Matthew Fontaine Maury - The physical geography of the sea (1854)

10 Sourced Quotes

View all Matthew Fontaine Maury Quotes
There is a river in the ocean: in the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows; its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm; the Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters.

Matthew Fontaine Maury
The rules of scientific investigation always require us, when we enter the domains of conjecture, to adopt that hypothesis by which the greatest number of known facts and phenomena may be reconciled.

Matthew Fontaine Maury
The billows there lift themselves up in long ridges with deep hollows between them. They run high and fast, tossing their white caps aloft in the air, looking like the green hills of a rolling prairie capped with snow, and chasing each other in sport. Still their march is stately and their roll majestic.

Matthew Fontaine Maury
Long as we are making progress in any field of physical research, so long must the results continue to increase in value; and just so long must what at first was conjecture grow and gain as truth, or fade and fall as error.

Matthew Fontaine Maury
We never tire of the sea; it is a laboratory in which delightful processes are continually being wrought out for our admiration and use. Its flora and its fauna, its waves and its tides, its salts and its currents, all afford grand and profitable themes of study and thought.

Matthew Fontaine Maury
Physical facts are the language of Nature, and every expression uttered by her is worthy of our most attentive consideration.

Matthew Fontaine Maury
Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off, so as to expose to view this great sea-gash, which separates continents, and extends from the Arctic to the Antarctic, it would present a scene the most rugged, grand, and imposing. The very ribs of the solid earth, with the foundations of the sea, would be brought to light, and we should have presented to us at one view the empty cradle of the ocean....

Matthew Fontaine Maury
Harmonious in their action, the air and sea are obedient to law and subject to order in all their movements; when we consult them in the performance of their offices, they teach us lessons concerning the wonders of the deep, the mysteries of the sky, the greatness, and the wisdom, and goodness of the Creator.

Matthew Fontaine Maury
It is a custom often practiced by seafaring people to throw a bottle overboard, with a paper, stating the time and place at which it is done. In the absence of other information as to currents, that afforded by these mute little navigators is of great value.

Matthew Fontaine Maury
Our planet is invested with two great oceans; one visible, the other invisible; one underfoot, the other overhead; one entirely envelops it, the other covers about two thirds of its surface.

Matthew Fontaine Maury