, and closed with the following paragraph: “The spirit of literary improvement has been awakened among the officers of our gallant navy. We are pleased to see that science also is gaining votaries from its ranks. Hitherto how little have they improved the golden opportunities of knowledge which their distant voyages held forth, and how little have they enjoyed the rich banquet which nature spreads for them in every clime they visit! But the time is coming when, imbued with a taste for science and a spirit of research, they will become ardent explorers of the regions in which they sojourn. Freighted with the knowledge which observation only can impart, and enriched with collections of objects precious to the student of nature, their return after the perils of a distant voyage will then be doubly joyful. The enthusiast in science will anxiously await their coming, and add his cordial welcome to the warm greetings of relatives and friends”. Poe, perhaps, had no idea how soon his prophetic words were to be fulfilled,—and by the very man whose book he had so favorably reviewed.

After making this successful entry into the field of authorship, Maury lectured on scientific subjects in Fredericksburg and set about the studying of mineralogy, geology, and drawing. In these studies he made such progress as to qualify himself to become superintendent of the United States Gold Mine near Fredericksburg. He spent the summer of 1836 with his family at this mine where he made some important improvements in its administration. Meanwhile, he had been promoted on June 10, 1836 to the rank of lieutenant, and though he had been offered a salary of $1200 as a mining engineer he decided to remain in the navy.

Maury’s interests were next directed to the Exploring Expedition to the South Seas. The little squadron selected to make the cruise, composed of the frigate Macedonian and the brigs Pioneer and Consort, rendezvoused at Norfolk in the autumn of the year 1836, under the command of Captain Thomas Ap Catesby Jones. Maury made an attempt to secure the command of one of the smaller vessels; but he failed in this, and had to be content with being attached to the Macedonian, March 18, 1837. Secretary of the Navy Dickerson had not, from its inception, been in favor of the expedition, which he looked upon as a scheme by President Jackson for self-glorification. He therefore did all that he could to block the sailing of the squadron by causing unnecessary delays, not caring for the waste of money involved in this procrastination. In this way the ships were kept at Norfolk until October when they finally sailed for New York.

In September, Maury had had the good fortune to be appointed “Astronomer” for the expedition with $1000 additional pay, and also as assistant to the “Hydrographer”, Lieutenant James Glynn. To prepare himself for these duties he went to Philadelphia, where in a little observatory in Rittenhouse Square he soon familiarized himself with the use of astronomical instruments. The expedition, however, still delayed to set sail, and the vexatious interference with his command so affected Captain Jones’s health as to give the Secretary of the Navy an excuse for removing him from his position. Matters had by this time come to such a pass that several officers declined the command when it was offered them; namely, Captains Shubrick, Kearny, Perry, and Gregory. Finally, in April, 1838, a junior officer, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, though there were eighty lieutenants above his grade, was selected, and he accepted the appointment.

The sloops of war Vincennes and Peacock and two smaller vessels were chosen instead of those originally prepared, and it became necessary to reorganize the personnel of the expedition. Maury had sympathized with Captain Jones in the unjust treatment which he had received from the Secretary of the Navy, and besides he had written that Wilkes was the only officer in the navy with whom he would not coöperate provided that he was put in command of the enterprise. He therefore asked to be detached from the expedition.

Maury might possibly have had the honor of commanding the exploring expedition himself, as clearly indicated by the following letter which he wrote years afterwards: “The expedition had been taken away from the Secretary of the Navy and transferred to Poinsett, Secretary of War. I was ordered to fetch the instruments to Washington and report myself to Poinsett. He received me with open arms, took me into his bosom, and asked me to give him the names of the officers without regard to rank that I thought best qualified for the expedition. I afterwards had reason to suppose that he expected me to name myself and intended to put me in command of it, as really I was the most important personage in it—Hydrographer and Astronomer. But I asked myself, what right have I to draw distinctions among brother officers? So I gave him a list of the officers belonging to the expedition; myself, the youngest lieutenant in the navy, at the bottom of the list. He froze up with disgust, ordered Wilkes home, and gave him the command, and so I was the gainer, for I preserved mine integrity”.

Maury was next assigned to the duty of surveying Southern harbors, relative to the establishment of a navy yard in the South. In this work he assisted Lieutenant James Glynn, in the schooner Experiment and the steamboat Engineer, in the examination and survey of the harbors of Beaufort and Wilmington, and the inlets Sapelo and Doboy on the coast of Georgia. Early in the month of August, 1839, Maury was detached from the Engineer at Norfolk with leave for one month, and he set out very soon thereafter from his home in Fredericksburg to visit his parents in Tennessee to look after some business affairs for his father who had become old and infirm, and also to make arrangements for conveying them to Virginia where they were to make their home with him.

Maury had written in vain, in February and again in August, 1839, to F. R. Hassler of the United States Coast Survey offering his services as head of a triangulation party. This was one of the several attempts he made at different times to find work of such a nature as to justify his resignation from the navy. By such small threads often hangs a man’s destiny. If Hassler had accepted Maury’s services, his whole future would probably have been different from what it became, for an event was soon to happen to him which, though apparently at first most unfortunate, was indirectly to place him on that flood tide which led him on to fortune.

Under orders to join the brig Consort at New York and continue the surveying of Southern harbors, Maury left his father’s home in Tennessee by stage coach to join his ship. He went by the northern route, and near Somerset, Ohio, on a rainy night about one o’clock in the morning, an embankment gave way and the coach was upset. Maury, having given his seat inside to a woman with a baby in arms, was riding on the seat with the coachman, and was the only person seriously injured. There were twelve other passengers; Maury, the thirteenth, had his right knee-joint transversely dislocated and the thigh-bone longitudinally fractured.

His recovery from the injury was slow and painful. The leg was improperly set, and at a time when the use of anesthetics was unknown it had to be reset with great pain to the unfortunate officer. During the three months of his confinement at the Hotel Phoenix in Somerset he managed to keep up his spirits in spite of the suffering and loneliness, and to break the tedium of the dull days he commenced the study of French without the aid of either grammar or dictionary. At last, in January, 1840, he thought himself strong enough to proceed to New York; but it was in the midst of winter and he had to be driven in a sleigh over the Alleghany Mountains. This occasioned considerable delay, and when he at length arrived at his destination he found that his ship had already sailed. He then made his way to his home in Virginia to recuperate his health and strength under the apprehension that his injury might be so serious as to incapacitate him for further active service in the navy.

During the long weeks in Ohio he had been greatly troubled with these fears and had considered gravely what he might do in the future. He had begun then to think seriously of resorting to the pen, and after his return home this notion “to take to books and be learned” began to take more definite shape in his mind, though he was greatly discouraged at his ignorance and confused by the wilderness of subjects from which to choose. He did not, however, wish to give the impression that he was shirking active service; so he made application on March 14, 1840 to Secretary of the Navy Paulding for any duty which he could perform in his present condition, “service on crutches” as he expressed it. This, of course, was not granted him, and thus relieved temporarily from active service, he began the writing of his “Scraps from the Lucky Bag”, a series of magazine articles which were soon to make his name very widely known.

In the summer of 1838, Maury had written five articles for the Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser under the nom de plume of “Harry Bluff, U.S. Navy”. His feelings were at that time raw over the outcome of the Exploring Expedition, and in these fearless, straightforward articles he bitterly criticised the former Secretary of the Navy Dickerson for his inefficiency and called upon his successor, Secretary Paulding, to restore to the navy its former prestige. The appointment of Wilkes to command the expedition was handled without gloves. “There was”, wrote Maury, “a cunning little Jacob who had campaigned in Washington a full term of seven years. More prodigal than Laban, you (Secretary of War, Joel R. Poinsett) gave him, for a single term, both the Rachel and the Leah of his heart. A junior lieutenant with scarcely enough service at sea to make him familiar with the common routine of duty on board a man-of-war, and with one or two short interruptions, a sinecurist on shore for the last fifteen years, he was lifted over the heads of many laborious and meritorious officers, and placed by you in the command of the Exploring Expedition in violation of law”.

Maury wrote, in December of the same year, seven more articles for this newspaper, hiding his identity by inscribing them “From Will Watch to his old messmate Harry Bluff”. In these he went further still into details as to the inefficiency of the administration of the navy, dealing especially with the waste connected with the building and repairing of ships, the need for a system of rules and regulations in the navy, and the advisability of establishing a naval school. As to the latter, he wrote, “There is not, in America, a naval school that deserves the name, or that pretends to teach more than the mere rudiments of navigation.... Why are not steps taken to have our officers educated and fitted for this high responsibility? The idea of a naval academy has been ridiculed. This may be the fault of Congress; I will not lay the censure at the wrong door—but the Department has been equally inattentive to providing the young officers with the proper means of learning even practical seamanship”.

These “Harry Bluff” and “Will Watch” articles, together with one other on “Navy Matters” by “Brandywine” which also appeared in the Whig at this time and reveals Maury’s authorship through its style, contained the germs of the ideas which he more fully developed in his “Scraps from the Lucky Bag”. This series of articles on the need of reform in the conduct of naval affairs appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger during the years 1840 and 1841, under Maury’s former pseudonym of “Harry Bluff”. The navy was then in a condition of dry rot, and the time was ripe for some courageous person to awaken the country to a realization of the true state of affairs and to point out the reforms that were needed. Maury’s former experience in the naval service and his present enforced leisure led him to take up the task, which he performed with a brilliancy and a degree of success that was far beyond even his own expectation and gave him a national reputation.

His choice of the Messenger as the medium for conveying to the public his ideas on maritime subjects had been made the previous year when there was published in it an unsigned article, entitled “A Scheme for Rebuilding Southern Commerce: Direct Trade with the South”. In this he first emphasized the importance of the Great Circle route for steamers between English and American ports and pointed out how the Great Western on her first voyage might have saved 260 miles by using such a route and thus have cut down the time of her passage by about one whole day. Maury claimed afterwards that after the appearance of his article a work on navigation was published in England and that one of its chief recommendations was its chapter on “great circle sailing”. Its author was rewarded with a prize from the Royal Geographical Society, and the work itself was extensively patronized by the Board of Admiralty, a copy of which they ordered to be supplied to each of the British men-of-war in commission.

The significance of the title, “Scraps from the Lucky Bag”, is indicated by the following introductory parody, which enumerates the contents of a lucky bag on shipboard:

“Shoe of middy and waister’s sock,

Wing of soldier and idler’s frock,

Purser’s slops and topman’s hat,

Boatswain’s call and colt and cat,

Belt that on the berth-deck lay,

In the Lucky Bag find their way;

Gaiter, stock, and red pompoon,

Sailor’s pan, his pot and spoon,

Shirt of cook and trowser’s duck,

Kid and can and ‘doctor’s truck’,

And all that’s lost and found on board

In the Lucky Bag’s always stored.”

It was a well-chosen and apt title, which enabled Maury to treat in the same article of various matters more or less unrelated. Among the various topics that he touched upon was, first, the desirability of having grades in the navy higher than those of captain, to correspond with those in foreign navies. He also declared that there should be a larger force on the coast of Africa to put down the traffic in slaves, and more warships in the Pacific to support American commerce with China and to protect American fishermen on the whaling grounds. Thus prophetically did he portray the future of American trade on that ocean: “If you have a map of the world at hand, turn to it and, placing your finger at the mouth of the Columbia River, consider its geographical position and the commercial advantages which, at some day not far distant, that point will possess. To the south, in one unbroken line, lie several thousand miles of coast indented with rich markets of Spanish America—to the west, Asiatic Russia and China are close at hand—between the south and west are New Holland and Polynesia; and within good marketable distance are all the groups and clusters of islands that stud the ocean, from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope, from Asia to America. Picture to yourself civilization striding the Rocky Mountains, and smiling down upon the vast and fruitful regions beyond, and calculate, if you can, the important and future greatness of that point to a commercial and enterprising people. Yet the first line in the hydrography of such a point remains to be run. It has been more than twenty years since an American man-of-war so much as looked into the mouth of the Columbia River. Upon what more important service could a small force be dispatched than to survey and bring home correct charts of that river and its vicinity?”

