Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/329

 MAURY MAVERICK .^^ -^ ■:;f^t^eut^f^ was promoted master of the sloop-of-war Falmouth in 1831 and acting 1st lieutenant of the schooner Dolphin in 1832. He was transferred to the frigate Potomac and returned to the United States in 1834, and engaged in the publication of a textbook on navigation. He was promoted 1st lieutenant, June 10, 1836, and in 1839, on account of an accident which resulted in permanent lameness, he was obliged to retire from active naval service. He devoted the time of his confinement to study and literary work and to the improvement of the navy. He advocated the establishment of a navy-yard at Memphis, Tenn., and under his superintendence the first series of observations on the flow of the Mississippi river were made by Lieut. Robert A.Marr. He was active in behalf of the enlargement of the Illinois and Michigan canal, for which he received the thanks of the Illinois legislature; advocated the warehousing system in the interest of commerce, and suggested to congress plans for the reclamation of the submerged lands along the Mississippi. He was appointed superintendent of the depot of charts and instruments at Washington, D.C., in 1843, and upon its union with the national observatory in 1844 he was appointed superintendent of the combined bureaus. He engaged in determining the duration of winds and ocean currents and collected the material for his purpose from log-books of ships-of-war. In 1844 he read a paper before the National Institute on the gulf stream, ocean currents and great-circle sailing. He suggested a general international maritime conference to systematize the methods of observation and registry. The conference assembled at Brussels in 1853 and recommended a form of abstract log to be kept by ships-of-war and merchant vessels. He instituted a system of deep-sea sounding and suggested the establishment of a transatlantic telegraphic communication and indicated the course of the existing cable. He was promoted commander in 1855, and upon the outbreak of the civil war he resigned his commission in the U.S. navy. He w^as one of the council of three selected as assistants to John Letcher, governor of Virginia, serving until the incorporation of the army and navy of Virginia. In 1861 he entered the service of the Confederate States navy. He served on the court-martial of Captain Tatnall of the Vii'ginia (Merrimac) and established the naval submarine battery service at Richmond, Va., in October, 1862. He was sent abroad to continue his experiments on torpedodefence, and while in Europe he purchased and fitted out armed cruisers for the Confederate service and invented a method of arranging and testing torpedo mines which were in course of construction at Galveston, Texas, when the war closed. He removed to Mexico in 1865 and was appointed to a place in the cabinet of Emperor Maximilian and was sent to Europe on a special mission. Upon the outbreak of the revolution in Mexico he resigned his portfolio, returned to Virginia and resumed his scientific researches, and was appointed professor of physics in the Virginia Military institute in 1872, having refused the superintendency of the Imperial observatory at Paris. He received orders of knighthood from France, Prussia, Austria, Denmark, Russia, Belgium, Portugal, Holland, Sweden, Bremen, Sardinia and the Papal States, and was elected a member of the academies of science of Paris, Berlin, Brussels, St. Petersburg and Mexico. The degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Columbian university, D.C., in 1853, and by the University of Cambridge. He married Ann, sister of Lieut. W. L. Hemdon, U.S.N. His " Harry Bluff" articles in the Southern Literary Messenger^ led to the foundation of the U.S. Naval academy. He is the author of: Scheme for Rebuilding^ Southern Commerce (1851); Physical Geography of the Sea (1856); Physical Survey of Virginia (1868); and Resources of West Virginia, with William M. Fontaine. He also wrote: Letters on the Amazon and the Atlantic Slopes of South America (1853); Relation between Magnetism ajid the Circulation of the Atmosphere in the appendix to " Washington Astronomical Observations for 1846" (1851); Lanes for Steamers Crossing the Atlantic (1854); Manual of Geography: Mathematical, Civil ami Physical (1870); and Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology (1853). He died in Lexington, Va., Feb. 1, 1878. MAVERICK, Peter, engraver, was born inNew York city, Oct. 22, 1780: son of Peter R. Maverick, a silversmith and later an etcher and engraver. Peter became a skilful line engraver and worked principally for book publishers and bank note companies. He also taught the art, and among his pupils was Asher B. Durand, who became his partner in 1817. He was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design in 1826, and remained an Academician during hislife. He reproduced in line the portrait of Henry Clay, painted by Charles King in 1822; a portrait of General Jackson, from the painting by Samuel L. Waldo, and portraits of other notable publie men. He died in New York city, June 7, 1831.