92 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



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 v/hich 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 Mem- 

 phis, 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 forti- 

 fications 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 