He then pointed out the unpreparedness of the country for war, and dwelt upon how the United States was forced weakly to acquiesce in the blockading of Mexico and the La Plata by France, and make no protest at the strengthening of her forts on the Great Lakes by England who was thus violating her treaty with this government. The navy should, he declared, experiment with steam vessels of war, and Pensacola and some point on the coast of Georgia or the eastern coast of Florida should be fortified. Turning then to personnel, he continued: “It takes something more than spars and guns, and walls of wood to constitute a navy. These are only the body—the arms and legs without the thews and sinews. It requires the muscle of the brawny seaman, and the spirit of the well-trained officer to impart life and motion to such a body, to give vigor and energy to the whole system”.

A real system of education for the navy should be devised. The army, he said, had a Military Academy at West Point, “affording the most useful and practical education to be obtained in the country”; while the navy was forced to make out with inefficient schoolmasters on board ship, and the midshipmen secured only a practical knowledge of seamanship, the manipulation of the sextant, a few rules by rote from Bowditch’s “Epitome of Navigation”, and a knowledge of right-angled plane trigonometry. Maury claimed that a broader training was needed, and suggested the following subjects as requisite for study: drawing and naval architecture, gunnery and pyrotechny, chemistry and natural history, astronomy, mathematics, natural philosophy, navigation, tactics and discipline, gymnastics, international and maritime law, and languages (one of French, Spanish, or German and “that most difficult, arbitrary, and careful of all languages, the English”). These subjects were to be covered in a four years’ course, with a two months’ cruise each year, sometimes to foreign waters; while two years at sea after graduation and an examination at the end of that period of service were to be required before a commission in the navy was to be awarded.

At first, Maury proposed merely a school-ship; but a little later after his articles had been received with such favor by the public he declared that his advocacy of a school-ship had been made solely on the grounds of expediency and that he would hail with delight the establishment of a school for the navy anywhere, even on the top of the Rocky Mountains. He thereupon suggested Memphis, Tennessee as a suitable place for the school, on the grounds that the East had the Military Academy and the West should have the naval school, and besides that this would be a favorable place for experimenting on steam vessels on the Mississippi River. Though Maury was by no means the first to suggest the need for such an institution, yet no other person contributed so much as he did towards the education of public opinion and the preparation for the eventual establishment of the Naval Academy. It is with justice, therefore, that he has often been referred to as the father of this famous institution.

Continuing his discussion of the needs of the navy as to personnel, Maury recommended a reorganization and standardization of the number of officers in the various grades and a system of promotion that would keep alive the spirit and ambition of the officers. Surplus officers, he thought, might go into the merchant marine and constitute a naval reserve; while the revenue service should be taken over by the regular navy.

Maury then turned to the question of material and devoted a great deal of attention to the graft and inefficiency connected with the building and repairing of ships. “Honorable legislators”, he wrote, “are warned that the evils are deeply seated in the system itself, and are not to be removed by merely the plucking of a leaf, or the lopping off of a limb: the axe must be laid at the root—for nothing short of thorough and complete reorganization will do”. His attack was directed particularly against the Board of Navy Commissioners; and when this board attempted a reply, he answered with the most devastating article of the whole series, in which he piled up figures, and multiplied instances of graft and ruinous waste. As a summary, he wrote, “Vessels are built at twice the sum they ought to cost—they are repaired at twice as much as it takes to build—the labor to repair costs three times as much as the labor to construct—the same articles for one ship cost four or five times as much as their duplicates for another—it costs twice as much to repair ordnance and stores for a ship as it takes to buy them”. Maury advocated in place of this board a bureau system with divided responsibility. The Secretary of the Navy, he thought, should have an assistant under-secretary, who should be a post captain in the navy and have general oversight over the various bureaus. Then promotions would be taken out of politics, and the old saying that “a cruise of a few months in Washington tells more than a three years’ cruise at sea in an officer’s favor” would lose its significance.

In his attempt to improve conditions in the naval service, Maury had the sympathy of a large number of his brother officers, some of whom gave practical expression to their feeling by clubbing together and having large editions of the “Scraps from the Lucky Bag” printed for free distribution. In the month of July, 1841 there appeared a sketch of Maury in the Southern Literary Messenger, in which his name was for the first time connected with the authorship of the articles. It was written by a “Brother Officer”, who said that the “Scraps from the Lucky Bag” had produced “an enthusiasm which has not subsided and will not subside until the whole navy is reorganized”. Such indeed was the outcome. Congress took up the matter, and many of Maury’s suggested reforms were at once instituted, while practically everything that he contended for was eventually adopted for the naval service. So famous did Maury become through the publication of these articles that the President was urged to place him at the head of the Navy Department; and at one time President Tyler had actually made up his mind to make him his Secretary of the Navy in spite of the fact that he was then but a lieutenant.

In November, 1841, Maury made another request for active service. In order that his family and friends might not defeat his purpose, he went to Richmond and from there wrote to Secretary of the Navy George E. Badger, suggesting that he was able to perform any of the lighter duties at sea which did not call for much bodily exercise, and requesting that he be appointed flag-lieutenant in the Pacific Squadron under Commodore Jones, who had signified a desire to have him in this post. His purpose, however, was thwarted by Judge John T. Lomax, a warm personal friend, who wrote to the Secretary and enclosed a certificate from three of the best physicians of Fredericksburg to the effect that Maury was in no condition for life on board ship; and as a consequence he was retained on the list of those “waiting orders”.

After the completion of his “Scraps from the Lucky Bag”, Maury continued to write for the Southern Literary Messenger; he rendered editorial service to Mr. White, the owner of the magazine, during the year 1842, and was virtually the editor during the first eight months of 1843 after White’s death. He contributed also to the Army and Navy Chronicle and the Southern Quarterly Review of Charleston.

His “Letters to Clay” in the Messenger under the pseudonym of “Union Jack” strongly advocated the establishment of a national dockyard at Memphis, government subsidies for the building of steam packets as England and France were doing, a national steamboat canal from the upper Mississippi River to the Lakes for defense against Canada in case of war with Great Britain, a strong naval establishment at some place on the Atlantic seaboard south of Norfolk, and the making of Pensacola a veritable “Toulon on the Mediterranean”. The following year, 1842, he took up in the same journal the question of the right of Great Britain to visit and search American ships in the “suspicious” latitudes off Africa in the endeavor to suppress the slave trade. He was against according this right to England because of the temptation to use the power involved in an arbitrary manner greatly to the injury of American commerce, and he was of the opinion that it was merely an attempt, under the pretext of supporting the “Christian League” or Quintuple Alliance, to revive the old claim of England’s right to violate sailors’ rights and the freedom of the seas, principles fought for in the War of 1812. He referred, in passing, to the tense feeling against Great Britain on account of the Maine Boundary dispute, and the desire, on the part of many, even for war. “On the contrary”, he wrote, “I should view a war between the United States and Great Britain as one of the greatest calamities, except a scourge direct from the hand of God, that could befall my country”. But he added, “In the navy, there is but one sentiment and one feeling on this subject; it is, avert war, honorably if you can; if not, let it come: right or wrong, the stars and stripes shall not be disgraced on the ocean”.

He too was opposed to the slave trade, and thought that the United States would be glad to coöperate with Great Britain and furnish warships for the purpose; but he doubted the sincerity of England, and referred pointedly to the “hosts of murdered Chinese who prefer instant death at the mouth of British cannon to the slow poison of a British drug”,—the opium that was at that time being forced upon them by the British government. His conclusion was this: “When the British government shall cease to sell its captured slaves—when it shall abandon its intrigues for the right of search which has done the Africans so much more harm than good—and shall advocate some such practical plan as this (coöperation) for the suppression of the slave trade, then and not till then will we give the ‘old country’ credit for motives of humanity and a sincere desire to succor the slave”.

These were the last articles that Maury wrote before he was appointed to an office of great potential importance, which was to afford the appropriate place for the complete flowering of his peculiar genius. This appointment was given to him largely because of his writings; namely, his “New Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Navigation”, “Scraps from the Lucky Bag”, and other magazine articles. It might be said, therefore, that though he had been faithful in the performance of all the duties of his profession and, courageous as he was, would almost certainly have distinguished himself in warfare, yet up to this point in his career the pen, as an instrument for acquiring fame, had indeed been mightier than the sword.

CHAPTER IV
His Astronomical Work

Maury took charge, on July 1, 1842, of the Depot of Charts and Instruments, of which he had just been made the superintendent by Secretary of the Navy Upshur. This depot had been established by the Navy Department in 1830, and Lieutenants Goldsborough, Wilkes, and Gilliss in succession had been its former superintendents. Wilkes had moved it from the western part of the city to Capitol Hill probably, as has been suggested, that its virtues and its needs might the more readily be noticed by Congress. Be that as it may, Congress passed an act on August 31, 1842, appropriating the sum of $35,000 for supplying adequate buildings and equipment for the depot. On the same day was passed another act, which dissolved the Board of Navy Commissioners that had ruled the navy for twenty-seven years and had recently been attacked so forcefully by Maury, and established the Bureau System in its place. The Depot of Charts and Instruments, accordingly, was placed under the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography.

Immediately after becoming superintendent, Maury moved the depot to a building between 24th and 25th Streets, N. W., known formerly as 2222–24 Pennsylvania Avenue, and to the rather limited accommodations here he brought his family. Meanwhile a new building was being constructed on a reservation at 23d and E Streets, N. W., where the Naval Medical School is now located,—a site covering about seventeen acres which had been reserved by General Washington for a great university. This new building was to be of brick, in the form of a square about 50 feet by 50, surmounted by a dome 23 feet in diameter, with wings to the south, east, and west. Later, in 1847, the superintendent’s residence was constructed and connected with the main building by an extension of the east wing.

An Engraving of the United States Naval Observatory Buildings as They Appeared When Maury Was Superintendent about 1845

From an engraving in the title page of “Astronomical and Meteorological Observations Made during the Year 1875, at the U. S. Naval Observatory,” 1878.

The name of the institution varied. As the Depot of Charts and Instruments it was officially known from 1830 to 1844; but for the next ten years the names Naval Observatory and National Observatory were used indiscriminately, sometimes even in the same publication. In December, 1854, the Secretary of the Navy instructed that it should henceforth be called the United States Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Office, and as such it was known until the establishment of the Hydrographic Office as a separate division in 1866. Since that date the official name of the institution has been the United States Naval Observatory.

Near the close of September, 1844, the Observatory was reported to be completed, and on October 1 Maury was ordered to take charge with a staff of line officers and professors of mathematics of the navy, and civilian professors. Lieutenant James M. Gilliss, Maury’s predecessor, had been greatly interested in astronomy, especially that field of the science having to do with navigation, and it was largely through his exertions that the necessary legislation had been passed making possible a building, adapted not merely to the housing of charts and instruments but suitable as well for astronomical observations. He had been sent to Europe to consult about the purchasing of instruments for the new Observatory, and there were those who thought that he should have been made its first superintendent.

