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406 probably not have the privilege of reading the proof.... As for the buoys, I touched them not! "The Grand Duke Constantine and Napoleon III offered him positions in Russia and France, respectively, which he declined. He became a member of a Council of Three to assist the Governor of Virginia, and in June, 1861, was appointed Chief of the Sea-coast, Harbor, and River Defenses of the South. He assisted in fitting out the ironclad Merrimack; invented a torpedo to be used for harbor and land defense; and was engaged, in the summer of 1862, in mining the James River below all the defenses, when he was ordered to go to Europe to purchase torpedo material. During the first and second years of the war he published a series of papers urging the building of a navy, and of protecting the bays and rivers with small floating batteries. He stayed in England, on Confederate business, till the surrender of Lee, when he dispatched a letter to the United States officer commanding the squadron of the Gulf, declaring that he regarded himself in the relation to the United States substantially of a prisoner of war. He then offered his services to Maximilian in Mexico, and accepted the position of Director of the Imperial Observatory. A plan he had conceived for the formation of a colony of Virginians in Mexico was accepted by Maximilian, and he was appointed Imperial Commissioner for Colonization. The scheme was, however, abandoned as soon as Maury left Mexico to return to England. His course in this matter was not approved by his friends, either in Europe or in America. It is claimed that he performed one great service for Mexico during his short career there, in introducing the cultivation of the cinchona-tree.

Returning to England in March, 1866, Maury was given a testimonial, by naval and scientific men, in recognition of his scientific worth and service. He was employed in Paris, by Napoleon III, to instruct a board of French officers in his system of defensive sea-mining. Returning to London, he opened a school of instruction in electric torpedoes, which was attended—at the expense of their governments—by officers of the Swedish, Dutch, and other nations. At the instance of Mr. C. B. Richardson, a New York publisher, he undertook a series of geographical text-books, saying as he went to his task, "I could not wind up my career more usefully (and usefulness is both honor and glory) than by helping to shape the character and mold the destinies of the rising generation." He also wrote a popular book on astronomy, which has never been published.

In 1868 Maury received the degree of LL. D. from the University of Cambridge, along with Alfred Tennyson, Max Muller, and Mr. Wright, the Egyptologist, and declined an invitation from Napoleon III to the directorship of the Imperial Observatory of France. Taking advantage of the general amnesty act to