Yet there is no one living in the United States, or in any civilized country, whose daily life is not affected through the scientific researches and attainments of this man.
Maury's claim to fame rests on his eminent services to navigation and meteorology.

If Humboldt's work, published in 1817, was the first great contribution to meteorological science, it remained for Maury to make that science exact.
While it is perhaps an exaggeration to say that Maury alone laid the foundation for our present Weather Bureau, he certainly shares with Professors Redfield, Espy, Loomis, Joseph Henry, Dr.Increase Lapham, and others, the honor of having been one of the first to suggest the feasibility of our present systematic storm warnings.
Maury was born in 1806.

When nineteen years of age he secured a midshipman's warrant, and, as there was no naval academy at Annapolis then, was immediately assigned to a man-of-war.

Within six years he was master of an American war vessel.

Before starting on a voyage to the Pacific he sought information on the winds and currents, and finding that it was not available, determined himself to gather it for general publication.