with the aid of the Wind and Current Charts furnished by Lieutenant Maury. Soon there were many followers among American sea-captains, who gave their earnest co-operation and received great benefits in return, since all who kept Maury's Log, as it was called, were entitled to a copy of the Sailing Directions.
In 1856 the captains and officers of a fleet of no less than a thousand merchant ships, sailing under the United States flag upon every sea and ocean, were recording daily and almost hourly observations of the winds and currents. Under the British flag were to be counted the whole Navy of Great Britain and over one hundred merchantmen; under the flag of Holland, two hundred and twenty-five merchant ships and those of the Royal Navy. Besides these there were the ships of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Chile, Bremen, and Hamburg, all co-operating and assisting this great scientist in his noble work.
Maury's Physical Geography of the Sea (1853), the first work of the kind which appeared, ran through twenty editions and was translated into French, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian. This book treats of the clouds, winds, and currents of the ocean in a scientific yet attractive manner, dispelling the last of the sea myths which for ages had been the delight of poets and the terror of sailors, and in their stead relating a story of scientific discovery of greater wonder and beauty than any fable.
Maury's researches had, however, a very practical side to them. Hunt's Merchants' Magazine for