However scantily informed Maury may have been in the beginning as to the great advance in astronomical science recently made in Europe, his great energy and native ability soon enabled him to overcome any such handicaps. He assisted with his own hands in the installation of the instruments, in which he took great delight, writing that the Great Refraction Circle was such an exquisite piece of machinery and so beautiful that he would like to wear it round his neck as an ornament. He was constantly endeavoring to secure better and larger instruments, and wrote with pride when the Observatory, as far as equipment was concerned, became the second most important in the world and needed only a larger telescope to make it the very first of all. Maury quickly saw the value of the Electro-Chronograph, invented by John Locke of Cincinnati, in determining longitude with the aid of the magnetic telegraph, seeing that it would practically double the number of observations that one observer could make; and it was largely through him that Congress was persuaded to appropriate the $10,000 necessary for installing the instrument at the Observatory.

Maury was, moreover, by no means a mere figurehead in the making of astronomical observations, but soon mastered the details of this work which might have been left wholly to his subordinates. During the first two years he was the principal observer with the equatorial, and it is interesting to note how often his name appears as the observer in the published extracts from the notebooks of the Observatory. That he had much more than a mere passing interest in astronomy is evident from the following account of his emotions during an astronomical observation: “To me the simple passage through the transit instrument of a star across the meridian is the height of astronomical sublimity. At the dead hour of the night, when the world is hushed in sleep and all is still; when there is not a sound to be heard save the dead beat escapement of the clock, counting with hollow voice the footsteps of time in his ceaseless round, I turn to the Ephemeris and find there, by calculation made years ago, that when that clock tells a certain hour, a star which I never saw will be in the field of the telescope for a moment, flit through, and then disappear. The instrument is set;—I look; the star, mute with eloquence that gathers sublimity from the silence of the night, comes smiling and dancing into the field, and at the instant predicted even to the fraction of a second it makes its transit and is gone! With emotions too deep for the organs of speech, the heart swells out with unutterable anthems; we then see that there is harmony in the heavens above; and though we cannot hear, we feel the ‘music of the spheres’”.[3]

Maury’s first volume of astronomical observations, the first indeed to be issued from an American observatory, appeared in 1846. Though this was pioneer work, it was important enough to cause one of the most distinguished astronomers of Europe to conclude that it had placed the American observatory in the front rank with the oldest and best institutions of the kind in Europe. In the appendix to this volume, Maury gives very generous credit and praise to his helpers, among whom were at this time the distinguished mathematicians Hubbard, Keith, and Coffin; but he adds that he considers himself alone responsible for the accuracy of the work as nothing had been published until it had passed his supervision and approval.

A very ambitious work which Maury began during the year 1845 was a catalogue of the stars. The aim was to cover every point of space in the visible heavens with telescopes, get the position of every star, cluster, and nebula, and record both magnitude and color, with the angle of position and the distance of binary stars together with descriptions and drawings of all clusters and nebulæ. No astronomical work on such an extensive scale had ever before been executed or even attempted, though the value and importance of it were manifold and difficult of full estimation. Maury wrote that it was his intention to make a contribution to astronomy that would be worthy of the nation and the age, and to so execute the undertaking that future astronomers would value it so highly as to say that such a star was not visible in the heavens at the date of the Washington Catalogue because it is not recorded therein.

An interesting example of the extremely practical value of such a catalogue came up in connection with Leverrier’s discovery of the planet Neptune. In the autumn of 1846, after the discovery of this planet, Maury ordered one of his observers to trace its path backwards to see if some astronomer had observed it and entered it as a fixed star. On February 1, 1847, the observer, Sears Cook Walker, gave a list of fourteen stars from Lalande’s catalogue in his “Histoire Céleste”, where Neptune should have been approximately in May, 1795. Professor Hubbard was then directed by Maury to examine with the equatorial, and he found on the night of February 4 that the suspected star was missing. It was concluded, therefore, that Lalande had observed and recorded Neptune as a fixed star on the nights of May 8 and 10, 1795. This discovery enabled astronomers to compute the new planet’s orbit from observations extending over a period of fifty years.

The work on this catalogue was carried forward industriously for several years, but the results were not ready to be published in the volume of observations for the year 1846 because of the continual drafts on the personnel of the Observatory for sea duty, which made it impossible for the computers to keep pace with the observers. Eventually, Maury was compelled to abandon the hope of ever finishing a complete catalogue of the stars, as at first planned. The observations continued to be made, however, and by January of 1855 the number of stars which had been so observed reached the grand total of 100,000; but these results were not published until 1873, long after Maury’s superintendency had come to a close. Maury would never have undertaken such an ambitious work, if he had realized the Herculean labor involved in the cataloguing of all the stars down to the 10th magnitude in all the heavens from 45° south to the North Pole, a colossal undertaking that was entirely beyond the capacity of any one observatory to accomplish in a generation.

The appearance of the second volume of astronomical observations was delayed because of the inroads made on Maury’s staff by the demands of the Mexican War. Then when the work was on the point of being published it was destroyed by a fire which burned the printing office. So the volume did not appear until the year 1851; and as the years went by publications fell further and further behind the observations. There is no doubt but that Maury was greatly handicapped by the assignment of officers to the Observatory for irregular periods, and by the reduction of the number of his mathematicians as time went by. There was, besides, the hydrographical work of his office which made constantly increasing demands on him and his staff. When he was forced by this lack in personnel to make a choice between the more complete development of astronomical observations on the one hand, and hydrographical and meteorological research on the other, he wisely chose the latter as of more immediate and practical value to the United States, and indeed to the entire world.

Courtesy of “The Journal of American History,” Vol. IV, Number 3 (1910).

Decorations Conferred upon Maury

(From reader’s left to right) First and fourth are the obverse and reverse of the decoration of the Tower and Sword conferred by the King of Portugal. Second is the diamond pin presented by Maximilian of Austria. Third and sixth are the obverse and reverse of the decoration, Cross of the Order of Dannebrog, given by the King of Denmark. Fifth is the pearl and diamond brooch presented to Mrs. Maury by the Czar of Russia, see page 65. (Maury was also made a commander of the Legion of Honor, and a knight of the Order of St. Anne by the Czar of Russia.)

CHAPTER V
His Wind and Current Charts

At the top of all the pilot charts issued by the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department are written these words: “Founded upon the researches made and the data collected by Lieutenant M. F. Maury, U. S. Navy”. This is an appropriate memorial to Maury’s most practical contribution to science,—that which has given him the name “Pathfinder of the Seas”.

For a long time he had recognized the need for charts showing the winds and currents of the sea at different seasons; and it will be remembered that, when he was sailing master of the Falmouth, 1831–1833, he was first made to realize how little of the nautical experience of other sailors could be taken advantage of by one about to set out on a long voyage. On the way down to Rio in this ship he first conceived the idea of a wind and current chart; but he had no opportunity to make practical investigations into the meteorology of the sea until the year 1842, when he was placed in charge of the Depot of Charts and Instruments.

He had been in this office but a short time when he set about examining the old log books which had been stored away as so much rubbish by the Navy Department. By the middle of the year 1843, these investigations had proved so illuminating that he was able to write a paper, which was read before the National Institute, on “Blank Charts on Board Public Cruisers”. According to his plan, these charts were to have parallels and meridians showing the latitude and longitude laid down upon them, and the commanders of ships were to be requested to lay off on them the tracks of their vessels every day, and indicate as well the time of the year, the direction of the winds, the force and set of the currents, and all other phenomena having a bearing on the navigation of the seas on which they sailed. Sailing directions, Maury declared in this address, are now not a written branch of navigation but merely a matter of tradition among seamen. As to his contemplated chart, he boldly asserted that short passages are not due to luck and that “this chart proposes nothing less than to blaze a way through the winds of the sea by which the navigator may find the best paths at all seasons”.

Not having at that time made a name for himself as a scientist, Maury thought it wise to seek the support of the National Institute, and asked that a committee be appointed from its members to wait upon Secretary of the Navy Upshur and invite his coöperation in authorizing that these charts be kept on all public cruisers. Such coöperation was, after a fashion, granted, and Maury drew up a letter of instructions at the request of the Secretary. But as not much political capital was to be made of it, the matter ended with the issuing of a set of instructions to Commodore Biddle who was on the point of sailing for China in the Columbus. Maury then asked permission of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography to make a chart of the Atlantic American seaboard. He was ashamed, he wrote, of the meagerness of the contributions of the United States to the general fund of nautical science, and called attention to the fact that even the charts used by an American man-of-war in making her way up the Chesapeake Bay toward Washington had to be secured from the English Admiralty, and that, if it were not for the Nautical Almanac of England or some other nation, absent American ships could not find their way home and those in port could not lift their anchors and grope to sea with any certainty of finding their way back again.

At about the same time Maury began the compilation of a chart of the North Atlantic for the purpose of laying down upon it the tracks of vessels in all seasons of the year, with the currents, prevailing winds, temperature of the water, etc. At first, he had the intention of delineating the track of each vessel on the chart but he soon saw that it would be impossible to do so on the scale adopted (one inch to the degree), and he then resorted to the plan of tabulating the results only instead of marking the track. It was not until the autumn of 1847 that his researches, which had then extended over nearly five years, had reached the point where he could publish his first “Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic”. This chart was founded entirely upon information derived from the old discarded log books of the Navy Department, for he had not then secured much coöperation in the acquiring of new data. Maury compared his work in the “quarry of log books” to that of a sculptor, the single touch of whose chisel does but little; but finally like the completed piece of statuary the charts speak for themselves and stand out before the compiler “eloquent with facts which the philosopher had never dreamed were lurking near”.

Early in the year 1848 Maury issued what he called an “Abstract Log for the Use of American Navigators”. This was devised to secure the coöperation of navigators in gathering information for perfecting his charts. It contained but ten pages together with some blank forms, and was the very modest beginning of what he afterwards issued as “Sailing Directions”, which eventually grew to the enormous size of 1257 pages in two volumes in quarto. The purpose of the little pamphlet was to interpret the meaning and the significance of the wind and current chart which had recently been issued, and to furnish instructions to navigators for the proper keeping of the abstract log on their voyages. They were to enter in this log the latitude and longitude every day at noon; the hourly rate of the currents expressed in knots; the variation of the compass; the reading of the thermometer, in both air and water, at nine o’clock each morning; the state of the barometer just before, during, and just after a gale of wind with the changes and time of changes in the direction of the wind during the gale; careful entries as to the direction and force of the winds every eight hours; and other marine phenomena such as whales, flocks of birds, rains and fogs, etc., etc. When properly filled out, these logs were to be sent to Maury at the Observatory where the information would be tabulated. It was also suggested that tightly corked bottles containing the latitude and longitude, and the date be thrown overboard at stated times, and that such floating bottles be picked up when seen, and the place and time be carefully noted in the abstract log. Those who agreed to coöperate in these various ways were to receive free of cost a copy of the “Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic”.

Maury predicted confidently that, by following his directions, the average 55 days’ voyage from New York to Rio by the old route might be shortened by from 10 to 15 days. This prediction was fulfilled by the barque W. H. D. C. Wright of Baltimore, which early in 1848 went from the Capes of Virginia to Rio in 35 days and returned in 40 days, by following Maury’s directions. This created considerable interest in the new charts, and the number of those willing to coöperate in the new research on the sea constantly increased from year to year. Maury had long looked forward to the prospect of no longer being compelled to search through cartloads of manuscripts and dusty log books, kept in years gone by without system and with little or no regard to the facts which he wished to obtain from them, but of having as co-laborers a thousand or more vessels every year engaged in collecting exactly the information required so that it would come to his hands precisely in the form in which it was desired. In this he was not to be disappointed for by the close of the year 1848 he was able to write that his charts were eagerly sought by navigators and that some five or six thousand of them had been distributed during the year to American shipmasters. By no means all of these navigators kept their part of the agreement and sent in to Maury their abstract logs properly filled out; but enough data kept coming in to keep his staff of helpers constantly at work turning out his various charts. By 1851, he could write that more than one thousand ships in all the oceans were observing for him, and that enough material had been collected from abstract logs to make two hundred large manuscript volumes each averaging from two thousand to three thousand days’ observations.

