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.
[Illustration: 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.]