248 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



One of the most recent memorials to Maury is as 

 interesting as it is appropriate. On December 22, 1925, 

 the Martin Vas Isles (Ilhas da Martin Vas) were visited 

 by the Schooner Blossom of the South Atlantic Expedi- 

 tion which was sent out by the Cleveland Museum of 

 Natural History for the purpose of collecting specimens 

 from the volcanic islands of the South Atlantic. These 

 islands, individually unnamed and hitherto imperfectly 

 charted, lie about eight hundred miles off the coast of 

 Brazil in the direction of Africa (latitude 20° 31' S., 

 longitude 28° 51' W.). Captain George Finlay Simmons 

 of the Blossom and his associates, impressed with the 

 importance of the work done by Maury, decided to give 

 his name to one of the three islands of the group which 

 rises from the ocean like an impressive monument. 



All of these memorials, so varied in their nature and 

 so widely distributed, would seem to indicate that 

 Maury's name is by no means likely to be forgotten. 

 Still, his name and his achievements are not so generally 

 known, even in the United States, as they deserve to be. 

 "For myself", wrote Julian Street^ a few years ago, "I 

 must confess that, until I visited Virginia, I was ignorant 

 of the fact that such a person had existed; nor have 

 Northern schoolboys, to whom I have spoken of Maury, 

 so much as heard his name. Yet there is not one living 

 in the United States or in any civilized country, whose 

 daily life is not affected through the scientific researches 

 and attainments of this man". One is surprised, how- 

 ever, sometimes to find foreign authors more familiar 



Station of the German Admiralty in Hamburg, Germany. Recently, the 

 M. F. Maury Chapter of the Children of the American Revolution has been 

 organized at Franklin, Tennessee by Miss Susie Gentry. 

 * In "American Adventures" (1917), pp. 140-145. 



