Matthew Fontaine Maury, American Polymath

Matthew Fontaine Maury ((January 14, 1806 - February 1, 1873) was an American astronomer, historian, oceanographer, meteorologist, cartographer, author, geologist, and educator. He was nicknamed Pathfinder of the Seas and Father of Modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology and later, Scientist of the Seas, due to the publication of his extensive works in his books, especially Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), the first extensive and comprehensive book on oceanography to be published. Maury made many important new contributions to charting winds and ocean currents, including ocean lanes for passing ships at sea. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Maury, a Virginian, resigned his commission as a US Navy commander and joined the Confederacy. He spent the war in the South, as well as abroad in Great Britain, Ireland, and France. He helped acquire a ship, CSS Georgia, for the Confederacy while also advocating stopping the war in America among several European Nations. Following the war, Maury accepted a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He died in 187, at the age of 67, after completing an exhausting state-to-state lecture tour on national and international weather forecasting on land. He had also completed his book on his Geological Survey of Virginia and a new series of geography for young people

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1806 Astronomer Cartographer Currents Educator Geologist Maury Meteorologist Meteorology Oceanographer Oceanography Pathfinder Polymath Winds

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