"The 'National Observatory,' under Maury, comprehended in all essential particulars what now is divided into no less than four departments at Washington. In 1855 Maury published his popular work 'The Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.' The work has passed through twenty editions, and has found its way into the languages of Continental Europe. It is the very poetry of his great science, analyzing and tabulating millions of observations of the sea--its currents and its climates, its winds and rains and storms, its myriads of animal life, and marvellous formations of shore-lines and bottoms--he found his way to the heart of nature and laid before us, like an open book, her majestic laws. And never did scientific man touch nature in more devout spirit. In all he saw the handiwork of God. Investigations into the broad-spreading circle of phenomena, connected with the winds of heaven and the waves of the sea, never failed to lift his mind to the Creator. As he pondered these things, he heard a voice in every wave that chipped its hand, he felt a pressure in every breeze that blew, he knelt and worshipped God." STOOD WITH THE SOUTH. "The life of Maury fell on times when there were at work other currents than those of sea and river. Political passions blew to a gale and the nation drifted to Civil war. His supreme sense of duty, and loyalty to his own State, was the current that bore him away from Washington and stranded him in the final wreck of the Southern Confederacy. In those unhappy times no man sacrificed more than Maury. He not only resigned his high position at Washington, but turned his back upon tempting offers from Russia and France, in order to suffer affliction with his own people. In the Civil war he rendered most valuable service by introducing submarine torpedo warfare, and inventing a sure method of explosion by electricity. Much of his time was spent in England purchasing navy supplies and perfecting inventions in navy warfare. "After the war, Maury turned to Mexico and joined his fortunes to the Emperor Maximilian; but the tragic end of this friend and patron, again left him stranded. When, in 1868, the enactment of a general amnesty removed his political disabilities, Maury accepted the Chair of Meteorology in the Virginia Military Institute, and there spent the closing years of his life. He greatly rejoiced in this return to old friends and scenes, and addressed himself with ardor to congenial pursuits. But a constitution, not the strongest, gave way to the storms of the last years. The middle of October, 1872, on his return from a fatiguing lecture tour, as he crossed his threshold he said 'I am come home to die.' For four long months he lay weak and suffering. The end came on the 1st of February. 1873. A heavenly breeze bore him to the anchorage beyond the sea, and the trusting child of nature rested with his God.