SHADOWS OF COMING TROUBLES 127 



master sat awaiting his death. When Maury deter- 

 mined to leave the service of the United States, he bade 

 his secretary (Mr. Thomas Harrison) write his resigna- 

 tion. That true and loyal heart, which had served and 

 loved him for almost twenty years, and whose fluent pen 

 had rendered him such willing service, refused its office 

 now; and, presenting the unfinished paper with one 

 hand, he covered his eyes with the other, and exclaimed, 

 with a choking voice and gathering tears, T cannot 

 write it, sir!' He knew it was the death-warrant to 

 his scientific life — the cup of hemlock that would para- 

 lyze and kill him in his pursuit after the knowledge of 

 nature and of nature's laws". 



As far as the disturbed political conditions permitted, 

 Maury continued his work at the Observatory down to 

 the very day of his resignation, his last publications 

 being Nautical Monographs, numbers 2 and 3, on "The 

 Barometer at Sea" and ''The Southeast Trade Winds of 

 the Atlantic" respectively. With the war clouds gather- 

 ing round him he had written, "What a comfort the sea 

 is ! I have withdrawn my mind from the heart-sickening 

 scenes that you gentlemen are meeting". But with his 

 leaving the Observatory this comfort was taken from 

 him, and instead of the quiet contemplative life of a 

 scientist he was to suffer for eight years the rough exi- 

 gencies and trying uncertainties of the Civil War and 

 its aftermath. 



