source, of a prize to the company through whose telegraphic wire the first messages shall be sent across the Atlantic.
M. F. Maury, Lt. U.S.N.
To Hon. J. C. Dobbin,
Secry. of Navy.
Maury's labours are noticed in the annual report of the Secretary of the Navy 1856, who dwells upon questions relating to ocean telegraphy in the following extracts:—
"The indefatigable Superintendent of the Naval Observatory, not content with aiding commerce and the untaught mariner by pointing out the safest and shortest tracks on the ocean where friendly winds and currents may be found, nor yet with the contributions to the intelligence of the country resulting from observing the stars of the heavens, has, for some time past, thought it not visionary to urge upon the public attention a new study, denominated by Baron Humboldt the 'Physical Geography of the Sea. He had also been so bold as to insist that, whenever a survey could be made of the bottom of the ocean between Newfoundland and Ireland, it would be ascertained that such were the moderate depths, such the perfect repose there, and absence of abrading or disturbing currents, that telegraphic wires could be laid as safely and successfully as upon land.
"Lieutenant Brooke, of the Navy, had invented a most ingenious yet simple contrivance, in connection with the shot used, by which the moment it touched the bed of the ocean it became detached, and carefully took up specimens of whatever it came in contact with, and brought them up safely to the operator. Many of our enterprising countrymen, very naturally desirous of seeing accomplished so grand an undertaking, were anxious that all doubts of practicability should, if possible, be removed by actual observation and examination.
