CHAPTER VI

HIS PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA

Maury’s investigations of the winds and currents of the sea led him into researches connected with all the phenomena of the ocean, the results of which were so extensive and so valuable as to win for him the right to be called the first great oceanographer of the world.

At the beginning of his work at the Depot of Charts and Instruments, he uncovered in the old log books facts relating to the Gulf Stream, which led him to certain interesting conclusions concerning this great ocean current that had not been previously recognized. In July, 1843 he gave an address before the President, the Corps Diplomatique, and important government officials on “The Gulf Stream and Its Causes”, which was reread with certain variations before several different learned societies during the following year. He continued to write such scientific papers on topics bearing on oceanography, while he was engaged in astronomical work and the preparation of his wind and current charts, and these papers, after being delivered before scientific societies, were published by him in the astronomical and meteorological publications of his office. Of particular note were those which appeared in the different editions of his “Sailing Directions” under such titles as “The Influence of the Gulf Stream on the Trade of Charleston”, “The Currents of the Sea”, “On the Saltness of the Sea”, “On the General Circulation of the Atmosphere”, “Red Fogs and Sea Dust”, “On the Probable Relation between Magnetism and the Circulation of the Atmosphere”, “Of Clouds and Equatorial Cloud Rings”, “On the Geological Agency of the Winds”, and “Deep Sea Soundings”.

The last-mentioned paper was made possible by the coöperation afforded by the government in authorizing in 1849 the Secretary of the Navy to detail three suitable vessels to assist in Maury’s wind and current investigations and to order all ships of the navy to coöperate in so far as it was compatible with the public interest. Maury had long had a desire to explore the bottom of the ocean, and he now saw to it that these ships especially detailed to help him were equipped and thoroughly instructed for making soundings. The first attempts were made by the schooner _Taney_, under the command of Lieutenant J. C. Walsh, in the autumn of 1849. But her work was of negligible value, as she succeeded only in losing some 5700 fathoms of line as well as her deep-sea sounding apparatus, and then proved so unseaworthy that she had to be condemned and sent back home under escort. Later, however, the results secured particularly by Captain Charles T. Platt in the sloop of war _Albany_ and by Lieutenants S. P. Lee and O. H. Berryman in the brig _Dolphin_ were of great importance. So extensive was the data regarding soundings at Maury’s command by the close of the year 1853 that he was able to publish in the sixth edition of his “Sailing Directions” (1854) ninety pages of matter under the heading of “Physical Geography of the Sea”.

This edition of the “Sailing Directions” was brought out by E. C. and J. Biddle of Philadelphia, and when Maury’s nephew, Dabney Maury, went to see the publishers about some question connected with its publication, one of the firm called his attention to the fact that Maury’s annual report contained materials for a most interesting and valuable book. He warned him that, unless the results of his investigations were thus guarded by a copyright, he would have the chagrin of seeing “some Yankee bookmaker steal his thunder and reap a fortune from it”. By the next mail Maury was advised of this. He at once became interested in the undertaking and, with the advice of the Biddles, arrangements were made with Harpers for the publication of such a book. It was begun in the spring of 1854, and finished and ready for the publishers by June 20 of the same year. Maury was of the opinion that it was to be his “_great_ work”, and time certainly proved that he had not overestimated its importance.

The title of the book was taken from one of the chapter headings in the sixth edition of his “Sailing Directions”, and was originally suggested to Maury by Humboldt, who wrote that Maury’s investigations had produced an amount of useful information sufficient, in his opinion, to constitute a new department of science which he called the Physical Geography of the Seas. The first edition, published early in the year 1855, contained only 274 pages, and was dedicated “as a token of friendship and a tribute to worth” to George Manning of New York who had been of great assistance to Maury in the distribution of the wind and current charts. In 1861, the eighth and last American edition of 474 pages appeared, and at about the same time an English edition was published by Sampson Low, Son and Company in London. This American edition was dedicated to William C. Hasbrouck of Newburgh, New York “as a token of the friendship and esteem, from boyhood till now, of his former pupil”; while the English edition was inscribed to Lord Wrottesley. The book ran to as many as nineteen editions in England, where it bore the somewhat fuller title of “Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology”. It has been translated into Dutch, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Norwegian, and has been used as a textbook in several naval schools on the Continent.

