Seaman's Ocean — Lt. M. F. Maury, USN : 257 



Once he had the facts he was able to put them together into a com- 

 prehensive and eloquent picture of the structure and behavior of the 

 ocean of water on the surface of which man sails and carries on his 

 commerce and the ocean of the air at the base of which man dwells. 

 On the scientific side he first demonstrated that each has a structure 

 which could be made comprehensible to the human mind, and on the 

 practical side that patient study could make each serviceable to hu- 

 man welfare. 



Maury's lifework is surprising not only because he made discover- 

 ies in so many different fields but also because in each of these fields 

 he upset traditional beliefs and provided new ways of looking at the 

 world. 



Before Maury died he had received honors and rewards for his 

 work not only from his own country but also from most of the other 

 countries about the shores of the Atlantic. I am sure that no recogni- 

 tion Maury received in his lifetime would have had for him a greater 

 value than the one that comes each month of the year showing that 

 his work is still alive. Every pilot chart issued by the United States 

 Hydrographic Office carries this special notice: "Founded upon the 

 researches made in the early part of the nineteenth century, by Mat- 

 thew Fontaine Maury, while serving as a Lieutenant in the United 

 States Navy." 



You may investigate many lines of human activity and in few of 

 them will you ever find an extensive contribution like Maury's that 

 has had a continuous useful life for over a hundred years, and seldom 

 has a man earned so appropriate and so enduring a monument. 



The two related sciences that Maury began — meteorology and 

 oceanography — both needed two essential things: many co-operative 

 workers and international organization. Maury himself took the first 

 steps to secure the workers and the organization for it was at his sug- 

 gestion that delegates from many nations meet in Brussels in 1853 

 to constitute the first international conference on the study of the 

 sea. Maury also sought international agreement and action when he 

 published his letter concerning lanes for steamers crossing the Atlan- 

 tic in 1855. 



So much for theoretical organization. In practical ways ships of 

 many nations helped Maury to build up his charts, and English and 

 American ships both worked to build up the tables of Atlantic 



