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117-576: A ridge under the northern Atlantic Ocean was first inferred by Matthew Fontaine Maury in 1853, based on soundings by the USS Dolphin . The existence of the ridge and its extension into the South Atlantic was confirmed during the expedition of HMS Challenger in 1872. A team of scientists on board, led by Charles Wyville Thomson , discovered a large rise in the middle of the Atlantic while investigating

234-587: A Virginian , resigned his commission as a U.S. Navy commander and joined the Confederacy . He spent the war in the Southern United States , and Great Britain and France as a Confederate envoy. He helped the Confederacy acquire a ship, CSS  Georgia , while trying to convince several European powers to help stop the war. Following the war, Maury was eventually pardoned; he accepted a teaching position at

351-692: A commodore (often a title of courtesy ) in the Virginia Provisional Navy and a Commander in the Confederacy. Buildings on several college campuses are named in his honor. Maury Hall was the home of the Naval Science Department at the University of Virginia and headquarters of the university's Navy ROTC battalion until being renamed in 2022. The original building of the College of William & Mary Virginia Institute of Marine Science

468-484: A collection of all medals struck by Pope Pius IX during his pontificate, a book dedication and more from Father Angelo Secchi , who was a student of Maury from 1848 to 1849 in the United States Naval Observatory . The two remained lifelong friends. Other religious friends of Maury included James Hervey Otey , his former teacher who, before 1857, worked with Bishop Leonidas Polk on the construction of

585-666: A few years, nations owning three-fourths of the shipping of the world were sending their oceanographic observations to Maury at the Naval Observatory, where the information was evaluated and the results were given worldwide distribution. As its representative at the conference, the United States sent Maury. As a result of the Brussels Conference, many nations, including many traditional enemies, agreed to cooperate in sharing land and sea weather data using uniform standards. It

702-468: A land system of weather observations. Maury became convinced that adequate scientific knowledge of the sea could be obtained only through international cooperation. He proposed that the United States invite the maritime nations of the world to a conference to establish a "universal system" of meteorology, and he was the leading spirit of a pioneer scientific conference when it met in Brussels in 1853. Within

819-532: A large mound of sand spanning the width of the river 55 feet below the surface, allowing fresh water and large cargo ships to pass over. Fresh river water flowing from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico does not mix into the salt water immediately. The images from NASA 's MODIS show a large plume of fresh water, which appears as a dark ribbon against the lighter-blue surrounding waters. These images demonstrate that

936-703: A length of 3,710 miles (5,971 km), making it the fourth longest river in the world after the Nile , Amazon , and Yangtze . When measured by the largest stream source (by water volume), the Ohio River , by extension the Allegheny River , would be the source, and the Mississippi would begin in Pennsylvania . At its source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi River is about 3 feet (0.91 m) deep. The average depth of

1053-474: A look through the facility's telescope. As a sailor, Maury noted numerous lessons that ship masters had learned about the effects of adverse winds and drift currents on the path of a ship. The captains recorded the lessons faithfully in their logbooks, which were then forgotten. At the Observatory, Maury uncovered an enormous collection of thousands of old ships' logs and charts in storage in trunks dating back to

1170-410: A naming commission created by federal law to reexamine Confederate-related names and symbols on military installations. James Madison University also has a Maury Hall, the university's first academic and administrative building. In the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests , JMU student organizations called for renaming the building. On Monday, June 22, 2020, hearing the calls of students and alums,

1287-478: A natural process known as avulsion or delta switching, the lower Mississippi River has shifted its final course to the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment begin to clog its channel, raising the river's level and causing it to eventually find a steeper, more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributaries diminish in volume and form what are known as bayous . This process has, over

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1404-689: A school for the Navy that would rival the Army's United States Military Academy . That reform was heavily pushed by Maury's "Scraps from the Lucky Bag" and other articles printed in the newspapers, bringing about many changes in the Navy, including his finally fulfilled dream of the creation of the United States Naval Academy . During its first 1848 meeting, he helped launch the American Association for

1521-472: A vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny , the Mississippi and several tributaries, most notably its largest, the Ohio and Missouri , formed pathways for the western expansion of the United States. The river also became the subject of American literature , particularly in the writings of Mark Twain . Formed from thick layers of

1638-620: A warm surface current pushing into the Arctic, and logs of old whaling ships indicated that whales killed in the Atlantic bore harpoons from ships in the Pacific (and vice versa). The frequency of these occurrences seemed unlikely if the whales had traveled around Cape Horn . Lieutenant Maury published his Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic , which showed sailors how to use the ocean's currents and winds to their advantage, drastically reducing

