244 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



it one of my privileges that in my youth I knew person- 

 ally two such men as General Lee and your honored 

 husband". 



For many years repeated attempts have been made 

 to erect such an adequate monument to Maury as the 

 one mentioned in Page's letter. Immediately after 

 Maury's death, at the suggestion of Rear Admiral Marin 

 H. Jansen of Holland, some steps were taken toward the 

 building of a lighthouse on the Rocas Banks near the 

 coast of Brazil, as a fitting memorial to the great oceanog- 

 rapher. But the plan did not succeed, as foreign geo- 

 graphic societies wished the movement to originate in 

 America, and this country, when approached on the 

 matter, was found unsympathetic toward the under- 

 taking. The renewed interest in Maury which was 

 caused by Mrs. Corbin's biography led to an effort in 

 1890 to induce Congress to appropriate $20,000 to erect 

 a monument to Maury in Washington ; but this attempt 

 was not successful. Then, the Daughters of the Ameri- 

 can Revolution began a movement, which lasted for 

 about fifteen years, to interest the government in 

 building an appropriate monument in the nature of a 

 lighthouse upon the Rip-Raps in Hampton Roads, off 

 Old Point Comfort, Virginia. A final effort was made 

 to have the memorial built and to arrange for its unveil- 

 ing during the Jamestown Exposition in 1907; but failure 

 again met all endeavors. 



In 1915 it was suggested by the Superintendent of the 

 Naval Observatory that a memorial building in Maury's 

 honor to accommodate the Hydrographic Ofhce and some 

 of the Observatory activities be erected on the Naval 

 Observatory grounds, but the suggestion brought no 

 tangible results. On May 11 of that year, however, 