As to the contents and general scope of his book, Maury wrote in the introduction, “Under this term will be included a philosophical account of the winds and currents of the sea; of the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean; of the temperature and depth of the sea; of the wonders that are hidden in its depths; and of the phenomena that display themselves at its surface. In short, I shall treat of the economy of the sea and its adaptations—of its salts, its waters, its climates, and its inhabitants, and of whatever there may be of general interest in its commercial uses or industrial pursuits, for all such things pertain to its Physical Geography”. It contained also a number of illustrative plates, among which was the first bathymetric map ever made of the North Atlantic Ocean, with contour-lines drawn in at 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000 fathoms.

Some idea of the nature of the book and of Maury’s peculiar style can be best secured by the consideration of some selections taken from it here and there. Those quoted below are, of course, of the nature of “purple patches”, for it must not be supposed that there are no dry and uninteresting passages in the book; but they are fairly representative and will probably serve the purpose intended. Maury was the first scientist to make a careful study of the Gulf Stream, and the first chapter of his “Physical Geography of the Sea” is devoted to this mighty ocean current. The reader’s interest is gained and his imagination is excited at once by these opening sentences: “There is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater”.

In the chapter on the “Influence of the Gulf Stream upon Climates” is the following striking passage on whales and other animals of the sea: “Now, the Western Islands is the great place of resort for whales: and at first there is something curious to us in the idea that the Gulf of Mexico is the harvest-field, and the Gulf Stream the gleaner which collects the fruitage planted there, and conveys it thousands of miles off to the hungry whale at sea. But how perfectly in unison is it with the kind and providential care of that great and good Being which feeds the young ravens when they cry, and caters for the sparrow....

“The inhabitants of the ocean are as much the creatures of climate as are those of the dry land; for the same Almighty hand, which decked the lily and cares for the sparrow, fashioned also the pearl and feeds the great whale, and adapted each to the physical conditions by which His providence has surrounded it. Whether of the land or the sea, the inhabitants are all His creatures, subjects of His laws, and agents of His economy. The sea, therefore, we may safely infer, has its offices and duties to perform; so, may we infer, have its currents, and so, too, its inhabitants; consequently, he who undertakes to study its phenomena must cease to regard it as a waste of waters. He must look upon it as a part of that exquisite machinery by which the harmonies of nature are preserved, and then he will begin to perceive the developments of order and the evidences of design; these make it a most beautiful and interesting subject for contemplation”.

This idea of divine order and design occurs again and again in the book like the motive in a piece of music; in fact, Maury, though he did not formally enter the church until late in life, was a very religious man and well read in the Bible, quotations from which appear in his writings by the dozen. He had very definite ideas about the relation between science and the Bible, and declared that it was his rule never to forget who was the Author of the great volume which Nature spreads out before men, and always to remember that the same Being was the author of the book which revelation holds forth for contemplation. It was his opinion that, though the works were entirely different, their records were equally true, and that when they bear upon the same point, as they occasionally do, it would be impossible for them to contradict each other. If the two cannot be reconciled, the fault therefore is in man’s weakness and blindness in interpreting them aright.

To return to the “Physical Geography of the Sea”, the chapter on the atmosphere contains many noteworthy passages such as the following: “... The atmosphere is something more than a shoreless ocean, at the bottom of which he (man) creeps along. It is an envelope or covering for the dispersion of light and heat over the surface of the earth; it is a sewer into which, with every breath we draw, we cast vast quantities of dead animal matter; it is a laboratory for purification, in which that matter is recompounded, and wrought again into wholesome and healthful shapes; it is a machine for pumping up all the rivers from the sea, and conveying the waters from their fountains on the ocean to their sources in the mountains; it is an inexhaustible magazine, marvellously adapted for many benign and beneficent purposes.... To evaporate water enough annually from the ocean to cover the earth, on the average, five feet with rain; to transport it from one zone to another; and to precipitate it in the right places, at suitable times, and in the proportions due, is one of the offices of the grand atmospheric machine. This water is evaporated principally from the torrid zone. Supposing it all to come thence, we shall have, encircling the earth, a belt of ocean three thousand miles in breadth, from which this atmosphere evaporates a layer of water annually sixteen feet in depth. And to hoist up as high as the clouds, and lower again all the water in a lake sixteen feet deep, and three thousand miles broad, and twenty-four thousand long, is the yearly business of this invisible machinery. What a powerful engine is the atmosphere! and how nicely adjusted must be all the cogs, and wheels, and springs, and _compensations_ of this exquisite piece of machinery, that it never wears out nor breaks down, nor fails to do its work at the right time, and in the right way”.

