Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/143

Rh National Observatory; also letters about two lines of railroad through the United States to the Pacific—"One should be through the North-West, the other through Texas." Copies of these, or of others on many subjects of national interest, can be obtained by reference to Lieutenant Maury's official letter books at the National Observatory."

In consequence of these and other writings, the Navy Department sent Lieutenant Strain and several other naval officers, including engineer John Minor Maury (a young nephew of Lieutenant Maury's) being of the party, on the celebrated but ill fated Darien Exploring Expedition, which, owing to defective maps and bad guides, proved a most disastrous one.

After untold privations from hunger and other causes, and the loss of several lives, they reached the other side; but for the last two weeks they were out. "Jack Maury" was the only one who had strength left to carry a shot-gun and he kept the men alive by his devoted exertions.

In 1845, Maury read a paper before the Virginia Commercial Convention on the "Commercial prospects of the South." In it he says, "Geographically speaking, Norfolk is in a position to command the business of the Atlantic seaboard. It is midway between the coasts, has a back country of surpassing fertility, of great capacity and resources. The waters which flow past Norfolk into the sea divide the producing States from the consuming States of the Atlantic slope, the agricultural from the manufacturing; and these same waters at this one place form the natural channels that lead from the most famous regions of the country for corn, wheat, and tobacco, to the great commercial marts.

“Virginia saw these advantages some ten years ago and slept upon them. She sees that Nature has placed them