The American naval officer and oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873) is remembered chiefly for his The Physical Geography of the Sea of 1855, now recognized as the first textbook of modern oceanography.

On Jan. 14, 1806, Matthew Fontaine Maury was born near Fredericksburg, Va. When he was 5, his family emigrated to a farm near the frontier village of Franklin, Tenn., where he attended country schools and then entered Harpeth Academy. In 1825 he secured a midshipman's warrant and in the following 9 years made three extensive cruises, including one around the world. In 1836 he published A New Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Navigation, which the Navy immediately adopted as a textbook.

Maury first came into wide public notice through a series of articles dealing with naval reform written between 1838 and 1841. During this period he sustained a severe knee injury in a stagecoach accident, which resulted in permanent lameness and made him unfit for...