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PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



had been kept at the observatory instead of being sent to sea. 

 Ex-Secretary Graham answered : " I considered your services 

 at the National Observatory of far more importance and value 

 to the country and the navy than any that could be rendered 

 by an officer of your grade at sea in the time of peace. Indeed, 

 I doubt whether the triumphs of navigation and of the knowl- 

 edge of the sea achieved under your superintendence of the 

 observatory will not contribute as much to an effective naval 

 service and to the national fame as the brilliant trophies of our 

 arms." Mr. John P. Kennedy wrote, " From my knowledge of 

 the nature of your scientific pursuits, their usefulness to the 

 country, and your devotion to them, I can say that nothing but 

 such an emergency as left me no alternative would have in- 

 duced me to withdraw you from your labours at the observa- 

 tory by an order to go to sea." Mr. William Ballard Preston 

 wrote to similar effect. In the following winter Maury was, 

 by special act of Congress, reinstated and promoted to the 

 rank of commander, with back pay from the date of his retire- 

 ment. 



Other schemes discussed by Lieutenant Maury in general or 

 special papers included the location of lighthouses on the 

 Florida and Gulf coasts; systematic observations of the rise 

 and fall of the water in the Mississippi River and its tributaries, 

 with gauges at all the principal towns ; the redemption of the 

 " drowned lands " of the Mississippi ; navigation by great-circle 

 routes ; a ship canal and railroad across the Isthmus, which he 

 insisted should be by way of Panama or Nicaragua rather 

 than Tehuantepec; the establishment of a great port at Nor- 

 folk, Va. ; and the colonization of the surplus black and other 

 population of the South in the valley of the Amazon. The 

 Darien expedition of Lieutenant Strain and Lieutenant Hern- 

 don's exploration of the Amazon were connected with two of 

 these schemes. The " lane route," followed by some of the 

 transatlantic steamship lines, originated in the publication by 

 Maury, in 1855, of a chart on which two lanes were laid down, 

 each twenty-five miles broad, by following which the danger of 

 collisions might be reduced. In acknowledgment of the value 

 of the service rendered by this plan, and by the wind and cur- 

 rent charts and sailing directions, the merchants and under- 

 writers of New York presented him with five thousand dollars 

 in gold and a handsome service of silver. 