1755-809: Is 208,200 cu ft/s (5,900 m /s). Thus, by volume, the main branch of the Mississippi River system at Cairo can be considered to be the Ohio River (and the Allegheny River further upstream), rather than the Middle Mississippi. In addition to the Ohio River , the major tributaries of the Lower Mississippi River are the White River , flowing in at the White River National Wildlife Refuge in east-central Arkansas;

1872-558: Is a meandering river in a broad, flat area, only rarely flowing alongside a bluff (as at Vicksburg, Mississippi ). The Mississippi River is known as the Middle Mississippi from the Upper Mississippi River's confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri , for 190 miles (310 km) to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois . The Middle Mississippi is relatively free-flowing. From St. Louis to

1989-494: Is called the Lower Mississippi River from its confluence with the Ohio River to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 1,000 miles (1,600 km). At the confluence of the Ohio and the Middle Mississippi, the long-term mean discharge of the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois is 281,500 cubic feet per second (7,970 cubic meters per second), while the long-term mean discharge of the Mississippi at Thebes, Illinois (just upriver from Cairo)

2106-868: Is controlled and managed as a series of pools created by 26 locks and dams. The Upper Mississippi River is joined by the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling in the Twin Cities ; the St. Croix River near Prescott, Wisconsin ; the Cannon River near Red Wing, Minnesota ; the Zumbro River at Wabasha, Minnesota ; the Black , La Crosse , and Root rivers in La Crosse, Wisconsin ; the Wisconsin River at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin ;

2223-535: Is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km ), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the world's tenth-largest river by discharge flow, and the largest in North America. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Many were hunter-gatherers , but some, such as

2340-509: Is largely a multi-thread stream with many bars and islands. From its confluence with the St. Croix River downstream to Dubuque, Iowa , the river is entrenched, with high bedrock bluffs lying on either side. The height of these bluffs decreases to the south of Dubuque, though they are still significant through Savanna, Illinois . This topography contrasts strongly with the Lower Mississippi, which

2457-590: Is named Maury Hall as well. Another Maury Hall housed the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Robotics and Control Engineering Department at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland . On February 17, 2023, the academy announced that it had renamed this building in honor of Jimmy Carter , the only Naval Academy graduate to become President of the United States. The change had been recommended by

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2574-528: Is the only true waterfall on the entire Mississippi River. The water elevation continues to drop steeply as it passes through the gorge carved by the waterfall. After the completion of the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in 1963, the river's head of navigation moved upstream, to the Coon Rapids Dam . However, the Locks were closed in 2015 to control the spread of invasive Asian carp , making Minneapolis once again

2691-1099: The American Civil War , Maury joined the Confederacy. Upon his resignation from the U.S. Navy, the Virginia governor appointed Maury commander of the Virginia Navy. When this was consolidated into the Confederate Navy, Maury was made a Commander in the Confederate States Navy and appointed as chief of the Naval Bureau of Coast, Harbor, and River Defense. In this role, Maury helped develop the first electrically controlled naval mine, which caused havoc for U.S. shipping. He'd had experience with transatlantic cable and electricity flowing through wires underwater when working with Cyrus West Field and Samuel Finley Breese Morse . The naval mines, called torpedoes at that time, were similar to present-day contact mines and were said by

2808-831: The Arkansas River , joining the Mississippi at Arkansas Post ; the Big Black River in Mississippi; and the Yazoo River , meeting the Mississippi at Vicksburg, Mississippi . Deliberate water diversion at the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana allows the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana to be a major distributary of the Mississippi River, with 30% of the combined flow of the Mississippi and Red Rivers flowing to

2925-564: The Confederacy during the American Civil War. He was nicknamed "Pathfinder of the Seas" and is considered a founder of modern oceanography. He wrote extensively on the subject, and his book, The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), was the first comprehensive work on oceanography to be published. In 1825, at 19, Maury obtained, through U.S. Representative Sam Houston , a midshipman's warrant in

3042-559: The Gulf of Mexico , part of the Atlantic Ocean. The total catchment of the Mississippi River covers nearly 40% of the landmass of the continental United States. The highest point within the watershed is also the highest point of the Rocky Mountains , Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet (4,400 m). In the United States, the Mississippi River drains the majority of the area between the crest of

3159-767: The Mariners' Museum property and is encircled by a walking trail. The Maury River , entirely in Rockbridge County, Virginia , near Virginia Military Institute (where Maury taught), also honors the scientist, as does Maury crater , on the Moon. Matthew Fontaine Maury High School in Norfolk, Virginia, is named after him. Matthew Maury Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia , was built in 1929. Nearby Arlington, Va., renamed its 1910 Clarendon Elementary to honor Maury in 1944; Since 1976,

