E-text prepared by Brian Wilson, Robert Tonsing,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
(https://archive.org)
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/matthewfontainem00lewi |
MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY
THE PATHFINDER
OF THE SEAS
CHARLES LEE LEWIS
Associate Professor
United States Naval Academy
THE UNITED STATES NAVAL INSTITUTE
ANNAPOLIS
The United States Naval Institute
Annapolis, Maryland
LOUISE QUARLES LEWIS
October 25, 1927.
It is eminently appropriate that a life of Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury should be written in the environment of Annapolis, and by a professor in the United States Naval Academy, and The Maury Memorial Association is deeply appreciative of this splendid tribute to the name and fame of one of America’s greatest naval officers and benefactors.
Mrs. E.E. Moffitt.
President, The Maury Association.
Who has written the Foreword of this biography
FOREWORD
I believe that the most instructive form of reading is biography. In the story of a man’s life one can see in quick review the struggle that man went through to attain or to fail to attain his heart’s desire.
For the professional man, life stories of his colleagues and predecessors focus down to the particular problems of the profession. This is essentially the case with the story of a man like Maury. As a naval officer, Maury’s work will always remain outstanding. He was one of our pioneer investigators of the geography of the sea and the physics of the air. And at the same time he never lost sight of the intrinsic needs of his Service.
Since travel in the present age has become so common Maury may be looked upon as one of our great