One other selection, from the chapter on “The Salts of the Sea”, will be sufficient as illustrative material. “Take for example”, he writes, “the coral islands, reefs, beds, and atolls, with which the Pacific Ocean is studded and garnished. They were built up of materials which a certain kind of insect quarried from the sea water. The currents of the sea ministered to this little insect—they were its _hod carriers_. When fresh supplies of solid matter were wanted for the coral rock upon which the foundations of the Polynesian Islands were laid, those hod carriers brought them in unfailing streams of sea water, loaded with food and building materials for the coralline. The obedient currents thread the widest and deepest seas. They never fail to come at the right time, nor refuse to go; for, unless the currents of the sea were employed to carry off from this insect the waters that have been emptied by it of their lime, and to bring to it others charged with more, it is evident the little creature would have perished for want of food long before its task was half completed. But for currents, it would have been impaled in a nook of the very drop of water in which it was spawned; for it would soon have secreted the lime contained in this drop of water, and then, without the ministering aid of currents to bring it more, it would have perished for the want of food for itself and materials for its edifice; and thus, but for the benign currents which took this exhausted water away, there we perceive this emptied drop would have remained, not only as the grave of the little architect, but as a monument in attestation of the shocking monstrosity that there had been a failure in the sublime system of terrestrial adaptations—that the sea had not been adapted by its Creator to the well-being of all its inhabitants. Now we do know that its adaptations are suited to all the wants of every one of its inhabitants—to the wants of the coral insect as well as to those of the whale. Hence we say _we know_ that the sea has its system of circulation, for it transports materials for the coral rock from one part of the world to another; its currents receive them from the rivers, and hand them over to the little mason for the structure of the most stupendous works of solid masonry that man has ever seen—the coral islands of the sea”.

The contemporary reviews of Maury’s “Physical Geography of the Sea” gave unqualified praise to his style. The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ declared, “Often indeed his powerful imagination makes of Maury a veritable poet, and his descriptions recall involuntarily those stories of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’, which charmed our childhood, where Gulnare pictures for her husband marvellously the mysterious realms of the profundities under the sea”. Humboldt considered it an epoch-making book, and the French scientist Jomard congratulated Maury upon the accomplishment of a “work so difficult, so useful, so laborious”, which he regarded as a true present to physicists, geographers, and navigators as well as to the commerce of all nations. The _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_ joined in the hymn of praise with the opinion that “the good that Maury has done, in awakening the powers of observation of the officers of the Royal and mercantile navies of England and America is incalculable”, and added that such researches were exercising the most beneficial effect in improving and elevating the minds of seamen everywhere.

Some of Maury’s theories, however, were early questioned, especially the one regarding the causes of ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. He contended that they were set in motion by differences in specific gravity of the water in different places as caused by a disparity in temperature or in saltness. Sir John Herschel had considered that the currents were due entirely to the Trade Winds; and C. Wyville Thomson, who thought that Maury’s theory was ambiguous, was an adherent to the Herschel theory, though his colleague Carpenter was of a different opinion still. “It is now known, however,” writes Sir Willam A. Herdman,[7] “that the Gulf Stream is not an independent phenomenon, but is a part of the general system of surface circulation of the ocean, a system in which the currents, diverted to the east, as a result of the rotation of the earth in their course northwards from the equator, flow clockwise in the North Atlantic around a central, relatively calm area, the Sargasso Sea, in which seaweeds and other floating objects accumulate”.

