Part 25 (1/2)
MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY.
~1806=1873.~
MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY, the ”Pathfinder of the Sea,” was born in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, reared in Tennessee, and entered the Navy in 1825, rising to be lieutenant in 1837. In 1839 he met with an accident which lamed him for life, and he thenceforward spent his time in study and investigation of naval subjects. Under the pen-name of ”Harry Bluff,” he wrote some essays for the ”Southern Literary Messenger,” which produced great reforms in the Navy and led to the establishment of the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
In 1842 he was appointed superintendent of the Hydrographical Office, and in 1844, of the National Observatory, at Was.h.i.+ngton, the latter position including the former. The observations of winds, currents, and storms, which he caused to be made during nine years, are embodied in his ”Wind and Current Charts;” and the system thus begun was adopted by all European countries and has proven of immense benefit both to commerce and science.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ~Florida State Agricultural College (Main Building), Lake City, Fla.~]
To him and to Lieutenant John M. Brooke, afterwards Com. Brooke, C. S. N., belongs the credit of deep-sea soundings; and to him we owe the suggestion of the submarine telegraphic cable across the Atlantic.
(_See below, letter to Secretary of the Navy._) Cyrus W. Field said, at a dinner given in 1858 to celebrate the first cable message across the Atlantic,--”Maury furnished the brains, England gave the money, and I did the work.”
His ”Physical Geography of the Sea” has been translated into all the languages of Europe, and caused Humboldt to say that Maury had founded a new science. His researches and scientific labors gained him honors and medals from all scientific societies. His ”Navigation” and ”Geographies” are in popular use in our schools. His style is irresistibly attractive, being clear, strong, elegant, and indicative of truth in the man behind it.
He entered the Confederate service in 1861, and was employed at first at Richmond and later as naval agent in Europe. When Lee surrendered, he was in the West Indies on his way to put in use against Federal vessels in Southern ports a method of arranging torpedo mines which he had invented.
He then went to Mexico (1865) and took a position in the Cabinet of the Emperor Maximilian; but the revolution there (1866) terminated his relations with that government. After two years in England, he returned to Virginia and in 1868 became professor of Physics in the Virginia Military Inst.i.tute. At this time the University of Cambridge conferred upon him the degree of LL. D., and the Emperor of the French invited him to Paris as superintendent of the Imperial Observatory.
His life has been written in a most engaging style by his daughter, Mrs. Diana Fontaine Maury Corbin.
WORKS.
Navigation.
Sc.r.a.ps from the Lucky Bay, by Harry Bluff.
Rebuilding Southern Commerce.
Wind and Current Charts.
Sailing Directions.
Physical Geography of the Sea.
Series of Geographies.
Physical Survey of Virginia.
Resources of West Virginia (with Wm. M. Fontaine).
Lanes for Steamers Crossing the Atlantic.
Amazon and Atlantic Slopes.
Magnetism and the Circulation of the Atmosphere.
THE GULF STREAM.
(_From Sailing Directions._)
It is not necessary to a.s.sociate with oceanic currents the idea that they must of necessity, as on land, run from a higher to a lower level. So far from this being the case, some currents of the sea actually run up-hill, while others run on a level. The Gulf Stream is of the first cla.s.s. In a paper read before the National Inst.i.tute in 1844, I showed why the bottom of the Gulf Stream ought, theoretically, to be an inclined plane, running _upwards_. If the Gulf Stream be 200 fathoms deep in the Florida Pa.s.s, and but 100 fathoms off Hatteras, it is evident that the bottom would be lifted 100 fathoms within that distance; and therefore, while the bottom of the Gulf Stream runs up-hill, the top preserves the water-level, or nearly so; for its banks are of sea-water, and being in the ocean, are themselves on a water-level. . .
I have also, on a former occasion, pointed out the fact, that, inasmuch as the Gulf Stream is a bed of warm water, lying between banks of cold water--that as warm water is lighter than cold--therefore, the surface of the Gulf Stream ought, theoretically, to be in the shape of a double inclined plane, like the roof a house, down which we may expect to find a shallow surface or roof current, running from the middle towards either edge of the stream.