These “Wind and Current Charts” included Track Charts, Trade Wind Charts, Pilot Charts, Thermal Charts, Storm and Rain Charts, and Whale Charts. The Track Charts showed the frequented parts of the ocean, the general character of the weather and wind, and the force and direction of the latter at different seasons of the year. The Trade Wind Charts gave the limits, extent, and general characteristics of the trade wind regions, together with their neighboring zones of calms. The Pilot Charts showed in every square of fifteen degrees the direction of the wind for sixteen points of the compass that would probably be found in that square during each month of the year, the results being based upon the number of times the wind was reported to have been from that direction in former years. The Thermal Charts recorded the temperature of the surface of the ocean wherever and whenever it had been observed, the different temperatures being distinguished by colors and symbols in such a manner that mere inspection of the chart showed the temperature for any month. The Storm and Rain Charts demonstrated in every square of five degrees the number of observations that had been made for each month, the number of days in which there had been rain, a calm, fog, lightning and thunder, or a storm and the quarter from which it had blown. The Whale Charts, finally, showed where whales were most hunted, in what years and months they had been most frequently found, whether in shoals or as stragglers, and whether sperm or right whales.

Though the coöperation which Maury enjoyed was an extensive one, he was still not satisfied, and as early as 1851 he conceived the idea of a universal system of meteorological observations on both land and sea. Through the advice of British scientists, he decided to confine his system, for the time being, only to the sea, though he was afterwards to regret such a curtailment of his original scheme. With the authority of Secretary of the Navy William A. Graham, to whom Maury was greatly indebted for very generous support in furthering his ambitious project, he set to work through diplomatic representatives of foreign countries at Washington to interest as many meteorologists as possible in the convening of an international meteorological conference. The United States also was asked to coöperate, through letters which Maury sent to the various Cabinet Members, heads of the Coast Survey, the Bureau of Engineers, and the Smithsonian Institute, and other scientists. Paris was at first considered to be a suitable place for the meeting; but eventually Brussels was chosen, and the following nations accepted the invitation to send representatives: Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, and the United States.

Maury, as the representative of the United States, sailed from New York on July 23, 1853, by way of England. Upon landing at Liverpool, he was invited to address the merchants in the City Hall on the subject of the uniform plan of observation at sea, and the following month he spoke to the underwriters and shipowners of London at Lloyd’s on the same subject. These speeches produced a more cordial coöperation on the part of the British government which had previously been rather lukewarm in its attitude toward the undertaking.

The conference was convened at the residence of the Minister of the Interior in Brussels on August 23, 1853, and Jacques Adolphe Lambert Quetelet, Director of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, was made its president. Maury was requested to direct the proceedings of the conference, but he declined the honor. He was then asked by the president to state the purposes of the meeting, and after his short introductory address President Quetelet proposed that the conference pass a vote of thanks to Maury and record their gratitude for the “enlightened zeal and earnestness” he had displayed in the important and useful work which formed the subject of their deliberations. This, of course, was unanimously passed. The discussions went on daily with the greatest harmony, until the close of the conference on September 8. The results were the adoption of an abstract log for the use of the men-of-war of all nations and also one for all merchantmen to use in the system of coöperative observations. Full explanatory notes for the keeping of these logs in such a way as to cover all the phenomena of the ocean were agreed upon, and the hope was expressed that these abstract logs might enjoy in time of war the same immunity that was accorded to vessels engaged in discovery or other scientific research.

The Brussels Conference was an unqualified success, and Maury was very enthusiastic over the new chapter of Marine Meteorology which was about to be opened in the volume of Nature. “Rarely before”, he wrote somewhat later, “has there been such a sublime spectacle presented to the scientific world: all nations agreeing to unite and coöperate in carrying out one system of philosophical research with regard to the sea. Though they may be enemies in all else, here they are to be friends. Every ship that navigates the high seas, with these charts and blank abstract logs on board, may henceforth be regarded as a floating observatory, a temple of science”.[4]

Soon after the conference, Prussia, Spain, Sardinia, the free city of Hamburg, the republic of Bremen, Chile, Austria, and Brazil, all joined the enterprise; and the Pope established honorary flags of distinction for the ships of the papal states, which could be awarded only to those vessels which kept the abstract logs of the Brussels Conference.

Maury took with him on this mission to Europe his two eldest daughters and their cousins Ellen Herndon and Ellen Maury, who were dubbed by acclamation on the steamer the “Magpie Club”. In England the party was invited to Wrottesley Hall near Wolverhampton, by Lord Wrottesley, then President of the Royal and Astronomical Societies, with whom Maury had corresponded for several years. Before returning to America, he and his “Magpie Club” traveled in France, Holland, and Germany, and visited the great scientist Humboldt, whose “Cosmos” had greatly influenced Maury’s scientific ideas.

Back at home again, Maury took up his work with renewed energy, and with the data which came in, through the greatly increased coöperation, from all quarters and in many different languages, he revised his charts of the North and South Atlantic, and of the North and South Pacific, and then charted the Indian Ocean as well. Not only was the route to Rio definitely decreased by one fourth, but also other passages began to be shortened with the accompanying saving for all the men and commerce that used Maury’s suggested routes. The gold rush to California, which began in 1849, vastly increased the shipping from the Atlantic ports of the United States to San Francisco. Time then became a more important element in that passage than ever before, and in 1850 clipper ships were launched for this particular trade, with the object of making the voyage as short as possible. It was, therefore, a splendid opportunity for putting Maury’s charts to the test, and the practical results of his new sailing directions soon displayed themselves.

Before his charts came to be used, the average passage from New York to San Francisco was about 180 days, but by the year 1855 the average passage between those ports for the year round had been reduced to 133 days. Moreover, there were dozens of clipper ships which, under Maury’s directions, made the voyage in 110 days or even less. The record was made in 1851 by the Flying Cloud, which fairly flew over the passage in 89 days and 21 hours, during one day making the extraordinary distance of 433½ statute miles or sailing at the rate of 18 statute miles per hour. This exploit was celebrated with great rejoicing in San Francisco, because the inhabitants felt that they had been brought so much nearer to their old homes in the East.

Under the circumstances it was but natural that there should be races among the clipper ships. The route from New York to San Francisco became the great racecourse of the ocean, fifteen thousand miles in length. As Maury wrote, “Some of the most glorious trials of speed and prowess that the world ever witnessed, among ships that ‘walk the waters’, have taken place over it. Here the modern clipper ship—the noblest work that has ever come from the hands of man—has been sent, guided by the lights of science, to contend with the elements, to outstrip steam, and astonish the world”.[5] There was the great race in 1851 of the Raven, the Typhoon, and the Sea Witch, which was won by the first-mentioned in 105 days, though the year before this same ship had made the run in 97 days.

Another famous race was run during the winter of 1852–1853, and the ships which engaged in it were the Wild Pigeon, John Gilpin, Flying Fish, and Trade Wind. These ships, as were those in the former race, were all furnished with Maury’s charts. After a most interesting and exciting race, the Flying Fish won in just 92 days and 4 hours, though the John Gilpin was a close second, making the passage in 93 days and 20 hours. In commenting on these results, Maury wrote, “Here are ships sailing on different days, bound over a trackless waste of ocean for some fifteen thousand miles or more, and depending alone on the fickle winds of heaven, as they are called, to waft them along; yet, like travelers on the land bound upon the same journey, they pass and repass, fall in with and recognize each other by the way; and what, perhaps, is still more remarkable is the fact that these ships should each, throughout that great distance and under the wonderful vicissitudes of climates, winds, and currents, which they encountered, have been so skillfully navigated that, in looking back at their management, now that what is past is before me, I do not find a single occasion, except the one already mentioned, on which they could have been better handled.... Am I far wrong, therefore, when I say that the present state of our knowledge, with regard to the physical geography of the sea, has enabled the navigator to blaze his way among the winds and currents of the sea, and so mark his path that others, using his signs as finger-boards, may follow in the same track?”[6]

The degree of exactness which Maury’s knowledge of the sea had reached is best illustrated by the incident of the San Francisco. This ship, bound from New York to San Francisco with a regiment of soldiers on board, was disabled in a hurricane on the day before Christmas, 1853 while crossing the Gulf Stream about 300 miles from Sandy Hook. Her position on the following day, and the next day after that, was reported by passing vessels which were, however, unable to render her assistance. Maury was then asked by the Secretary of the Navy to calculate her position for the assistance of the two relief ships which were to be dispatched in search of the unfortunate vessel. Although three other ships, the Kilby, the Three Bells, and the Antarctic, fell in with the wreck and rescued the remainder of her passengers, after 179 men had been washed overboard, yet it is an astonishing fact that Maury had so accurately guided the two searching revenue cutters that one of them went within sight of the spot where the drifting vessel had shortly before been found.

There was still another important passage that Maury aided materially in shortening. This was the voyage from England to Australia and New Zealand. He opposed the British Admiralty route which passed near the Cape of Good Hope, and advised ships to sail 600 to 800 miles further westward and then to continue southward until they reached the prevailing strong westerly winds which drove the clippers onward at a tremendous rate. He advised them, when homeward bound, to continue in those “brave west winds” and return by way of Cape Horn. A voyage out to Australia and home again, accordingly, encircled the globe. Whereas by the old route it had taken about 120 days each way on the average, by Maury’s new route the passage for American sailings was decreased by one third and that for the British by about one fifth.

This shortening of ships’ passages amounted to a vast saving to the commerce of the world. It was estimated that the annual saving to British commerce in the Indian Ocean alone, from Maury’s charts and sailing directions, amounted to $1,000,000 at least, and the amount saved to British commerce in all seas reached the stupendous sum of $10,000,000 annually. As to the United States, it has been conservatively estimated that the saving for the outward voyage alone from her Atlantic and California ports to those of South America, Australia, China, and the East Indies amounted to $2,250,000 per annum.

For many years the scientific world rang with Maury’s praise, though there were, of course, some detractors. In referring to these “closet men of science” who claimed that he pushed his speculations oftentimes beyond the limits which the facts before him would authorize a prudent and cautious investigator to go, he wrote that the true problem with which he had to deal was to use his opportunities so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest numbers, and that he was willing to be judged by the fruits of his labor. Furthermore, he announced again and again in his “Sailing Directions” the following rule by which his investigations had always been guided: “To keep the mind unbiased by theories and speculations; never to have any wish that an investigation would result in favor of this view in preference to that, and never to attempt by premature speculation to anticipate the results of investigation, but always to trust to the observations”.

In spite of his great achievements, Maury’s own countrymen were rather backward about rewarding him. The University of North Carolina conferred upon him an A.M. degree in 1847 and a LL.D. in 1852, and Columbia University made him a Doctor of Laws in 1854. A. A. Low and Brothers of New York named one of their clipper barques in his honor in 1855. But the most substantial reward bestowed upon him in the United States came in 1853, when the merchants and underwriters of New York presented him a fine silver service and a purse of $5000 in recognition for what he had done for the commerce of that great port. Six years later, a testimonial signed by 363 different American shipowners, masters, and merchants was sent to him as an expression of their “personal regard and esteem”.

The reports of the various Secretaries of the Navy from 1850 to 1855 referred in the highest terms of appreciation to the hydrographical work which Maury was doing. Secretary Graham went so far as to write, “Indeed, I doubt whether the triumphs of navigation and the knowledge of the sea, achieved under your superintendence of the Observatory, will not contribute as much to an effective naval service and to the national fame as the brilliant trophies of our arms”. Still, notwithstanding this official praise, Maury was kept in the rank of lieutenant, and an attempt made in the Senate in January, 1855 to secure an appropriation of $25,000, as “some substantial evidence of the appreciation of the benefits he has, by his labors, conferred upon his country”, came to nought; and a short time thereafter he was treated with the greatest cruelty by the Navy Department which placed him for a time in official disgrace and reduced his pay to $1200 per annum.

