SKETCH OF MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY. 401 



Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, and William C. Hasbrouck, were 

 the teachers. 



In 1825 he obtained, through the Hon. Sam Houston, a mid- 

 shipman's warrant in the United States Navy. His father, not 

 approving the career to which this pointed, while not forbidding, 

 refused to countenance him in accepting it. Having thirty dollars 

 which he had earned by doing tutor's work in the academy, young 

 Maury went on his own account for the East. There was no 

 naval academy then, and he went on shipboard at once. He soon 

 showed that his mind was set upon mastering the theory and prac- 

 tice of his profession. " It is related by some of his companions 

 of that period/' says Mrs. Corbin, " how he would chalk diagrams 

 in spherical trigonometry on the round-shot in the quarter-deck 

 racks, to enable himself to master problems, while pacing to and 

 fro, passing and repassing the shot-racks on his watch." With an 

 old Spanish work on navigation, he pursued the double object of 

 studying the Spanish language and adding to his stock of nautical 

 information. His first voyage was to England, in the Brandy wine, 

 which conveyed General Lafayette home to France ; his next was 

 in the Vincennes, round the world. On this voyage he constructed 

 a set of lunar tables and prepared himself for examination. 



During his next cruise of four years on the Falmouth, Dol- 

 phin, and Potomac, beginning in 1831, Maury conceived the idea 

 of his current and wind charts ; observed and began to study the 

 curious phenomenon of the low barometer off Cape Horn, con- 

 cerning which he wrote his first scientific paper — for the Ameri- 

 can Journal of Science ; and began to prepare for the press a work 

 on navigation, for which he had been several years collecting the 

 material. It was published in 1839, was favorably noticed in Eng- 

 land, and was used as a text-book in the United States Navy. 



Maury next received an appointment as astronomer and hy- 

 drographer on the South Sea Exploring Expedition, which was to 

 go out under Commodore Catesby Jones, and, preparatory to it, 

 practiced in the use of the telescope, transit instrument, and theodo- 

 lite ; but, Captain Wilkes succeeding to the command, he resigned, 

 in order to permit the new commander to select his own associates. 

 He was then assigned the duty of making surveys of Southern 

 harbors. While traveling on leave of absence from this work, 

 his leg was broken by the overturning of a stage-coach, whereby 

 he was disabled from active service for several years. The mis- 

 fortune is regarded by his biographer as having been a " blessing 

 in disguise " ; for it caused his mind to turn more intently to the 

 scientific side of his work, and thus contributed indirectly to the 

 f ruitfulness of thought by which his after-life was distinguished. 



A series of articles on naval reform and kindred subjects, en- 

 titled Scraps from the Lucky-Bag, published by Maury under 