3276-582: The Minnesota River , James River , and Milk River valleys. When the ice sheet completely retreated, many of these "temporary" rivers found paths to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean, leaving the Mississippi Basin with many features "over-sized" for the existing rivers to have carved in the same time period. Ice sheets during the Illinoian Stage , about 300,000 to 132,000 years before present, blocked

3393-477: The Mississippi River , Amazon River and Niger River ). The Fundy Basin on the Atlantic coast of North America between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada is evidence of the ancestral Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Matthew Fontaine Maury Matthew Fontaine Maury (January 14, 1806 – February 1, 1873) was an American oceanographer and naval officer, serving the United States and then joining

3510-545: The Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico . With its many tributaries , the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Illinois , Missouri , Kentucky , Tennessee , Arkansas , Mississippi , and Louisiana . The main stem

3627-459: The Mound Builders , formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations, and some practiced aquaculture . The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served sometimes as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain , New France , and the early United States, and throughout as

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3744-1226: The Rock River at the Quad Cities ; the Iowa River near Wapello, Iowa ; the Skunk River south of Burlington, Iowa ; and the Des Moines River at Keokuk, Iowa . Other major tributaries of the Upper Mississippi include the Crow River in Minnesota, the Chippewa River in Wisconsin, the Maquoketa River and the Wapsipinicon River in Iowa, and the Illinois River in Illinois. The Upper Mississippi

3861-403: The Rocky Mountains and the crest of the Appalachian Mountains , except for various regions drained to Hudson Bay by the Red River of the North ; to the Atlantic Ocean by the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River ; and to the Gulf of Mexico by the Rio Grande , the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, the Chattahoochee and Appalachicola rivers, and various smaller coastal waterways along

3978-458: The Tjörnes fracture zone connects Iceland to the Kolbeinsey Ridge . The ridge sits atop a geologic feature known as the Mid-Atlantic Rise , which is a progressive bulge that runs the length of the Atlantic Ocean, with the ridge resting on the highest point of this linear bulge. This bulge is thought to be caused by upward convective forces in the asthenosphere pushing the oceanic crust and lithosphere . This divergent boundary first formed in

4095-410: The Triassic period, when a series of three-armed grabens coalesced on the supercontinent Pangaea to form the ridge. Usually, only two arms of any given three-armed graben become part of a divergent plate boundary. The failed arms are called aulacogens , and the aulacogens of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge eventually became many of the large river valleys seen along the Americas and Africa (including

4212-654: The University of Tennessee . From statements that he made in letters, it appears that he preferred being close to General Robert E. Lee in Lexington, where Lee was president of Washington College. Maury served as a pallbearer for Lee. He also gave talks in Europe about cooperation on a weather bureau for land, just as he had charted the winds and predicted storms at sea many years before. He gave speeches until his last days when he collapsed while giving one. He went home after he recovered and told his wife Ann Hull Herndon-Maury, "I have come home to die." He died at home in Lexington at 12:40 pm on Saturday, February 1, 1873. He

4329-409: The University of the South in Tennessee. While visiting there, Maury was convinced by his old teacher to give the "cornerstone speech." As a U.S. Navy officer, he was required to decline awards from foreign nations. Some were offered to Maury's wife, Ann Hull Herndon-Maury, who accepted them for her husband. Some have been placed at Virginia Military Institute or lent to the Smithsonian . He became

4446-496: The Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia . He died at the institute in 1873 after he had completed an exhausting state-to-state lecture tour on national and international weather forecasting on land. He had also completed his book, Geological Survey of Virginia , and a new series on geography for young people. Maury was a descendant of the Maury family, a prominent Virginia family of Huguenot ancestry that can be traced back to 15th-century France . His grandfather (

4563-411: The Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic , which showed sailors how to use the ocean's currents and winds to their advantage, drastically reducing the length of ocean voyages. Maury's uniform system of recording oceanographic data was adopted by navies and merchant marines worldwide and was used to develop charts for all the major trade routes. With the outbreak of the American Civil War , Maury,

4680-402: The epicenter of many earthquakes . Ewing, Heezen and Tharp discovered that the ridge is part of a 40,000-km (25,000 mile) long essentially continuous system of mid-ocean ridges on the floors of all the Earth's oceans. The discovery of this worldwide ridge system led to the theory of seafloor spreading and general acceptance of Alfred Wegener 's theory of continental drift and expansion in