When one considers how science develops, one theory changing or giving place entirely to another as new and wider research is made, such criticisms as those above do not lessen at all the estimation of Maury’s greatness as a pioneer scientist in a comparatively new field of investigation, nor do they at all rob him of the right to be called the world’s first great oceanographer. This is the opinion of a recent authority on the science of the sea, who writes, “Marine meteorology may be said to date from the time of M. F. Maury, U. S. Navy, whose ‘Physical Geography of the Sea’, though out of date as to facts and somewhat fantastic as to theories, remains a model book of popular science, written by a man who was possessed of all the knowledge of his time, and afire with the enthusiasm of research”.[8]

Maury’s researches in oceanography led to his connection with one of the most romantic and far-reaching scientific achievements of the century, the laying of the first Atlantic telegraph cable. Mention has already been made of the deep-sea soundings undertaken, under his direction, by American naval officers during the years 1849–1853. With the data furnished by these officers and by some others who were not engaged solely in sounding operations, Maury was enabled in the autumn of 1852 to construct an orographic map of the North Atlantic Ocean and to give a profile representing a vertical section of its bottom between America and Europe near the parallel of 39° north latitude. This showed the existence of what he called “the telegraphic plateau”.

Up to this time no specimens of deep-sea ooze had been brought up from the bottom, and each sounding involved the loss of all the twine used as well as the cannon ball attached to it; and besides there was some uncertainty each time as to whether the bottom had really been reached. Fortunately, Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke, who was then at the Observatory, invented a simple but effective contrivance known as “Brooke’s deep-sea sounding apparatus”, which was well adapted to Maury’s needs. The instrument was used by Lieutenant Berryman in the _Dolphin_ during the year 1853 with great success, and the specimens which he obtained from the bottom were forwarded by Maury to Professor Bailey of West Point, for examination under the microscope. Upon examination the specimens were found not to contain a particle of sand or gravel mixed with them, but to be mites of sea-shells as perfect and unworn as when they were alive. This suggested to Maury the idea that there were no abrading forces at play upon the bottom of the deep sea, and that, if an electric cord were ever laid down upon the telegraphic plateau, there it would remain without anything to chafe or wear it except alone the tooth of time.

Accordingly, when in February, 1854 the projectors of the Atlantic Telegraph inquired of Maury as to the practicability of submerging the cable, he was able to reply as follows: “From Newfoundland to Ireland the distance between the nearest points is about sixteen hundred miles, and the bottom of the sea between the two places is a plateau, which seems to have been placed there especially for the purpose of holding the wires of a submarine telegraph and of keeping them out of harm’s way. It is neither too deep nor too shallow; yet it is so deep that the wires, being once landed, will remain forever beyond the reach of vessels’ anchors, icebergs, and drift of any kind, and so shallow that the wires may be readily lodged upon the bottom. The depth of this plateau is quite regular, gradually increasing from the shores of Newfoundland to the depth of from fifteen hundred to two thousand fathoms as you approach the other side. Whether it be better to lead the wires from Newfoundland or Labrador is not now the question; nor do I pretend to consider the question as to the possibility of finding a time calm enough, the sea smooth enough, a wire long enough, and a ship big enough to carry and lay a coil of wire 1600 miles in length. I simply address myself at this time to the question in so far as the bottom of the sea is concerned; and as for that, the greatest practical difficulty will, I apprehend, be found after reaching soundings at either end of the line, and not in the deep-sea. A wire laid across from either of the above-mentioned places on this side would pass to the north of the Grand Banks and rest on that beautiful plateau to which I have alluded, and where the water of the sea appears to be as quiet and as completely at rest as it is at the bottom of a mill-pond. Therefore, so far as the bottom of the deep-sea between Newfoundland or the mouth of the St. Lawrence and Ireland is concerned, the practicability of a submarine telegraph across the Atlantic is proved”.

