104 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



the attention of his audience, and few, we presume, cared 

 much for the lack of oratorical effect. We had never 

 given Lieutenant Maury credit for the power of poetical 

 description which he manifested in this lecture. Beauti- 

 fully written, rich in descriptive power and full of a 

 sailor's love for his ship, and his fondness for strange 

 scenes, we have rarely listened to a better specimen of 

 'word painting' than that which referred to a western 

 passage across the Pacific. But immediately after came 

 a description of the climate of Valparaiso, equally vivid, 

 and in his allusion to the stars of the Southern hemi- 

 sphere even more eloquent — one saw that night sky, a 

 vault of steel, the brilliant stars which shone upon its 

 surface and the planets brighter still, seemingly swim- 

 ming in mid air beneath them; and the Magellan clouds, 

 Vents in the azure robe of night, through which one 

 looked into the black profound of space beyond' ". 



On his next lecture tour, during November and Decem- 

 ber, 1858, Maury was gone about a month; he traveled 

 some five thousand miles and delivered twenty-five 

 lectures, at the following places: Rochester, Buffalo, 

 Cleveland, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Detroit, Kalamazoo, 

 Indianapolis, Laporte, Cincinnati, Springfield, and St. 

 Louis. The subjects that he discussed were: The 

 Atlantic Telegraph, The Highways and Byways of the 

 Sea, On Extending to the Lakes a System of Meteorolog- 

 ical Observations for the Benefit of Lake Commerce and 

 Navigation, On the Workshops and Harmonies of the 

 Sea, and The Importance of a Careful Meteorological 

 Survey of the Great North American Lakes. 



The various newspapers of these cities reported large 

 and appreciative audiences, with many often turned 

 away for lack of seats; and they invariably praised the 