Abroad, on the contrary, Maury received almost universal recognition, and the rulers of Europe seemed to vie with each other in conferring medals and decorations upon him. Up to the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, he had been made a member of some 45 learned societies, about 20 of which were in foreign countries. He was made a knight of the Order of Dannebrog by the King of Denmark in 1856, and the following year a knight of the Order of St. Anne by the Czar of Russia and a commander of the Legion of Honor by the Emperor of France; while in 1859 he had conferred upon him the Order of the Tower and Sword by the King of Portugal. Moreover, between the years of 1854 and 1859 gold medals were presented to him by the rulers of Norway and Sweden, Prussia, the republic of Bremen, Holland, Austria, Sardinia, and France; and in addition a medal of honor was awarded him for his charts at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855, and only the year before the beginning of the Civil War the Pope sent him a set of thirteen beautiful silver medals. There were two gold medals from Prussia; namely, the medal designed for distinguished works of science and the Cosmos Medal, which had been struck by the King of Prussia to honor Humboldt upon the publication of his “Cosmos” and which was given to Maury because of the warm personal friendship that had long existed between the two great scientists.

Thus was Maury’s resourcefulness and perseverance in investigating the winds and currents of the sea and in presenting the results of his research in a practical form for the use of the mariners of the world crowned with success; and whatever the future might hold in store for him, he must have then realized that he had gained for himself an entrance into that small company of the world’s most distinguished scientists.

CHAPTER VI
His Physical Geography of the Sea

Maury’s investigations of the winds and currents of the sea led him into researches connected with all the phenomena of the ocean, the results of which were so extensive and so valuable as to win for him the right to be called the first great oceanographer of the world.

At the beginning of his work at the Depot of Charts and Instruments, he uncovered in the old log books facts relating to the Gulf Stream, which led him to certain interesting conclusions concerning this great ocean current that had not been previously recognized. In July, 1843 he gave an address before the President, the Corps Diplomatique, and important government officials on “The Gulf Stream and Its Causes”, which was reread with certain variations before several different learned societies during the following year. He continued to write such scientific papers on topics bearing on oceanography, while he was engaged in astronomical work and the preparation of his wind and current charts, and these papers, after being delivered before scientific societies, were published by him in the astronomical and meteorological publications of his office. Of particular note were those which appeared in the different editions of his “Sailing Directions” under such titles as “The Influence of the Gulf Stream on the Trade of Charleston”, “The Currents of the Sea”, “On the Saltness of the Sea”, “On the General Circulation of the Atmosphere”, “Red Fogs and Sea Dust”, “On the Probable Relation between Magnetism and the Circulation of the Atmosphere”, “Of Clouds and Equatorial Cloud Rings”, “On the Geological Agency of the Winds”, and “Deep Sea Soundings”.

Copy of engraving furnished by Captain E. T. Pollock, U. S. N. Superintendent Naval Observatory.

Copy of an Engraving of Maury Which Hangs in the Superintendent’s Office at the United States Naval Observatory

The last-mentioned paper was made possible by the coöperation afforded by the government in authorizing in 1849 the Secretary of the Navy to detail three suitable vessels to assist in Maury’s wind and current investigations and to order all ships of the navy to coöperate in so far as it was compatible with the public interest. Maury had long had a desire to explore the bottom of the ocean, and he now saw to it that these ships especially detailed to help him were equipped and thoroughly instructed for making soundings. The first attempts were made by the schooner Taney, under the command of Lieutenant J. C. Walsh, in the autumn of 1849. But her work was of negligible value, as she succeeded only in losing some 5700 fathoms of line as well as her deep-sea sounding apparatus, and then proved so unseaworthy that she had to be condemned and sent back home under escort. Later, however, the results secured particularly by Captain Charles T. Platt in the sloop of war Albany and by Lieutenants S. P. Lee and O. H. Berryman in the brig Dolphin were of great importance. So extensive was the data regarding soundings at Maury’s command by the close of the year 1853 that he was able to publish in the sixth edition of his “Sailing Directions” (1854) ninety pages of matter under the heading of “Physical Geography of the Sea”.

This edition of the “Sailing Directions” was brought out by E. C. and J. Biddle of Philadelphia, and when Maury’s nephew, Dabney Maury, went to see the publishers about some question connected with its publication, one of the firm called his attention to the fact that Maury’s annual report contained materials for a most interesting and valuable book. He warned him that, unless the results of his investigations were thus guarded by a copyright, he would have the chagrin of seeing “some Yankee bookmaker steal his thunder and reap a fortune from it”. By the next mail Maury was advised of this. He at once became interested in the undertaking and, with the advice of the Biddles, arrangements were made with Harpers for the publication of such a book. It was begun in the spring of 1854, and finished and ready for the publishers by June 20 of the same year. Maury was of the opinion that it was to be his “great work”, and time certainly proved that he had not overestimated its importance.

The title of the book was taken from one of the chapter headings in the sixth edition of his “Sailing Directions”, and was originally suggested to Maury by Humboldt, who wrote that Maury’s investigations had produced an amount of useful information sufficient, in his opinion, to constitute a new department of science which he called the Physical Geography of the Seas. The first edition, published early in the year 1855, contained only 274 pages, and was dedicated “as a token of friendship and a tribute to worth” to George Manning of New York who had been of great assistance to Maury in the distribution of the wind and current charts. In 1861, the eighth and last American edition of 474 pages appeared, and at about the same time an English edition was published by Sampson Low, Son and Company in London. This American edition was dedicated to William C. Hasbrouck of Newburgh, New York “as a token of the friendship and esteem, from boyhood till now, of his former pupil”; while the English edition was inscribed to Lord Wrottesley. The book ran to as many as nineteen editions in England, where it bore the somewhat fuller title of “Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology”. It has been translated into Dutch, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Norwegian, and has been used as a textbook in several naval schools on the Continent.

As to the contents and general scope of his book, Maury wrote in the introduction, “Under this term will be included a philosophical account of the winds and currents of the sea; of the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean; of the temperature and depth of the sea; of the wonders that are hidden in its depths; and of the phenomena that display themselves at its surface. In short, I shall treat of the economy of the sea and its adaptations—of its salts, its waters, its climates, and its inhabitants, and of whatever there may be of general interest in its commercial uses or industrial pursuits, for all such things pertain to its Physical Geography”. It contained also a number of illustrative plates, among which was the first bathymetric map ever made of the North Atlantic Ocean, with contour-lines drawn in at 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000 fathoms.

Some idea of the nature of the book and of Maury’s peculiar style can be best secured by the consideration of some selections taken from it here and there. Those quoted below are, of course, of the nature of “purple patches”, for it must not be supposed that there are no dry and uninteresting passages in the book; but they are fairly representative and will probably serve the purpose intended. Maury was the first scientist to make a careful study of the Gulf Stream, and the first chapter of his “Physical Geography of the Sea” is devoted to this mighty ocean current. The reader’s interest is gained and his imagination is excited at once by these opening sentences: “There is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater”.

In the chapter on the “Influence of the Gulf Stream upon Climates” is the following striking passage on whales and other animals of the sea: “Now, the Western Islands is the great place of resort for whales: and at first there is something curious to us in the idea that the Gulf of Mexico is the harvest-field, and the Gulf Stream the gleaner which collects the fruitage planted there, and conveys it thousands of miles off to the hungry whale at sea. But how perfectly in unison is it with the kind and providential care of that great and good Being which feeds the young ravens when they cry, and caters for the sparrow....

“The inhabitants of the ocean are as much the creatures of climate as are those of the dry land; for the same Almighty hand, which decked the lily and cares for the sparrow, fashioned also the pearl and feeds the great whale, and adapted each to the physical conditions by which His providence has surrounded it. Whether of the land or the sea, the inhabitants are all His creatures, subjects of His laws, and agents of His economy. The sea, therefore, we may safely infer, has its offices and duties to perform; so, may we infer, have its currents, and so, too, its inhabitants; consequently, he who undertakes to study its phenomena must cease to regard it as a waste of waters. He must look upon it as a part of that exquisite machinery by which the harmonies of nature are preserved, and then he will begin to perceive the developments of order and the evidences of design; these make it a most beautiful and interesting subject for contemplation”.

This idea of divine order and design occurs again and again in the book like the motive in a piece of music; in fact, Maury, though he did not formally enter the church until late in life, was a very religious man and well read in the Bible, quotations from which appear in his writings by the dozen. He had very definite ideas about the relation between science and the Bible, and declared that it was his rule never to forget who was the Author of the great volume which Nature spreads out before men, and always to remember that the same Being was the author of the book which revelation holds forth for contemplation. It was his opinion that, though the works were entirely different, their records were equally true, and that when they bear upon the same point, as they occasionally do, it would be impossible for them to contradict each other. If the two cannot be reconciled, the fault therefore is in man’s weakness and blindness in interpreting them aright.

To return to the “Physical Geography of the Sea”, the chapter on the atmosphere contains many noteworthy passages such as the following: “... The atmosphere is something more than a shoreless ocean, at the bottom of which he (man) creeps along. It is an envelope or covering for the dispersion of light and heat over the surface of the earth; it is a sewer into which, with every breath we draw, we cast vast quantities of dead animal matter; it is a laboratory for purification, in which that matter is recompounded, and wrought again into wholesome and healthful shapes; it is a machine for pumping up all the rivers from the sea, and conveying the waters from their fountains on the ocean to their sources in the mountains; it is an inexhaustible magazine, marvellously adapted for many benign and beneficent purposes.... To evaporate water enough annually from the ocean to cover the earth, on the average, five feet with rain; to transport it from one zone to another; and to precipitate it in the right places, at suitable times, and in the proportions due, is one of the offices of the grand atmospheric machine. This water is evaporated principally from the torrid zone. Supposing it all to come thence, we shall have, encircling the earth, a belt of ocean three thousand miles in breadth, from which this atmosphere evaporates a layer of water annually sixteen feet in depth. And to hoist up as high as the clouds, and lower again all the water in a lake sixteen feet deep, and three thousand miles broad, and twenty-four thousand long, is the yearly business of this invisible machinery. What a powerful engine is the atmosphere! and how nicely adjusted must be all the cogs, and wheels, and springs, and compensations of this exquisite piece of machinery, that it never wears out nor breaks down, nor fails to do its work at the right time, and in the right way”.

One other selection, from the chapter on “The Salts of the Sea”, will be sufficient as illustrative material. “Take for example”, he writes, “the coral islands, reefs, beds, and atolls, with which the Pacific Ocean is studded and garnished. They were built up of materials which a certain kind of insect quarried from the sea water. The currents of the sea ministered to this little insect—they were its hod carriers. When fresh supplies of solid matter were wanted for the coral rock upon which the foundations of the Polynesian Islands were laid, those hod carriers brought them in unfailing streams of sea water, loaded with food and building materials for the coralline. The obedient currents thread the widest and deepest seas. They never fail to come at the right time, nor refuse to go; for, unless the currents of the sea were employed to carry off from this insect the waters that have been emptied by it of their lime, and to bring to it others charged with more, it is evident the little creature would have perished for want of food long before its task was half completed. But for currents, it would have been impaled in a nook of the very drop of water in which it was spawned; for it would soon have secreted the lime contained in this drop of water, and then, without the ministering aid of currents to bring it more, it would have perished for the want of food for itself and materials for its edifice; and thus, but for the benign currents which took this exhausted water away, there we perceive this emptied drop would have remained, not only as the grave of the little architect, but as a monument in attestation of the shocking monstrosity that there had been a failure in the sublime system of terrestrial adaptations—that the sea had not been adapted by its Creator to the well-being of all its inhabitants. Now we do know that its adaptations are suited to all the wants of every one of its inhabitants—to the wants of the coral insect as well as to those of the whale. Hence we say we know that the sea has its system of circulation, for it transports materials for the coral rock from one part of the world to another; its currents receive them from the rivers, and hand them over to the little mason for the structure of the most stupendous works of solid masonry that man has ever seen—the coral islands of the sea”.