Maury first began in November, 1853 to correspond with Cyrus W. Field, one of the prime movers in the enterprise, and soon thereafter he met him personally. In the following year, Field invited Maury to become financially connected with the submarine telegraph, but this was declined on the grounds that he could not then be a disinterested adviser of the company. Field came to Maury often, sometimes every day for weeks at a time, to consult as to the size and material for the cable, which according to Field’s first estimate was large enough, Maury playfully said, for the young whales to amuse themselves romping over it. Maury also devised a plan for making, coiling, and laying down the cable; and when somewhat later Field wrote asking on behalf of the company in regard to the best route and time for laying it, Maury with the help of his assistants consulted the results of 260,000 days of observations at sea and replied that the most propitious time for their undertaking would be either the last of July or the first of August, and that the steamer with the western end of the telegraphic cord on board would be less liable than the other to encounter a gale.

Field greatly appreciated Maury’s advice, and invited him and his wife and two daughters to go on an excursion in the summer of 1855 to witness the laying of that part of the cable between Newfoundland and Cape Breton. He also gave permission that the National Observatory should be the first to use the telegraph to determine longitude across the Atlantic. In giving this assurance, Field wrote of the great help which Maury was rendering in “illuminating the path for the lightning”.

In the year 1856, Lieutenant Berryman in the _Arctic_ made soundings from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Queenstown, Ireland, both on the outward and homeward passages. But these soundings were very carelessly made, and finally had to be declared worthless by Maury. In the summer of the following year Lieutenant Dayman, Royal Navy went over the same course in the _Cyclops_ and made satisfactory soundings, which confirmed Maury’s earlier statements as to the existence of the telegraphic plateau.

The company met with many discouragements in the laying of the cable. An unsuccessful attempt was made in the summer of 1857, and three other failures followed the next year. But perseverance finally had its reward; the U. S. Steamer _Niagara_ and H. B. M. Steamer _Agamemnon_, after having met in mid-ocean and joined cables, set out for opposite shores where they arrived at Trinity Bay and Valentia Harbor, respectively, about the fifth of August, 1858. There was great rejoicing on both sides of the Atlantic, and a great banquet was given in Field’s honor by the city of New York at the Metropolitan Hotel on September 2, 1858. In his address on that occasion, Field referred to the many to whom he was indebted and mentioned “those never-to-be-forgotten philosophers Lieutenant Maury, Professor Morse, Professor Faraday, Professor Bache, and Professor W. Thomson, who have rendered more efficient aid without receiving any compensation”.[9]

In October of the same year, the telegraph ceased to operate because of faulty insulation. It appears that the company had not carefully followed Maury’s advice as to the size of the cable, and he had not himself been sanguine of success. After the failure, he contended that all that was needed was a cable heavy enough to sink with its own weight, and that there was no need for the iron wire which was wound round the gutta-percha that would itself be impervious to decay, that the strain of weight was all on the inner core of copper and had thus caused the trouble, that the iron wire on the outside might have interfered with the electric current, and that one large conducting wire instead of the seven threads woven together would have been better. But he added that he had no doubt as to the ultimate success of a telegraph across the Atlantic. Because of the Civil War, however, this was not to be accomplished until July, 1866; and as will be seen later, circumstances were then such as to prevent Maury from having any part in the final successful culmination of the project to which he had given so much thought and valuable assistance.

Maury’s researches in the science of the sea could not, perhaps, have been so fruitful in practical achievements, had there not been at this time such a widespread desire to learn more about the ocean. In America, it was a veritable age of geographical investigation and discovery. In addition to the Exploring Expedition under Wilkes, which spent three years and ten months in exploring the islands of the Pacific and established the fact of the existence of the Antarctic continent, there were many others of the same nature. Lieutenant William Francis Lynch, in 1847–1848, led an expedition which surveyed the Dead Sea; in 1850–1851, Lieutenant Edward J. De Haven commanded a squadron which went into the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin, and though unsuccessful in finding the English explorer, he made important scientific discoveries; Commander Cadwalader Ringgold, during 1853–1854, and then Commander John Rodgers, in the following years 1855–1856, explored and surveyed Bering Strait, the North Pacific Ocean, and the China Seas; and in 1853, Dr. Elisha K. Kane, U. S. Navy led another expedition into the Arctic regions in search of Franklin and off Greenland reached a stretch of water which he thought confirmed Maury’s theory as to an open polar sea. Between 1848 and 1852, Lieutenant John P. Gilliss conducted an astronomical expedition to Chile, Lieutenant Archibald McRae traversed the Pampas from Chile to Buenos Ayres, Lieutenant Isaac G. Strain explored the Isthmus of Darien, Lieutenant Richard L. Page investigated the La Plata and its tributaries, and Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon made his famous trip across South America from the west coast to the headwaters of the Amazon and then down that stream to the Atlantic. Furthermore, it was at about this same time that Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry went to Japan and by skillful diplomacy opened up that country to western civilization.

