When Maury went with his family to Lexington to reside, he was greatly pleased with his new home. “Here we are”, he wrote, “in our new home, busy fixing up; and things begin to know their places. So we also begin to have a home-feeling. People are very kind, the country is beautiful, the views and the scenery lovely, and both climate and air such that exercise is enjoyment”. In these congenial surroundings he set to work with a will in the performance of his new duties, special attention being given to the making of the physical survey of Virginia. The object of this work was twofold; namely, to hasten the development of all the state’s natural resources, agricultural and mineral, and to remove prejudice against the South so that immigrants would be attracted to the deserted farms. As in the old days at the Observatory, when he was investigating the winds and currents, Maury brought into play his power of inspiring others with enthusiastic coöperation, and soon reports and communications came pouring into his office at the Institute from all parts of the state. There was some rivalry, in the matter of the survey, between Washington College and Virginia Military Institute. Maury declared that the College tried to steal his thunder, and that he published what was called a “Preliminary Report” in order to “knock them on the head”. The complete survey was unfinished at the time of his death; but a portion of it was published by his son Matthew in 1878. Maury also continued work on his geographical series, only the first two books of which had been published before he left England. The “Academic Geography” of the original plan was abandoned; but in 1871 his “Manual of Geography” appeared, and in 1873 his “Physical Geography”. The first was very favorably received. One review dwelt particularly on the author’s power of making a tedious and dry subject interesting and agreeable, commended the illustrations, and declared that the book would delight any schoolroom in which the teacher is not hopelessly unfit to teach. “We are sure”, it continued, “that where it is adopted the geography lesson will become suddenly and surprisingly popular”. The preface to the edition, which was revised by Mytton Maury and re-copyrighted in 1880 by the University Publishing Company, stated, “Among the marked excellences of the early edition was its presentation of geography in the character of a science rather than an assemblage of disconnected facts. Land and air and ocean were treated as parts of a grand mechanism; rivers were discussed not simply as ‘divisions of water’ but as having definite ‘offices’ to perform; mountains were not merely masses of a certain altitude, but regulators of rainfall. It was also carefully pointed out how the geographical position and climate of a country determine its industries. Trade was shown to be in a special manner under the influence of geographical law”.