4797-429: The headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all contain locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river. Taken as a whole, these 43 dams significantly shape the geography and influence the ecology of the upper river. Beginning just below Saint Paul, Minnesota , and continuing throughout

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4914-422: The most recent Ice Age . The southernmost extent of this enormous glaciation extended well into the present-day United States and Mississippi basin. When the ice sheet began to recede, hundreds of feet of rich sediment were deposited, creating the flat and fertile landscape of the Mississippi Valley. During the melt, giant glacial rivers found drainage paths into the Mississippi watershed, creating such features as

5031-424: The "true head" of the Mississippi River as a combination of the last four letters of the Latin word for truth ( ver itas ) and the first two letters of the Latin word for head ( ca put ). However, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri , the waterway's flow is moderated by 43 dams. Fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in

5148-406: The 18th century, the river was set by the Treaty of Paris as, for the most part, the western border of the new United States. With the Louisiana Purchase and the country's westward expansion, it became a convenient boundary line between the western and eastern halves of the country. This is reflected in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which was designed to symbolize the opening of the West, and

5265-423: The 20th century, the Mississippi River has also experienced major pollution and environmental problems — most notably elevated nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff, the primary contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone . The word Mississippi itself comes from Misi zipi , the French rendering of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe or Algonquin ) name for the river, Misi-ziibi (Great River). In

5382-426: The Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 1849, Maury spoke out on the need for a transcontinental railroad to join the Eastern United States to California . He recommended a southerly route with Memphis, Tennessee , as the eastern terminus, as it is equidistant from Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico . He argued that a southerly route running through Texas would avoid winter snows and could open up commerce with

5499-462: The Confederacy. Maury traveled to England, Ireland, and France, acquiring and fitting out ships for the Confederacy and soliciting supplies. Through speeches and newspaper publications, Maury unsuccessfully called for European nations to intercede on behalf of the Confederacy and help end the American Civil War. Maury established relations for the Confederacy with Emperor Napoleon III of France and Archduke Maximilian of Austria , who, on April 10, 1864,

5616-402: The Earth's mantle (specifically, the Bermuda hotspot ) that was undergoing a period of intense activity. The upwelling of magma from the hotspot forced the further uplift to a height of perhaps 2–3 km of part of the Appalachian-Ouachita range, forming an arch that blocked southbound water flows. The uplifted land quickly eroded and, as North America moved away from the hot spot and as

5733-588: The Gulf of Mexico by this route, rather than continuing down the Mississippi's current channel past Baton Rouge and New Orleans on a longer route to the Gulf. Although the Red River was once an additional tributary, its water now flows separately into the Gulf of Mexico through the Atchafalaya River. The Mississippi River has the world's fourth-largest drainage basin ("watershed" or "catchment"). The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles (3,220,000 km ), including all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The drainage basin empties into

5850-409: The Gulf. The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles (160 km) downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary somewhat, but the United States Geological Survey 's number is 2,340 miles (3,766 km). The retention time from Lake Itasca to the Gulf is typically about 90 days; while speed varies along

5967-404: The Illinoian Stage. Timeline of outflow course changes In March 1876, the Mississippi suddenly changed course near the settlement of Reverie, Tennessee , leaving a small part of Tipton County, Tennessee , attached to Arkansas and separated from the rest of Tennessee by the new river channel. Since this event was an avulsion , rather than the effect of incremental erosion and deposition,

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6084-428: The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, from north to south, with their respective highest peaks and location, are: Northern Hemisphere (North Atlantic Ridge) : Southern Hemisphere (South Atlantic Ridge) : The submarine section of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge close to southwest Iceland is known as the Reykjanes Ridge . The Mid-Atlantic Ridge runs through Iceland where the ridge is also known as the Neovolcanic Zone . In northern Iceland

6201-408: The Midwestern and eastern U.S. These earthquakes created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee from the altered landscape near the river. When measured from its traditional source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi has a length of 2,340 miles (3,766 km). When measured from its longest stream source (most distant source from the sea), Brower's Spring in Montana , the source of the Missouri River , it has

6318-416: The Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Saint Louis is between 9 and 12 feet (2.7–3.7 m) deep, the deepest part being Lake Pepin , which averages 20–32 feet (6–10 m) deep and has a maximum depth of 60 feet (18 m). Between where the Missouri River joins the Mississippi at Saint Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, the depth averages 30 feet (9 m). Below Cairo, where the Ohio River joins,

6435-411: The Mississippi River has experienced numerous large and small changes to its main course, as well as additions, deletions, and other changes among its numerous tributaries, and the lower Mississippi River has used different pathways as its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico across the delta region. As Pangaea began to break up about 95 million years ago, North America passed over a volcanic " hotspot " in

