Matthew F. Maury was born near Fredericksburg, Virginia, but moved with his family to Williamson County as a boy. Most of his childhood was spent near Franklin, where he discovered the joys of mathematics. He entered the U.S. Navy in 1825 and became the navy’s foremost meteorologist and oceanographer. Maury was the first American to chart the oceans scientifically, and in the 1850s, he aided in laying the Atlantic Cable. He resigned from the U.S. Navy to enter the services of the Confederacy, becoming commander of all coast, harbor, and river defenses. After being pardoned in 1868, he returned home, and later served as a professor of meteorology at Virginia Military Institute. His works on geography were used long after his death and his pilot charts of winds and currents were translated into French and also used by the British Board of Trade.
- –Papers of Matthew Fontaine Maury, 1825-1960
- –Maury’s New Elements of Geography for Primary and Intermediate Classes, 1907, 1908, 1921
- –Elementary Geography: Designed for Primary and Intermediate Classes. Revised and Abridged from the “First Lessons” and “World We Live In” of M.F. Maury, 1881, 1921
- –Address of Com. M.F. Maury, before the Fair of the Agricultural & Mechanical Soc. Of Memphis, Tenn., 1971
- –A Physical Survey of Virginia: Her Geographical Position, Its Commercial Advantages and National Importance, 1869
- –Captain Maury’s Letter on American Affairs, 1861
- –The Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology, 1861, (edited by John Leighly), 1963
- –(Maury’s) Wind and Current Charts: Gales in the Atlantic, 1857
- –Observations to Determine the Solar Parallax (with James Melville Gilliss), 1856
- –The Physical Geography of the Sea, 1856, 1859
- –Amazon, and the Atlantic Slopes of South America, 1853
- –Explanations and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Wind and Current Charts, 1851, 1854, 1855
- –Lieut. Maury’s Investigations of the Winds and Currents of the Sea, 1851
- –On the Probable Relation between Magnetism and the Circulation of the Atmosphere, 1851
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