The Project Gutenberg EBook of A brief sketch of the work of Matthew
Fontaine Maury during the war, 1861-1865, by Richard L. Maury

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Title: A brief sketch of the work of Matthew Fontaine Maury during the war, 1861-1865

Author: Richard L. Maury

Release Date: October 14, 2010 [EBook #34068]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A Brief Sketch of the Work

of

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY

During the War 1861-1865

BY HIS SON

RICHARD L. MAURY

RICHMOND

Richmond

WHITTET & SHEPPERSON

1915

COPYRIGHTED, 1915, BY

KATHERINE C. STILES

INTRODUCTION

When I took charge of the Georgia Room, in the Confederate Museum, in
Richmond, Virginia in 1897, I found among the De Renne collection an
engraving of the pleasant, intellectual face of Commodore Matthew
Fontaine Maury, so I went to his son, Colonel Richard L. Maury, who had
been with his father in all his work here, and urged him to write the
history of it, while memory, papers and books could be referred to; this
carefully written, accurate paper was the result.

At one time, when Commodore Maury was very sick, he asked one of his
daughters to get the Bible and read to him. She chose Psalm 8, the
eighth verse of which speaks of "whatsoever walketh through the paths of
the sea," he repeated "the paths of the sea, the paths of the sea, if
God says the paths of the sea, they are there, and if I ever get out of
this bed I will find them."

He did begin his deep sea soundings as soon as he was strong enough, and
found that two ridges extended from the New York coast to England, so he
made charts for ships to sail over one path to England and return over
the other.

The proceeds from the sale of this little pamphlet will be used as the
beginning of a fund for the erection of a monument to Commodore Maury in
Richmond.

KATHERINE C. STILES.

TORPEDOES

Torpedoes as effective weapons