1806-1873

American Oceanographer

The first real scientist of the sea and the first oceanographer, Matthew Maury was called "Pathfinder of the Oceans." Scientific navigation did not exist before Maury, and his work improved the safety of every ship at sea. He wrote the first serious text on oceanography, The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), and inspired many students to study oceanography. He compiled charts of wind and wave patterns, currents, hazards of all oceans and harbors, and was the first to show that meteorology could become a science.

Matthew Maury was born in Virginia. When he was five years old, his father moved the entire family, five boys and four girls, to a cotton farm in Tennessee. The children worked on the farm and were educated in a small country school. Injured when he was 12 years old, Matthew was sent to the Harpeth Academy...