Matthew Fontaine Maury

1806-1873

American Oceanographer

The first real scientist of the sea and the first oceanographer, Matthew Maury was called "Pathfinder of the Oceans." Scientific navigation did not exist before Maury, and his work improved the safety of every ship at sea. He wrote the first serious text on oceanography, The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), and inspired many students to study oceanography. He compiled charts of wind and wave patterns, currents, hazards of all oceans and harbors, and was the first to show that meteorology could become a science.

Matthew Maury was born in Virginia. When he was five years old, his father moved the entire family, five boys and four girls, to a cotton farm in Tennessee. The children worked on the farm and were educated in a small country school. Injured when he was 12 years old, Matthew was sent to the Harpeth Academy for further schooling. Though his father wanted him to study medicine, Matthew was especially drawn to science. His oldest brother was a naval midshipman whose adventures in the South Pacific may have enticed Matthew to a military career. It was a fateful day when, without his father's knowledge, Matthew secured appointment as a midshipman in the navy with the help of Sam Houston, then congressman from Tennessee. Matthew was 19 years old when he reported for active duty in August 1825.

The next four years shaped his education and his life's work. Sailing as a midshipman on three ships, he went all the way around the world, learned to sail and navigate, met all kinds of people, studied mathematics, geology, and astronomy and learned many languages. While visiting various countries, he compiled a lunar table to be used by navigators. When he returned home in 1829, the table was published, the first of many publications. He wrote more than 200 articles on navigation, oceanography, meteorology, astronomy, naval reform, and the need for a naval academic institution; the latter article spurred the construction of the U.S. Naval Academy in 1845. Maury also compiled a number of nautical charts. He collected information for his charts by communicating with all naval and merchant ship captains. He asked them to send him any information they had on currents, winds, and weather wherever they were in the world. The resulting charts made navigation less hazardous in all oceans and harbors of the world for anyone involved in merchant shipping or naval operations.

He settled in Virginia, married in 1834, had two daughters, and worked for extra money as superintendent of a gold mine. In the 1850s he charted the floor of the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and the United States, demonstrating that a telegraph cable could be laid to connect the two continents. He was soon promoted to the rank of Commander in the navy. His book The Physical Geography of the Sea was published in 1855.

Maury supported the Confederate States of America during the Civil War and was sent to England on a mission for his government. There he remained, receiving accolades from many nations on his work. He wrote a number of articles on his favorite subjects not only in English but also in French, Spanish, and German.

When the Civil War ended, Maury returned to Virginia and became superintendent of the Department of Charts and Naval Oceanography, which later became the U.S. Naval Observatory. He was a lecturer on meteorology at Virginia Military Institute when he died in Virginia in 1873.

LYNDALL BAKER LANDAUER