The contemporary reviews of Maury’s “Physical Geography of the Sea” gave unqualified praise to his style. The Revue des Deux Mondes declared, “Often indeed his powerful imagination makes of Maury a veritable poet, and his descriptions recall involuntarily those stories of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’, which charmed our childhood, where Gulnare pictures for her husband marvellously the mysterious realms of the profundities under the sea”. Humboldt considered it an epoch-making book, and the French scientist Jomard congratulated Maury upon the accomplishment of a “work so difficult, so useful, so laborious”, which he regarded as a true present to physicists, geographers, and navigators as well as to the commerce of all nations. The Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine joined in the hymn of praise with the opinion that “the good that Maury has done, in awakening the powers of observation of the officers of the Royal and mercantile navies of England and America is incalculable”, and added that such researches were exercising the most beneficial effect in improving and elevating the minds of seamen everywhere.

Some of Maury’s theories, however, were early questioned, especially the one regarding the causes of ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. He contended that they were set in motion by differences in specific gravity of the water in different places as caused by a disparity in temperature or in saltness. Sir John Herschel had considered that the currents were due entirely to the Trade Winds; and C. Wyville Thomson, who thought that Maury’s theory was ambiguous, was an adherent to the Herschel theory, though his colleague Carpenter was of a different opinion still. “It is now known, however,” writes Sir Willam A. Herdman,[7] “that the Gulf Stream is not an independent phenomenon, but is a part of the general system of surface circulation of the ocean, a system in which the currents, diverted to the east, as a result of the rotation of the earth in their course northwards from the equator, flow clockwise in the North Atlantic around a central, relatively calm area, the Sargasso Sea, in which seaweeds and other floating objects accumulate”.

When one considers how science develops, one theory changing or giving place entirely to another as new and wider research is made, such criticisms as those above do not lessen at all the estimation of Maury’s greatness as a pioneer scientist in a comparatively new field of investigation, nor do they at all rob him of the right to be called the world’s first great oceanographer. This is the opinion of a recent authority on the science of the sea, who writes, “Marine meteorology may be said to date from the time of M. F. Maury, U. S. Navy, whose ‘Physical Geography of the Sea’, though out of date as to facts and somewhat fantastic as to theories, remains a model book of popular science, written by a man who was possessed of all the knowledge of his time, and afire with the enthusiasm of research”.[8]

Maury’s researches in oceanography led to his connection with one of the most romantic and far-reaching scientific achievements of the century, the laying of the first Atlantic telegraph cable. Mention has already been made of the deep-sea soundings undertaken, under his direction, by American naval officers during the years 1849–1853. With the data furnished by these officers and by some others who were not engaged solely in sounding operations, Maury was enabled in the autumn of 1852 to construct an orographic map of the North Atlantic Ocean and to give a profile representing a vertical section of its bottom between America and Europe near the parallel of 39° north latitude. This showed the existence of what he called “the telegraphic plateau”.

Up to this time no specimens of deep-sea ooze had been brought up from the bottom, and each sounding involved the loss of all the twine used as well as the cannon ball attached to it; and besides there was some uncertainty each time as to whether the bottom had really been reached. Fortunately, Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke, who was then at the Observatory, invented a simple but effective contrivance known as “Brooke’s deep-sea sounding apparatus”, which was well adapted to Maury’s needs. The instrument was used by Lieutenant Berryman in the Dolphin during the year 1853 with great success, and the specimens which he obtained from the bottom were forwarded by Maury to Professor Bailey of West Point, for examination under the microscope. Upon examination the specimens were found not to contain a particle of sand or gravel mixed with them, but to be mites of sea-shells as perfect and unworn as when they were alive. This suggested to Maury the idea that there were no abrading forces at play upon the bottom of the deep sea, and that, if an electric cord were ever laid down upon the telegraphic plateau, there it would remain without anything to chafe or wear it except alone the tooth of time.

Accordingly, when in February, 1854 the projectors of the Atlantic Telegraph inquired of Maury as to the practicability of submerging the cable, he was able to reply as follows: “From Newfoundland to Ireland the distance between the nearest points is about sixteen hundred miles, and the bottom of the sea between the two places is a plateau, which seems to have been placed there especially for the purpose of holding the wires of a submarine telegraph and of keeping them out of harm’s way. It is neither too deep nor too shallow; yet it is so deep that the wires, being once landed, will remain forever beyond the reach of vessels’ anchors, icebergs, and drift of any kind, and so shallow that the wires may be readily lodged upon the bottom. The depth of this plateau is quite regular, gradually increasing from the shores of Newfoundland to the depth of from fifteen hundred to two thousand fathoms as you approach the other side. Whether it be better to lead the wires from Newfoundland or Labrador is not now the question; nor do I pretend to consider the question as to the possibility of finding a time calm enough, the sea smooth enough, a wire long enough, and a ship big enough to carry and lay a coil of wire 1600 miles in length. I simply address myself at this time to the question in so far as the bottom of the sea is concerned; and as for that, the greatest practical difficulty will, I apprehend, be found after reaching soundings at either end of the line, and not in the deep-sea. A wire laid across from either of the above-mentioned places on this side would pass to the north of the Grand Banks and rest on that beautiful plateau to which I have alluded, and where the water of the sea appears to be as quiet and as completely at rest as it is at the bottom of a mill-pond. Therefore, so far as the bottom of the deep-sea between Newfoundland or the mouth of the St. Lawrence and Ireland is concerned, the practicability of a submarine telegraph across the Atlantic is proved”.

Maury first began in November, 1853 to correspond with Cyrus W. Field, one of the prime movers in the enterprise, and soon thereafter he met him personally. In the following year, Field invited Maury to become financially connected with the submarine telegraph, but this was declined on the grounds that he could not then be a disinterested adviser of the company. Field came to Maury often, sometimes every day for weeks at a time, to consult as to the size and material for the cable, which according to Field’s first estimate was large enough, Maury playfully said, for the young whales to amuse themselves romping over it. Maury also devised a plan for making, coiling, and laying down the cable; and when somewhat later Field wrote asking on behalf of the company in regard to the best route and time for laying it, Maury with the help of his assistants consulted the results of 260,000 days of observations at sea and replied that the most propitious time for their undertaking would be either the last of July or the first of August, and that the steamer with the western end of the telegraphic cord on board would be less liable than the other to encounter a gale.

Field greatly appreciated Maury’s advice, and invited him and his wife and two daughters to go on an excursion in the summer of 1855 to witness the laying of that part of the cable between Newfoundland and Cape Breton. He also gave permission that the National Observatory should be the first to use the telegraph to determine longitude across the Atlantic. In giving this assurance, Field wrote of the great help which Maury was rendering in “illuminating the path for the lightning”.

In the year 1856, Lieutenant Berryman in the Arctic made soundings from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Queenstown, Ireland, both on the outward and homeward passages. But these soundings were very carelessly made, and finally had to be declared worthless by Maury. In the summer of the following year Lieutenant Dayman, Royal Navy went over the same course in the Cyclops and made satisfactory soundings, which confirmed Maury’s earlier statements as to the existence of the telegraphic plateau.

The company met with many discouragements in the laying of the cable. An unsuccessful attempt was made in the summer of 1857, and three other failures followed the next year. But perseverance finally had its reward; the U. S. Steamer Niagara and H. B. M. Steamer Agamemnon, after having met in mid-ocean and joined cables, set out for opposite shores where they arrived at Trinity Bay and Valentia Harbor, respectively, about the fifth of August, 1858. There was great rejoicing on both sides of the Atlantic, and a great banquet was given in Field’s honor by the city of New York at the Metropolitan Hotel on September 2, 1858. In his address on that occasion, Field referred to the many to whom he was indebted and mentioned “those never-to-be-forgotten philosophers Lieutenant Maury, Professor Morse, Professor Faraday, Professor Bache, and Professor W. Thomson, who have rendered more efficient aid without receiving any compensation”.[9]

In October of the same year, the telegraph ceased to operate because of faulty insulation. It appears that the company had not carefully followed Maury’s advice as to the size of the cable, and he had not himself been sanguine of success. After the failure, he contended that all that was needed was a cable heavy enough to sink with its own weight, and that there was no need for the iron wire which was wound round the gutta-percha that would itself be impervious to decay, that the strain of weight was all on the inner core of copper and had thus caused the trouble, that the iron wire on the outside might have interfered with the electric current, and that one large conducting wire instead of the seven threads woven together would have been better. But he added that he had no doubt as to the ultimate success of a telegraph across the Atlantic. Because of the Civil War, however, this was not to be accomplished until July, 1866; and as will be seen later, circumstances were then such as to prevent Maury from having any part in the final successful culmination of the project to which he had given so much thought and valuable assistance.

Maury’s researches in the science of the sea could not, perhaps, have been so fruitful in practical achievements, had there not been at this time such a widespread desire to learn more about the ocean. In America, it was a veritable age of geographical investigation and discovery. In addition to the Exploring Expedition under Wilkes, which spent three years and ten months in exploring the islands of the Pacific and established the fact of the existence of the Antarctic continent, there were many others of the same nature. Lieutenant William Francis Lynch, in 1847–1848, led an expedition which surveyed the Dead Sea; in 1850–1851, Lieutenant Edward J. De Haven commanded a squadron which went into the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin, and though unsuccessful in finding the English explorer, he made important scientific discoveries; Commander Cadwalader Ringgold, during 1853–1854, and then Commander John Rodgers, in the following years 1855–1856, explored and surveyed Bering Strait, the North Pacific Ocean, and the China Seas; and in 1853, Dr. Elisha K. Kane, U. S. Navy led another expedition into the Arctic regions in search of Franklin and off Greenland reached a stretch of water which he thought confirmed Maury’s theory as to an open polar sea. Between 1848 and 1852, Lieutenant John P. Gilliss conducted an astronomical expedition to Chile, Lieutenant Archibald McRae traversed the Pampas from Chile to Buenos Ayres, Lieutenant Isaac G. Strain explored the Isthmus of Darien, Lieutenant Richard L. Page investigated the La Plata and its tributaries, and Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon made his famous trip across South America from the west coast to the headwaters of the Amazon and then down that stream to the Atlantic. Furthermore, it was at about this same time that Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry went to Japan and by skillful diplomacy opened up that country to western civilization.

Maury simply reveled in the results of these various explorations, and his writings are filled with references to them. He knew all the explorers personally, and furnished many of them with helpful advice and encouragement in their undertakings,—especially Kane, De Haven, Lynch, and Herndon. Dr. Kane wished to name the open polar sea after Maury; but he waived the honor and wrote to Kane that he should yield to his friends and let “his name go upon the waters”, and to-day it is known as Kane Basin.

Maury’s investigations into the habits and nature of whales had led him to conclude that there was really a Northwest Passage as well as open water about the North Pole. The former theory was proved by Commander McClure of H. M. S. Investigator, July 31, 1850 to April 6, 1853, when he passed from west to east through the northern waters, and settled the question. As to the polar sea, it is interesting to note in passing that only recently two explorers of the air, Byrd and Amundson, both verified the truth of Maury’s theory.

