Matthew Fontaine Maury, the Pathfinder of the SeasLewis, Charles Lee
History
Matthew Fontaine Maury, the Pathfinder of the Seas
Lewis, Charles Lee
Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 1806-1873
After this flood of eulogy had subsided, a period of some fifteen
years followed during which Maury’s name was wrapped in comparative
forgetfulness. Then, there appeared in 1888 the “Life of Maury” by his
daughter Diana Fontaine Maury Corbin, and the reviews of that volume
once again brought his name into the literary and scientific journals
where the praises of former years were repeated. The _Athenaeum_ of
July 21, 1888, after pointing out how Maury’s meteorological work
had come to be unduly depreciated, declared, “The work (_Physical
Geography of the Sea_) remains one of undoubted genius—great if only
for the impulse which it gave to the study of this particular branch
of physical geography and for the enormous advance in the science of
meteorology which we owe to it”. The _Saturday Review_ of October 20,
1888 said that scientific navigation was almost non-existant before
Maury’s work and that he had improved the course of every ship on the
sea. It would be tedious to quote further from these reviews, and it
will be sufficient to state that they were unanimous in their opinion
that Maury deserved high rank among the great scientists of the world
because of his pioneer work in the field of oceanography.
In this connection, there is a letter which, because of the fame of
its author as well as the pertinence of its contents, is of peculiar
interest. Thomas Nelson Page, the distinguished Virginia novelist,
wrote to Mrs. Matthew Fontaine Maury,[28] on the receipt of a copy of
Mrs. Corbin’s biography of her father, as follows: “Please accept my
thanks for the biography of your distinguished husband which will be
an addition to our library both on account of its literary merit and
of the information it contains of one of our greatest men. I trust you
may live to see the services he rendered mankind suitably commemorated
by a monument worthy of him. But whether you do or not, the time will
assuredly come when he will be recognized by our people as an honor to
the race from which he sprang. I esteem it one of my privileges that
in my youth I knew personally two such men as General Lee and your
honored husband”.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account