Page:In Memoriam. Matthew Fontaine Maury.djvu/17

 science. The principal Powers of Europe recognized the value of his services to mankind. France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, Holland, Bremen, and the Papal States, bestowed Orders of Knighthood and other honors. The Academies of Science of Paris, Berlin, Brussels, St. Petersburg and Mexico conferred the honor of membership.

When Virginia, seceding from the Union, called upon her sons, he promptly resigned his position in the Federal Navy, to take part in the defence of his native State. He was selected as one of the Council of Three appointed to assist the Governor in that important crisis, and so served until the Army and Navy of Virginia were incorporated with those of the Confederacy.

When it became known in Europe that he had resigned his position in the Federal service, he was invited to Russia and to France, to continue in either of those countries the great work to which his life had been devoted. These offers, from a sense of duty, he declined. But the Government of the Confederate States, rightly estimating the great aid and service which he would render in that condition of affairs which made the South so largely dependent upon