HIS EXTRA-PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS 103 



delivered before the Lowell Institute of Boston in 

 December, 1856, on the general subject of 'The Winds 

 and Currents of the Sea". The Boston Daily Evening 

 Transcript reported the lectures and gave great praise 

 to ''Professor" Maury; while one who heard him wrote 

 in a personal letter, "It was a truly interesting lecture 

 and from our citizens there comes forth one response, 

 Excellent, Capital, The Lecture of the Season. It was no 

 common audience, I assure you. Many were present 

 who seldom attend evening lectures. All were enthusi- 

 astic in their praise. I was told by men high in ofhce 

 and the estimation of the community that it was the best 

 lecture and the most interesting to them that they had 

 ever heard. It was Lyceum night and the hour of 

 commencement was postponed in order to give that 

 audience a chance to hear, and they came and heard; 

 notwithstanding they had been sitting an hour to 

 another lecture, they sat still one and one-quarter hours 

 more and so still that throughout the whole one might 

 have heard a pin drop". 



For these lectures Maury was paid the sum of $500; 

 and on the same tour he delivered ten other lectures in 

 Massachusetts and New York at $50 a lecture. In 

 New York he spoke at Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, and 

 Buffalo. In the last-mentioned city two lectures were 

 given on November 27 and 28, and the account of the 

 first of these in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser is 

 most interesting. "We listened to Lieutenant Maury", 

 it reports, "with unalloyed pleasure. His appearance 

 is that of a kind-hearted, benevolent man of fifty; his 

 forehead that of a philosopher, his eyes and lower face 

 indicative of poetic sentiment. His delivery is neither 

 good nor bad, but he found no difficulty in enchaining 



