Abstract
MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY, whose death, on Feb. 1, we recently recorded, was of French descent, and was born in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, Jan. 24, 1806. While still a child, his parents, who were in moderate circumstances, removed to Tennessee, where young Maury was sent to school. In 1825, when nineteen years old, he entered the service of the United States as midshipman, circumnavigating the globe in the Vincennes, during a cruise of four years. During this cruise Maury began his well-known “Treatise on Navigation,” which was finished some years afterwards, and was for a long time used as a text-book in the U.S. navy. In 1836 he was made lieutenant and was gazetted astronomer to an exploring expedition.
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Captain M. F. Maury . Nature 7, 390–391 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007390b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007390b0