SKETCH OF MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY. 405 



and Gulf coasts ; systematic observations of the rise and fall of 

 the water in the Mississippi River and its tributaries, with gauges 

 at all the principal towns ; the redemption of the " drowned 

 lands " of the Mississippi; navigation by great-circle routes; a 

 ship-canal and railroad across the Isthmus, which he insisted 

 should be by way of Panama or Nicaragua rather than Tehuante- 

 pec ; the establishment of a great port at Norfolk, Va. ; and the 

 colonization of the surplus black and other population of the 

 South in the valley of the Amazon. The Darien expedition of 

 Lieutenant Strain and Lieutenant Herndon's exploration of the 

 Amazon were connected with two of these schemes. The " lane 

 route," followed by some of the transatlantic steamship lines, 

 originated in the publication by Maury, in 1855, of a chart on 

 which two lanes were laid down, each twenty-five miles broad, by 

 following which the danger of collisions might be reduced. In 

 acknowledgment of the value of the service rendered by this 

 plan, and by the wind and current charts and sailing direc- 

 tions, the merchants and underwriters of New York presented 

 him with five thousand dollars in gold and a handsome service 

 of silver. 



When the Ordinance of Secession was passed by the Legisla- 

 ture of Virginia, Commander Maury believed that his paramount 

 obligation was to his native State. He accordingly left the serv- 

 ice of the United States and identified his fortunes with those 

 of Virginia and the Confederacy. There can be no doubt of his 

 disinterestedness in taking this course. His merits and the value 

 of his services were generally recognized throughout the North, 

 and he had but recently given courses of lectures in the principal 

 towns and cities, which were a series of popular ovations to him. 

 In going into the service of the Confederacy he put himself under 

 the direction, as his immediate superiors, of two men who, as 

 United States Senators, had been prominent in opposition to his 

 reinstatement after he had been put upon the retired list, and who 

 are said to have been hostile to him before the war and through 

 it. Of the manner of his leaving the service of the United States, 

 he said, May 12, 1861, in a letter to a friend in Newburg, N. Y. : 

 " I only saw last night the remarks of the Boston Traveller about 

 Lieutenant Maury's treachery, his desertion, removal of buoys. 

 It's all a lie ! I resigned and left the observatory on Saturday 

 the 12th ult. I worked as hard and as faithfully for ' Uncle Sam * 

 up to three o'clock of that day as I ever did, and at three o'clock 

 I turned everything — all the public property and records of the 

 office — regularly over to Lieutenant Whiting, the proper officer in 

 charge. I left in press Nautical Monograph, No. 3, one of the 

 most valuable contributions I ever made to navigation ; and, just 

 as I left it, it is now in course of publication there, though I shall 



