ment. While physically disabled, "his active and comprehensive 

 mind" planned reforms and other improvements of general inter- 

 est which were soon embodied in treatises and published incognito 

 in the Southern Literary Messenger under the title, "Scraps from 

 the Lucky Bag." Their publication brought him an ever-increas- 

 ing world audience and the adoption of many of his suggestions 

 contributed largely to the development of the country. 



Notable among these suggestions were the establishment of 

 a Naval Academy at Annapolis, where the young midshipmen 

 might learn the higher duties of their profession ; the building of 

 a dock and navy yard at Memphis, with a school of instruction 

 for naval engineers, that they might learn the use and control of 

 steam, then coming into use; the development of a ship canal 

 connecting the Illinois River and Lake Michigan, and the erection 

 of forts along the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. 



When it became known that Maury was the author of these 

 papers, his ability was generally acknowledged and his position as 

 an authority on naval affairs was established; as a result, on the 

 recommendation of brother officers, he was placed in charge of the 

 Depot of Charts and Instruments, which, under his direction, was 

 developed into the National Observatory and Hydrographic De- 

 partment of the Government. 



At this time Maury was thirty-seven years old and had been 

 seventeen years in the naval service. He now labored assidu- 

 ously to obtain information as to the winds and currents, by dis- 

 tributing to captains of vessels specially prepared log books, and 

 in the caurse of nine years he had collected a sufficient number of 

 logs to make two hundred manuscript volumes each with twenty- 

 five hundred days' observations. One result was to show the nec- 

 essity of combined action on the part of maritime nations, in re- 

 gard to ocean meteorology. This led to an international benefit 

 to navigation, as well as, indirectly, to meteorology. Maury at- 

 tempted to organize co-operative meteorological work on land, 

 but the Government did not, at that time, take any steps in this 

 direction. His oceanographical work, however, received recog- 

 nition in all parts of the civilized world. 



Of his meteorological work on land, with prophetic vision 

 Maury said, "Take notice now, this plan of crop and weather 



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