THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



333 



© Commander James B. Gilmer 



THE WHITE HORSES OE NEPTUNE I U. S. S. "NEW YORK" BEGINNING TO TAKE SEAS 



IN AN AUGUST HURRICANE 



"Sometimes we see a ship and sometimes we ship a sea," wrote Ben Bos'n. And when 

 a big battleship like the New York sticks its nose down into the trough of the sea, you may 

 depend upon it that it is no gentle breeze that agitates the waves. 



heart and proved that naval officers are 

 fit for something other than scrubbing 

 decks and tacking ships." 



This small depot, literally transformed 

 by his genius, has grown under navy in- 

 spiration and under navy direction, and 

 its usefulness in the past, at this critical 

 period, and in the years to come is be- 

 yond calculation. No wonder other lead- 

 ers would like to take over this product 

 of naval vision and naval achievement. 

 By the same token, the navy of the future, 

 with more time for exploration and sci- 

 ence, will serve mankind by perpetuating 

 under its own control the valuable serv- 

 ice there begun by Matthew Fontaine 

 Maury. 



A MANY-SIDED MAN WAS MAURY 



Merely to state the varied achieve- 

 ments of this master naval scientist at- 

 tests his many-sided service. In addi- 

 tion to his purely maritime discoveries 



and accomplishments, Senator Vest de- 

 clared "the whole signal-service system 

 of this country originated with the navy, 

 and the man in whose brain it first had 

 existence was M. F. Maury." His system 

 of weather reports has been extended so 

 that on land as well as on sea he was a 

 benefactor, whose ideas have not only 

 made for safety in navigation, but have 

 been of inestimable value to agriculture. 

 Maury stands easily at the head of 

 naval leaders of peace, and what he ac- 

 complished was not for the navy alone, 

 not confined to his country, but became 

 the property of men who follow the sea. 

 ' as well as men of commerce all over the 

 world. When Maury became head of the 

 Depot of Charts and Instruments, he re- 

 moved the old log-books, which had been 

 stored away as rubbish in the Hydro- 

 graphic Office. He extracted the valua- 

 ble information they contained, collected 

 data from every possible source. He 



