1013 



MAURY, MATTHEW FONTAINE, LL.D. 



NEWTON, REV. JOHN. 



1014 



phenomena as might appear to bear on the main objects of enquiry. An 

 ' Abstract Log ' of these observations was to be deposited at the 

 observatory at the end of each voyage. In the case of whalers, the 

 limits within which the " right whale " (or that which is the special 

 object of the whaler's search) was seen was to be carefully indicated. 

 In his report drawn up after nine years' experience, Lieutenant Maury 

 stated that abstract logs sufficient to make 200 large manuscript 

 volumes, averaging each from 2000 to 3000 days' observations, had 

 been collected, examined by a staff of officers selected for the purpose, 

 and the results tabulated. As soon as sufficient materials were 

 obtained, Lieutenant Maury issued a series of Wind and Current Charts 

 of the Atlantic Ocean, which were continually corrected and extended 

 as fresh matter was collected. 



As early as April 1844 he stated the result at which he had arrived 

 respecting the Gulf Stream, ocean currents, and great circle sailing, 

 in a paper which he read before the National Institute, and which, 

 under the title of ' A Scheme for Rebuilding Southern Commerce,' was 

 printed in the ' Southern Literary Messenger ' for July of that year. 

 But he published the full development of his views in the ' Explana- 

 tions and Sailing Directions to accompany the Wind and Current 

 Charts ; ' ' Notice to Mariners : being Routes to Ports in the Pacific, 

 Indian, and South Atlantic Oceans,' 1850 ; and the ' Investigation of 

 the Winds and Currents of the Sea,' printed in the Appendix to the 

 'Washington Astronomical Observations for 1846,' 1851. The vast 

 importance of the 'Wind and Current Charts,' and of the 'Investi- 

 gations, Explanations, and Sailing Directions,' has long been acknow- 

 ledged by all authorities. For the man of science, they have gone far 

 to remove .-previous errors of observation, and contradictory state- 

 ments respecting the great oceanic currents, and laid a secure basis 

 for the study of marine meteorology. But their practical and com- 

 mercial benefits have been even more striking than the scientific. To 

 the navigator they have been of incalculable value, not merely in show- 

 ing him the importance of scientific observations, but in enabling him 

 to avoid perilous tracts, and materially to shorten the passages at sea. 

 It was stated by President Pierce in his message to Congress in 1855, 

 that by means of the Charts and Directions " the passage from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific ports of the United States has been shortened 

 by about forty days;" the passage between the American and English 

 ports has also by the same means been very considerably shortened. 

 For the whale-fisher it was found that there were immense belts of 

 ocean from which by physical causes the " right whale " was entirely 

 excluded, and the true fishing-ground was very clearly indicated. 

 Again, the sytematic prosecution of deep-sea soundings, led, among 

 other things, to the discovery of what has been called the ' telegraphic 

 plateau,' the existence of which has rendered practicable an electric 

 telegraph between England and America. 



Following up his labours at home, Lieutenant Maury, when the 

 results of the system of regular maritime observations, which he had 

 organised, had placed their value beyond question, sought to render 

 the investigation as universal as possible by means of a general 

 scheme of international co-operation. With this view, having se- 

 cured the cordial assistance of the Royal Society of London, he, 

 with the sanction of his government, applied in the first instance 

 to the British Admiralty^ and happily succeeded in inducing the 

 British government to direct that corresponding observations should 

 be made by British ships of war, and recommending the same to the 

 Merchant service. The example and influence of the two great- 

 est maritime nations was sufficient to induce the other maritime 

 powers to promise their co-operation, and accordingly a congress was 

 held at Brussels, in 1853, which was attended by Lieutenant Maury, 

 at which a scheme was agreed to for a uniform system of daily obser- 

 vations at sea by the commanders of ships of all nations. The result 

 of this conference may be given in the words of Dr. Lloyd, in his 

 address as President to the British Association, August 1857 : " The 

 Report of the Conference recommending the course to be pursued in a 

 general system of marine meteorological observations was laid before 

 the British Parliament soon after, and a sum of money was voted for 

 the necessary expenditure. The British Association undertook to 

 supply verified instruments by means of its Observatory at Kew ; and 

 the Royal Society, in consultation with the most eminent meteorolo- 

 gists of Europe and America, addressed an able report to the Board of 

 Trade, in which the objects to be attended to, so as to render the 

 system of observation most available for science, were clearly set forth. 

 With this co-operation on the part of the two leading scientific 

 societies, the establishment was soon organised. It was placed under 

 the direction of a distinguished naval officer, Admiral Fitz-Roy ; and 

 in the beginning of 1855 it was in operation. Agents were established 

 at the principal ports for the supply of instruments, books, and 

 instructions ; and there are now more than 200 British ships so fur- 

 nished, whose officers have undertaken to < make and record the 

 required observations, and to transmit them from time to time to the 

 department. The observations are tabulated, by collecting together, 

 in separate books, those of each month, corresponding to geographical 

 spaces bounded by meridians and parallels 10 degrees apart. At the 

 present time 700 mouths of logs have been received from nearly 100 

 merchant-ships, and are in process of tabulation. Holland is taking 

 similar steps ; and the Meteorological Institute of that country, under 

 the direction of Mr, Bays Bellot, has already published three volumes 



of nautical information, obtained from Dutch vessels in the Atlantic 

 and Indian Oceans." 



