CHAPTER VII 

 His Extra-Professional Interests 



During the many years he spent at the Naval Observa- 

 tory, 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 con- 

 nection, 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 im- 

 mediately 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 atmos- 

 pherical 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 



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