Maury simply reveled in the results of these various explorations, and his writings are filled with references to them. He knew all the explorers personally, and furnished many of them with helpful advice and encouragement in their undertakings,—especially Kane, De Haven, Lynch, and Herndon. Dr. Kane wished to name the open polar sea after Maury; but he waived the honor and wrote to Kane that he should yield to his friends and let “his name go upon the waters”, and to-day it is known as Kane Basin.

Maury’s investigations into the habits and nature of whales had led him to conclude that there was really a Northwest Passage as well as open water about the North Pole. The former theory was proved by Commander McClure of H. M. S. _Investigator_, July 31, 1850 to April 6, 1853, when he passed from west to east through the northern waters, and settled the question. As to the polar sea, it is interesting to note in passing that only recently two explorers of the air, Byrd and Amundson, both verified the truth of Maury’s theory.

As regards the Antarctic regions, Maury called upon the nations of the world to coöperate in sending an expedition there. “Ho for the South Pole” was his slogan. “It is enough for me”, he wrote, “when contemplating the vast extent of that unknown region, to know that it is a part of the surface of our planet, and to remember that _the earth was made for man_; that all knowledge is profitable; that no discoveries have conferred more honor and glory upon the age in which they were made, or been more beneficial to the world than geographical discoveries; and that never were nations so well prepared to undertake Antarctic exploration as are those that I now solicit”. Though the Civil War interfered with the carrying out of plans for the exploring of that portion of the globe, yet Maury’s name deserves to be remembered among those whose continued interest in this enterprise finally led to the conquering of the South Pole.

Another contribution which Maury made was the laying down of lanes for steamers in the North Atlantic. The idea originated with R. B. Forbes of Boston, but was worked out scientifically by Maury. In the year 1855, at the instigation of a board of underwriters of New York, who paid for its cost, he published a chart illustrating what he called Ocean Lanes. To prepare this chart he studied the logs of 46,000 days of observations of the wind and weather of that part of the North Atlantic. Two tracks, or lanes, twenty miles wide, were laid down, to the more northern of which he proposed to confine the steamers westward bound, while the eastward bound vessels were to use the other, situated from one to ten degrees further south. Although the Secretary of the Navy immediately ordered the ships of the navy to observe these lanes, they were not generally adopted by the shipping of the world until about thirty-six years after they were formulated, and it was not until 1898 that all of the transatlantic steamship companies consented in a written agreement to use them. After a dispassionate investigation of the lanes, they said that they were impressed with the patience and researches that Maury must have made to have laid down such excellent paths, and they recognized that, had the highways been followed earlier, the great majority of the accidents which had befallen vessels in the North Atlantic might have been avoided.

Maury, then, was not merely a theorizer without the power of applying his ideas to the practical needs of men. His greatness consisted in his being a man of vision and imagination, and at the same time a man of tremendous industry who was willing to toil endlessly that his theories might be made practical realities. This aim of unselfish service to humanity was displayed in all his researches in the science of the sea, from which came the works upon which his claim to fame chiefly rests. These were “The Wind and Current Charts”, “Sailing Directions”, and “The Physical Geography of the Sea”. That such a claim is no idle one is borne out by the works themselves as well as by their influence upon all succeeding marine research, and it was the realization of this fact that led the Secretary of the Navy recently to give to the oceanographic research now being planned the name “Maury United States Naval Oceanographic Research”.