As regards the Antarctic regions, Maury called upon the nations of the world to coöperate in sending an expedition there. “Ho for the South Pole” was his slogan. “It is enough for me”, he wrote, “when contemplating the vast extent of that unknown region, to know that it is a part of the surface of our planet, and to remember that the earth was made for man; that all knowledge is profitable; that no discoveries have conferred more honor and glory upon the age in which they were made, or been more beneficial to the world than geographical discoveries; and that never were nations so well prepared to undertake Antarctic exploration as are those that I now solicit”. Though the Civil War interfered with the carrying out of plans for the exploring of that portion of the globe, yet Maury’s name deserves to be remembered among those whose continued interest in this enterprise finally led to the conquering of the South Pole.

Another contribution which Maury made was the laying down of lanes for steamers in the North Atlantic. The idea originated with R. B. Forbes of Boston, but was worked out scientifically by Maury. In the year 1855, at the instigation of a board of underwriters of New York, who paid for its cost, he published a chart illustrating what he called Ocean Lanes. To prepare this chart he studied the logs of 46,000 days of observations of the wind and weather of that part of the North Atlantic. Two tracks, or lanes, twenty miles wide, were laid down, to the more northern of which he proposed to confine the steamers westward bound, while the eastward bound vessels were to use the other, situated from one to ten degrees further south. Although the Secretary of the Navy immediately ordered the ships of the navy to observe these lanes, they were not generally adopted by the shipping of the world until about thirty-six years after they were formulated, and it was not until 1898 that all of the transatlantic steamship companies consented in a written agreement to use them. After a dispassionate investigation of the lanes, they said that they were impressed with the patience and researches that Maury must have made to have laid down such excellent paths, and they recognized that, had the highways been followed earlier, the great majority of the accidents which had befallen vessels in the North Atlantic might have been avoided.

Maury, then, was not merely a theorizer without the power of applying his ideas to the practical needs of men. His greatness consisted in his being a man of vision and imagination, and at the same time a man of tremendous industry who was willing to toil endlessly that his theories might be made practical realities. This aim of unselfish service to humanity was displayed in all his researches in the science of the sea, from which came the works upon which his claim to fame chiefly rests. These were “The Wind and Current Charts”, “Sailing Directions”, and “The Physical Geography of the Sea”. That such a claim is no idle one is borne out by the works themselves as well as by their influence upon all succeeding marine research, and it was the realization of this fact that led the Secretary of the Navy recently to give to the oceanographic research now being planned the name “Maury United States Naval Oceanographic Research”.

Courtesy of “The Journal of American History,” Vol. IV, Number 3 (1910).

Set of Silver Medals Presented to Maury by Pope Pius IX
See [page 65]

Courtesy of “The Journal of American History,” Vol. IV, Number 3 (1910).

Medals Bestowed upon Maury

Gold medals bestowed upon Maury by the rulers of Sweden, Prussia, Holland, Austria, Sardinia, and France, the Republic of Bremen, and the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855. See [page 65].

CHAPTER VII
His Extra-Professional Interests

During the many years he spent at the Naval Observatory, Maury was by no means a narrow-minded specialist, as can be readily seen by a consideration of the wide range of his interests, which extended from the planting of sunflowers to keep malaria away from the Observatory to speculations as to the navigation of the air and a curious machine that was a kind of combination of phonograph and telephone. Before going forward with the story of his life, it would be well, therefore, to pause and consider some of these extra-professional activities that he was interested in.

Maury’s interest in land meteorology had some connection, indeed, with his particular field of research; and in the beginning this was a part of his plan for a universal system of meteorological observations. But the opposition of Great Britain led him to withdraw it from the program of matters to be considered at the Brussels Conference, under the impression that a half of a loaf was better than no loaf at all. Upon his return to America after the conference, he began almost immediately to advocate the calling of another conference to consider land meteorology. As to the connection between the meteorology of the land and the sea he wrote in his “Sailing Directions” of 1855, “The great atmospherical ocean, at the bottom of which we are creeping along, and the laws of which touch so nearly the well-being of the whole human family, embraces the land as well as the sea, and neither those laws nor the movement and phenomena of the atmosphere can be properly studied or thoroughly investigated until observations, both by land and sea, shall enable us to treat the atmosphere as a whole”.

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.

In 1851, at the request of the Secretary of the Navy, Maury wrote a report on “Fortifications” to be referred to the House Committee on Military Affairs. In this report he advocated for coast defense what he called “a locomotive battery or flying artillery” to protect cities from the “Great Guns of Big Ships”; heavy fortifications at Key West, on the Dry Tortugas, and perhaps on Ship and Cat Islands; and the completion of railroad connection with the Pacific and the beginning there of the nucleus of a navy. He was opposed to floating batteries, but favored twenty or twenty-five steam men-of-war as a home squadron and thought some provision should be made against surprise on the Lakes. In closing, he declared, “The ocean front of the United States alone is greater in extent than the ocean front of the whole of Europe; therefore, like action to the orator, a navy to us is the first, second, and third chief requisite to any effective system of national defense”.

The same year Maury turned again to the “Commercial Prospects of the South”, which he made the subject of an address before the Virginia Mercantile Convention at Richmond. In this he called attention to what might have happened if Norfolk had become the terminus of a French line of steam packets to Havre, as he had suggested some dozen years before. Now, he said, the South must look toward the south; in view of the importance of “our Mediterranean” into which big rivers flow that are the arteries of much commerce, and because of the potential riches of the Amazon which will be vastly increased by the construction of a canal or railroad across the Isthmus, a line of steamers from Norfolk, Charleston, or Savannah to the mouth of the Amazon should at once be established. This enterprise, together with the need for building railroads in the South, was constantly in Maury’s mind and often became a subject of correspondence down to the beginning of the Civil War.

Maury seems to have become almost as ready a speaker as he was a writer, and as his fame grew he was frequently called upon to speak on scientific questions and large problems of a commercial nature. In 1846, he addressed the Philodemic Society at the commencement exercises of Georgetown College in Washington. In the course of his speech he lauded the study of science in this fashion: “Beauties far more lovely, poetry far more sublime, lessons inexpressibly more eloquent and instructive than any which the classic lore of ancient Greece or Rome ever afforded are now to be seen and gathered in the walks of science”. In 1855 he spoke to the Jefferson and Washington Literary Societies of the University of Virginia, beginning with what he referred to as “sailing directions”. “There are some here”, he declared, “who though not seamen are nevertheless about to become masters of their own acts, and who are about to try the voyage of life upon a troubled sea. I have been some little time on that voyage; and it is so that, whenever I see a young man relying upon his own resources and setting out alone upon this long voyage, my heart warms towards him. I always desire to range up alongside of him, to speak to him kindly, and whisper words of encouragement in his ear”.

Then he told the young men that they should have ambition to do even better than their fathers had done; that they should not lose sight of the welfare of the community and the prosperity of the commonwealth; and that they should give Virginia again her place of leadership among the states, and take away from the South the allegation that she is wanting in enterprise. He closed with the following rules of conduct: “Whatever may be the degree of success that I have met with in life, I attribute it, in a great measure, to the adoption of such rules. One was never to let the mind be idle for want of useful occupation, but always to have in reserve subjects of thought or study for the leisure moments and quiet hours of the night. When you read a book, let it be with the view to special information. The habits of mind to be thus attained are good, and the information useful. It is surprising how difficult one who attempts this rule finds it at first to provide himself with subjects for thought—to think of something that he does not know. In our ignorance our horizon is very contracted: mists, clouds, and darkness hang upon it, and self fills almost the entire view around, above, and below to the utmost verge. But as we study the laws of nature, and begin to understand about our own ignorance, we find light breaking through, the horizon expanding, and self getting smaller and smaller. It is like climbing a mountain: every fact or fresh discovery is a step upward with an enlargement of the view, until the unknown and the mysterious become boundless—self infinitely small; and the conviction comes upon us with a mighty force that we know nothing—that human knowledge is only a longing desire.” In conclusion, he warned them against believing that they had finished their education on leaving the University, for they had merely cleared away the rubbish and prepared the foundations. If they ceased to study, they soon would forget what they had learned and mental retrogression would begin; for just as movement and progress were necessary aspects of life in the physical world so were rest and decay correlative terms in the mental and moral realms.

Among the numerous addresses which he delivered during the decade preceding the Civil War, the most eloquent and significant was the one given on October 10, 1860, at the laying of the corner stone of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. For this occasion there were assembled eight bishops, two hundred presbyters, and five thousand people. In introducing Maury, Bishop Otey, his old teacher and friend, referred to him as a distinguished fellow-citizen, whose labors in the cause of science have crowned his name with honor throughout the world and made him, in a manner, the property of all the nations, for the winds of Heaven and the waves of the sea had been made tributary by him to increasing the facilities of trade to every land and on every sea where commerce spreads her sails.

Maury’s address, which is quoted in its entirety as an example of his oratorical power, was as follows: “Ladies and Gentlemen: This greeting and the terms in which my old preceptor and early friend has brought me into this presence fill me with emotions difficult to utter. I thank you for your goodness.

“Physical geography makes the whole world kin. Of all the departments in the domains of physical science, it is the most Christianizing. Astronomy is grand and sublime; but astronomy overpowers with its infinities, overwhelms with its immensities. Physical geography charms with its wonders, and delights with the benignity of its economy. Astronomy ignores the existence of man; physical geography confesses that existence, and is based on the Biblical doctrine that the earth was made for man. Upon no other theory can it be studied; upon no other theory can its phenomena be reconciled. The astronomer computes an ephemeris for his comets; predicts their return; tells the masses of the planets, and measures by figures the distance of the stars. But whether stars, planets, or comets be peopled or not is in his arguments, theories, and calculations of no consequence whatever. He regards the light and heat of the sun as emanations—forces to guide the planets in their orbits, and light comets in their flight—nothing more. But the physical geographer, when he warms himself by the coal fire in winter, or studies by the light of the gas burner at night, recognizes in the light and heat which he then enjoys the identical light and heat which ages ago came from the sun, and which with provident care and hands benignant have been bottled away in the shape of a mineral and stored in the bowels of the earth for man’s use, thence to be taken at his convenience, and liberated at will for his manifold purposes.

“Here, in the schools which are soon to be opened, within the walls of this institution which we are preparing to establish in this wood, and the corner stone of which has just been laid, the masters of this newly ordained science will teach our sons to regard some of the commonest things as the most important agents in the physical economy of our planet. They are also mighty ministers of the Creator. Take this water” (holding up a glassful) “and ask the student of physical geography to explain a portion only of its multitudinous offices in helping to make the earth fit for man’s habitation. He may recognize in it a drop of the very same which watered the Garden of Eden when Adam was there. Escaping thence through the veins of the earth into the rivers, it reached the sea; passing along its channels of circulation, it was conveyed far away by its currents to those springs in the ocean which feed the winds with vapor for rains among these mountains; taking up the heat in these southern climes, where otherwise it would become excessive, it bottles it away in its own little vesicles. These are invisible; but rendering the heat latent and innocuous, they pass like sightless couriers of the air through their appointed channels, and arrive here in the upper sky. This mountain draws the heat from them; they are formed into clouds and condensed into rain, which, coming to the earth, make it ‘soft with showers’, causing the trees of the field to clap their hands, the valleys to shout, and the mountains to sing. Thus the earth is made to yield her increase, and the heart of man is glad.

“Nor does the office of this cup of water in the physical economy end here. It has brought heat from the sea in the southern hemisphere to be set free here for the regulation of our climates; it has ministered to the green plants, and given meat and drink to man and beast. It has now to cater among the rocks for the fish and insects of the sea. Eating away your mountains, it fills up the valleys, and then, loaded with lime and salts of various minerals, it goes singing and dancing and leaping back to the sea, owning man by the way as a task-master—turning mills, driving machinery, transporting merchandise for him—and finally reaching the ocean. It there joins the currents to be conveyed to its appointed place, which it never fails to reach in due time, with food in due quantities for the inhabitants of the deep, and with materials of the right kind to be elaborated in the workshops of the sea into pearls, corals, and islands—all for man’s use.

