Tracks in the Sea: Matthew Fontaine Maury and the Mapping of the Oceans"Tracks in the Sea traces the arc of Maury's remarkable life from his birth in 1806 on a hardscrabble Virginia farm, the seventh of nine children, to a navy career culminating in the superintendency of the newly created U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. Self-taught and self-made, as passionate in his condemnation of bureaucratic incompetence as he was in his scientific explorations, Maury earned great admirers who would help his career and great enemies who would strive to sabotage it. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he abandoned his life's work to offer his services to his native South. |
Contents
Chapter Two The Lure of the Sea | 23 |
Chapter Three The Education of a Sailor | 37 |
Chapter Four A Thirst for Knowledge Unheeded | 61 |
Copyright | |
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abstract logs Bache became Bowditch Brandywine British cable calms Cape Horn Captain charts and sailing chronometer Clipper Ships coast command cousin Ann Maury crew cruise depot Dobbin East expedition Flying Cloud Flying Fish frigate Gulf Stream Herndon horse latitudes hydrographic Isaac Toucey James January Jones Joseph Henry July later latitude Letters Sent Lieutenant logbooks Marine Matthew Fontaine Maury Maury Collection Maury Papers Maury to cousin Maury to William Maury's charts merchant meteorology midshipman miles months Nathaniel Bowditch Naval Observatory navigation North Atlantic November November 19 observations ocean officers Pacific passed Physical Geography pilot charts plucking board route Sailing Directions sailing ships sailors San Francisco scientific Sea Witch secretary Semmes shipmasters skippers South steamer storms tion track Trade Wind U.S. Naval U.S. Naval Observatory U.S. Navy vessel Vincennes Virginia voyage Washington weather West whales Wilkes William Lewis Herndon winds and currents wrote York