In 1855 Lieutenant Maury embodied in a popular form the results 

 of his investigations on maritime geography and meteorology, in his 

 'Physical Geography of the Sea,' of which a second and enlarged 

 edition was published in the same year. As an original scientific 

 discoverer Lieutenant Maury is perhaps scarcely entitled to so high 

 a place as his countrymen claim for him. His attainments are very 

 extensive, but his great distinction lies in his faculty of eystematiaing 

 and rendering practically applicable other men's observations and 

 discoveries. In his enquiries on the ocean currents and the gulf- 

 stream, and in the construction of his charts, his course was plainly 

 marked out for him by Rennell ; and much that he has propounded 

 on marine meteorology was laid down by Dove and others. But he 

 has extended their discoveries and added others of his own, and he 

 has examined the great field of investigation more thoroughly and 

 seen its immense practical importance more clearly than any of hia 

 predecessors or contemporaries, and, what was of still greater conse- 

 quence, he at once perceived and applied the best possible means of 

 solving most readily and perfectly the remaining problems and render- 

 ing the results practicably available for the service of the navigation and 

 the commerce of the world. A man of profounder scientific acquire- 

 ments might have given a more learned aspect to his investigations, 

 but only one endowed with the rare practical genius, industry, and 

 energy combined with the thorough knowledge of nautical matters 

 of Lieutenant Mnury could have presented them in so clear and 

 workable a form as at once to have satisfied the judgment of scientific 

 men, removed the indifference of governments, and secured the cordial 

 co-operation of navigators generally. 



Besides the works already noticed Lieutenant Maury is the author 

 of a series of ' Letters on the Amazon and the Atlantic slopes of 

 South America ; ' ' Refraction and other Tables, prepared especially 

 for the Reduction of Observations at the National Observatory, 

 Washington ; ' ' On the probable Relation between Magnetism and the 

 Circulation of the Atmosphere : Appendix to Washington Astrono- 

 mical Observations, 1846' (1851); 'Astronomical Observations made 

 at the National Observatory' (1853); and a 'Letter concerning Lanes 

 for the Steamers crossing the Atlantic' (1854), in which he lays down 

 a plan for the avoidance of collisions with Atlantic steamers by 

 confining them to certain eastward and westward tracks or ' lanes,' 

 which he shows by observations taken from log-books extending over 

 46,000 days, would afford at the same time the most direct as well as 

 the safest routes. The official charts prepared by Lieutenant Maury 

 at the Naval Observatory, and published by the Bureau of Ordnance 

 and Hydrography at Washington, comprise : North and South Atlan- 

 tic Track Charts (8 sheets each) ; North Pacific Track Charts (4 sheets), 

 and South Pacific (2 sheets); North and South Atlantic and Cape 

 Horn Pilot Charts (2 sheets each); North Pacific (6 sheets), and 

 South Pacific Pilot Charts; Coast of Brazil Pilot Charts; Trade 

 Wind Charts of the Atlantic ; Whale Chart of the World (4 sheets) ; 

 Thermal Charts of the North Atlantic (8 sheets) ; Storm and Rain 

 Charts of the North Atlantic, &c. 



MILNE-EDWARDS. [EDWARDS, HENRI-MILNE.] 



MONK, DR. JAMES HENRY, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, 

 was born in 1784, and received his early education at Norwich Gram- 

 mar school and the Charter House. He subsequently entered at 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became Fellow and Tutor. In 

 1808 he was chosen to succeed the celebrated Richard Person as Regius 

 professor of Greek in the university. It was mainly owing to his efforts 

 that the present system of classical honours at Cambridge was estab- 

 lished, and the Pitt press founded. Asa scholar of Person's school 

 he is best known for his editions of the Alcestis and Hippolytus of 

 Euripides, and in the literary world for his ' Life of Bentley,' and the 

 'Adversaria' of Porson. He was appointed Dean of Peterborough 

 in 1824, and consecrated bishop of Gloucester in 1830; the see 

 of Bristol was added to his charge in 1836. He died June 6, 1856. 



NEWTON, REV. JOHN, well known as a divine, and as the friend 

 of the poet Cowper, was born in London July 24, 1725 (o.s.). _ His life 

 was a very remarkable one. His father was the master of a ship in the 

 Mediterranean trade, and at the age of eleven, young Newton (whose 

 only school-education yf&a from his eighth to his tenth year) accompa- 

 nied his father to sea, and in the following years made several voyages, 

 but with considerable intervals between them. From his mother be 

 had derived religious instruction and example, but she died while he 

 was very young, and he early fell into vicious habits. In his nine- 

 teenth year he was seized by a press-gang, and taken on board the 

 Harwich ship-of-war. His father however procured him recommenda- 

 tions, and he was placed on the quarter-deck as a midshipman. 

 Extreme carelessness at this time marked his conduct ; he forfeited 

 his captain's good opinion, and on the ship touching at Plymouth he 

 deserted, having heard that his father was at Torbay. He was speedily 

 captured, flogged, and degraded. Treated with contempt as well as 

 harshness, his lot seemed almost insupportable, and on the application 

 of an African trader off Madeira for assistance, he volunteered to go 

 on board, and accordingly obtained his discharge. This ship he left 

 on the African coast, and hired himself as a labourer on an estate on 