“Thus the right-minded student of this science is brought to recognize in the dewdrop the materials of which He who ‘walketh upon the wings of the wind’ maketh His chariot. He also discovers in the raindrop a clue by which the Christian philosopher may be conducted into the very chambers from which the hills are watered.

“I have been blamed by men of science, both in this country and in England, for quoting the Bible in confirmation of the doctrines of physical geography. The Bible, they say, was not written for scientific purposes, and is therefore of no authority in matters of science. I beg pardon! The Bible is authority for everything it touches. What would you think of the historian who should refuse to consult the historical records of the Bible, because the Bible was not written for the purposes of history? The Bible is true and science is true. The agents concerned in the physical economy of our planet are ministers of His who made both it and the Bible. The records which He has chosen to make through the agency of these ministers of His upon the crust of the earth are as true as the records which, by the hands of His prophets and servants, He has been pleased to make in the Book of Life. They are both true; and when your men of science, with vain and hasty conceit, announce the discovery of disagreement between them, rely upon it the fault is not with the Witness or His records, but with the ‘worm’ who essays to interpret evidence which he does not understand.

“When I, a pioneer in one department of this beautiful science, discover the truths of revelation and the truths of science reflecting light one upon the other and each sustaining the other, how can I, as a truth-loving, knowledge-seeking man, fail to point out the beauty and to rejoice in its discovery? Reticence on such an occasion would be sin, and were I to suppress the emotion with which such discoveries ought to stir the soul, the waves of the sea would lift up their voice, and the very stones of the earth cry out against me. (Great applause.)

“As a student of physical geography, I regard the earth, sea, air, and water, as parts of a machine, pieces of mechanism not made with hands, but to which nevertheless certain offices have been assigned in the terrestrial economy. It is good and profitable to seek to find out these offices, and point them out to our fellows; and when, after patient research, I am led to the discovery of any one of them, I feel with the astronomer of old as though I had ‘thought one of God’s thoughts’—and tremble. Thus as we progress with our science we are permitted now and then to point out here and there in the physical machinery of the earth a design of the Great Architect when He planned it all.

“Take the little nautili. Where do the fragile creatures go? What directing hand guides them from sea to sea? What breeze fills the violet sails of their frail little craft, and by whose skill is it enabled to brave the sea and defy the fury of the gale? What mysterious compass directs the flotilla of these delicate and graceful argonauts? Coming down from the Indian Ocean, and arriving off the stormy cape, they separate—the one part steering for the Pacific, the other for the Atlantic Ocean. Soon the ephemeral life that animates these tiny navigators will be extinct; but the same power which cared for them in life now guides them in death, for though dead their task in the physical economy of our planet is not finished, nor have they ceased to afford instruction in philosophy. The frail shell is now to be drawn to distant seas by the lower currents. Like the leaf carried through the air by the wind, the lifeless remains descend from depth to depth by an insensible fall even to the appointed burial place on the bottom of the deep; there to be collected into heaps and gathered into beds which at some day are to appear above the surface a storehouse rich with fertilizing ingredients for man’s use. Some day science will sound the depth to which this dead shell has fallen, and the little creature will perhaps afford solution for a problem a long time unsolved; for it may be the means of revealing the existence of the submarine currents that have carried it off, and of enabling the physical geographer to trace out the secret paths of the sea. (Great applause).

“Had I time, I might show how mountains, deserts, winds, and water, when treated by this beautiful science, all join in one universal harmony—for each one has its part to perform in the great concert of nature. (Renewed applause).

“The Church, ere physical geography had yet attained to the dignity of a science in our schools, and even before man had endowed it with a name, saw and appreciated its dignity,—the virtue of its chief agents. What have we heard chanted here in this grove by a thousand voices this morning?—A song of praise, such as these hills have not heard since the morning stars sang together:—the Benedicite of our Mother Church, invoking the very agents whose workings and offices it is the business of the physical geographer to study and point out! In her services she teaches her children in their songs of praise to call upon certain physical agents, principals, in this newly established department of human knowledge,—upon the waters above the firmament; upon showers and dew; wind, fire, and heat; winter and summer; frost and cold; ice and snow; night and day; light and darkness; lightning and clouds; mountains and hills; green things, trees, and plants; whales, and all things that move in the waters; fowls of the air, with beasts and cattle,—to bless, praise, and magnify the Lord. (Tremendous applause.)

“To reveal to man the offices of these agents in making the earth his fit dwelling place is the object of physical geography. Said I not well that of all the sciences physical geography is the most Christianizing in its influences?” (Long continued applause.)

In addition to his occasional speeches, Maury also appeared on the regular lecture platform, where he delivered three different series of lectures. “My lot in life”, he wrote, “is cast among those whose necessities compel them to stop with philosophy now and then and ‘court Dame Fortune’s golden smile’ until she vouchsafe a few extra centimes with which one may propitiate butcher and baker. Yielding to these necessities, I have occasionally to abandon the winds and the sea, and go digging in the hopes of finding a few of the ‘roots of evil’ wherewith to propitiate amiable creditors. These necessities have been pressing upon me, so I had to abandon everything and go out on a lecturing tour”. In this connection, it is of interest to note that in addition to his salary of $3,500 as Superintendent of the Observatory Maury received from Harper’s as royalties on his “Physical Geography of the Sea” from $300 to $400 a year up to the Civil War. He was also paid considerable sums for his contributions to the magazines, such as the Southern Literary Messenger, from which according to his account book he received over $600 from November, 1841 to December, 1842. Maury had, however, a large family of eight children, and their needs increased from year to year.

His first series of regular lectures, six in number, was delivered before the Lowell Institute of Boston in December, 1856, on the general subject of “The Winds and Currents of the Sea”. The Boston Daily Evening Transcript reported the lectures and gave great praise to “Professor” Maury; while one who heard him wrote in a personal letter, “It was a truly interesting lecture and from our citizens there comes forth one response, Excellent, Capital, The Lecture of the Season. It was no common audience, I assure you. Many were present who seldom attend evening lectures. All were enthusiastic in their praise. I was told by men high in office and the estimation of the community that it was the best lecture and the most interesting to them that they had ever heard. It was Lyceum night and the hour of commencement was postponed in order to give that audience a chance to hear, and they came and heard; notwithstanding they had been sitting an hour to another lecture, they sat still one and one-quarter hours more and so still that throughout the whole one might have heard a pin drop”.

For these lectures Maury was paid the sum of $500; and on the same tour he delivered ten other lectures in Massachusetts and New York at $50 a lecture. In New York he spoke at Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo. In the last-mentioned city two lectures were given on November 27 and 28, and the account of the first of these in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser is most interesting. “We listened to Lieutenant Maury”, it reports, “with unalloyed pleasure. His appearance is that of a kind-hearted, benevolent man of fifty; his forehead that of a philosopher, his eyes and lower face indicative of poetic sentiment. His delivery is neither good nor bad, but he found no difficulty in enchaining the attention of his audience, and few, we presume, cared much for the lack of oratorical effect. We had never given Lieutenant Maury credit for the power of poetical description which he manifested in this lecture. Beautifully written, rich in descriptive power and full of a sailor’s love for his ship, and his fondness for strange scenes, we have rarely listened to a better specimen of ‘word painting’ than that which referred to a western passage across the Pacific. But immediately after came a description of the climate of Valparaiso, equally vivid, and in his allusion to the stars of the Southern hemisphere even more eloquent—one saw that night sky, a vault of steel, the brilliant stars which shone upon its surface and the planets brighter still, seemingly swimming in mid air beneath them; and the Magellan clouds, ‘rents in the azure robe of night, through which one looked into the black profound of space beyond’”.

On his next lecture tour, during November and December, 1858, Maury was gone about a month; he traveled some five thousand miles and delivered twenty-five lectures, at the following places: Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Detroit, Kalamazoo, Indianapolis, Laporte, Cincinnati, Springfield, and St. Louis. The subjects that he discussed were: The Atlantic Telegraph, The Highways and Byways of the Sea, On Extending to the Lakes a System of Meteorological Observations for the Benefit of Lake Commerce and Navigation, On the Workshops and Harmonies of the Sea, and The Importance of a Careful Meteorological Survey of the Great North American Lakes.

The various newspapers of these cities reported large and appreciative audiences, with many often turned away for lack of seats; and they invariably praised the lectures. For example, the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel declared, “(The subject) was presented in such a pleasing and attractive form, and the facts, the experiments, and the analogies from which his conclusions were drawn were stated so clearly and clothed so beautifully that it seemed to the hearer rather like the fanciful description of the poet than the details of experimental philosophy”. The Cleveland Plain Dealer thus expressed its praise: “(His theme) was treated with a mastery of facts, an array of historical data, and a thoroughness and completeness of detail and all with a clearness, vigor, and force of language highly instructive and deeply and powerfully interesting. Without any of the graces of oratory, or the beauties and effects of elocution, without even the charms of an agreeable delivery, Lieutenant Maury invested his subject with a degree of interest and power of attraction that was such as to challenge the admiration and rivet the attention of his auditors from the opening to the close”. The tour was evidently a great success, but the exposure to the wintry storms so damaged Maury’s health as to bring on an attack of rheumatic gout on his return home, a disease from which he continued to suffer off and on until his death fifteen years later.

The following autumn, however, he was lecturing again, this time in Alabama and Tennessee. While in Nashville to address the State Agricultural Bureau, he was invited by the Tennessee Historical Society to deliver in the Hall of the House of Representatives of the Capitol his lecture on “The Geography of the Sea”. This was on October 12, 1859, and on the following day Maury visited the House while in session and was welcomed by Speaker Whitthorne in the high-flown language which was popular at that day, as one who “has by his genius and his talents made himself the peer of earth’s great men, and who by his wooing of the stars has made them to give forth speech and by his control of the winds of the sea has compelled their obedience to man and made them to become ministers of his happiness”.

All of this speaking and writing made Maury’s name known very widely all over the United States, and it was but natural for some of his friends to think of him in connection with the Presidency. They believed that, if his adopted state, Tennessee, would heartily nominate him, not as a party man but as a broad-minded, public-spirited citizen, he could be easily elected, for his popularity was great with all who did not aspire to the leadership of some particular clique. But Maury did not like politics, and besides Fate had in store for him an entirely different future. However, in the light of his attitude toward slavery and the preservation of the Union it is interesting to speculate on how different the history of the United States might have been, had he been elevated to this high office.

Matthew Fontaine Maury

This painting, by E. Sophonisba Hergesheimer, was presented in 1923 to the United States Naval Academy by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Atlanta Chapter, Georgia Division. It hangs over the entrance to the Maury Hall wing of the Academic Group of buildings.

CHAPTER VIII
His Treatment by the “Retiring Board”

It must not be supposed that Maury spent only halcyon days during his long period of service at the Naval Observatory. When it is remembered that his contacts with men were extremely numerous, and that the opportunities for unpleasant controversy were almost without number in view of the fact that he was such an ardent advocate of whatever question he took up, whether it was scientific, economic, or political, it is truly remarkable that there were so few who became hostile to him. But strange as it may seem, those who as a class were most unfriendly to Maury and least sympathetic toward his work were a considerable number of his brother officers in the navy. As a consequence, in the year 1855, a board of naval officers inflicted upon him painful mental sufferings and placed him in a humiliating position, at the very time when his name was being acclaimed by the scientists and many of the rulers of foreign countries.