6552-415: The Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri , between Memphis and St. Louis, is related to an aulacogen (failed rift) that formed at the same time as the Gulf of Mexico. This area is still quite active seismically. Four great earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 , estimated at 8 on the Richter magnitude scale , had tremendous local effects in the then sparsely settled area, and were felt in many other places in

6669-404: The Mississippi near Rock Island, Illinois, diverting it to its present channel farther to the west, the current western border of Illinois. The Hennepin Canal roughly follows the ancient channel of the Mississippi downstream from Rock Island to Hennepin, Illinois . South of Hennepin, to Alton, Illinois , the current Illinois River follows the ancient channel used by the Mississippi River before

6786-443: The Ohio River confluence, the Middle Mississippi falls 220 feet (67 m) over 180 miles (290 km) for an average rate of 1.2 feet per mile (23 cm/km). At its confluence with the Ohio River, the Middle Mississippi is 315 feet (96 m) above sea level. Apart from the Missouri and Meramec rivers of Missouri and the Kaskaskia River of Illinois, no major tributaries enter the Middle Mississippi River. The Mississippi River

6903-408: The Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. The Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. It is divided into two sections: The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca , 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, Minnesota . The name Itasca was chosen to designate

7020-403: The R/V Matthew F. Maury . The ship is used for oceanography research and student cruises. In March 2013, the U.S. Navy launched the oceanographic survey ship USNS Maury (T-AGS-66), in 2023 the ship was renamed USNS Marie Tharp . The Mariners' Lake , in Newport News, Virginia , had been named after Maury but had its name changed during the George Floyd protests . The lake is located on

7137-486: The Reverend James Maury ) was an inspiring teacher to a future U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson . Maury also had Dutch-American ancestry from the Minor family of early Virginia. He was born in 1806 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia , near Fredericksburg ; his parents were Richard Maury and Diane Minor Maury. The family moved to Franklin, Tennessee when he was five. He wanted to emulate the naval career of his older brother, Flag Lieutenant John Minor Maury , an officer in

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7254-430: The Secretary of the Navy in 1865 "to have cost the Union more vessels than all other causes combined." In September 1862, Maury, partly because of his international reputation, and partly due to jealousy of superior officers who wanted him placed at some distance, was ordered on special service to England. There, he sought to purchase and fit ships for the Confederacy and persuade European powers to recognize and support

7371-403: The South, including those in Richmond, Virginia, Fletcher, North Carolina , Franklin, Tennessee , and several in Chancellorsville, Virginia . The Matthew Fontaine Maury Papers collection at the Library of Congress contains over 14,000 items. It documents Maury's extensive career and scientific endeavors, including correspondence, notebooks, lectures, and written speeches. On July 2, 2020,

7488-402: The U.S. Navy, who caught yellow fever after fighting pirates . As a result of John's painful death, Matthew's father, Richard, forbade him from joining the Navy. Maury strongly considered attending West Point to get a better education than the Navy could offer. Instead, he obtained a naval appointment through the influence of Tennessee Representative Sam Houston , a family friend, in 1825, at

7605-498: The USN 1854 Darien Exploration Expedition , and others. Their duty at the observatory was always temporary, and new men had to be trained repeatedly. Thus Lt. Maury was simultaneously employed with astronomical and nautical work, as well as constantly training new temporary men to assist in these works. As his reputation grew, the competition among young midshipmen to be assigned to work with him intensified. Thus, he always had able assistants. Maury advocated for naval reform, including

7722-495: The United States Navy. As a midshipman on board the frigate USS  Brandywine , he almost immediately began to study the seas and record methods of navigation. When a leg injury left him unfit for sea duty, Maury devoted his time to studying navigation, meteorology, winds, and currents. He became Superintendent of the Depot of Charts and Instruments, later renamed the United States Naval Observatory , in 1844. There, Maury studied thousands of ships' logs and charts. He published

7839-430: The Upper Mississippi River is the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis. Above the dam, the river's elevation is 799 feet (244 m). Below the dam, the river's elevation is 750 feet (230 m). This 49-foot (15 m) drop is the largest of all the Mississippi River locks and dams. The origin of the dramatic drop is a waterfall preserved adjacent to the lock under an apron of concrete. Saint Anthony Falls

7956-426: The Upper Mississippi is a simple steel culvert, through which the river (locally named "Nicolet Creek") flows north from Lake Nicolet under "Wilderness Road" to the West Arm of Lake Itasca, within Itasca State Park . The earliest bridge across the Mississippi River was built in 1855. It spanned the river in Minneapolis where the current Hennepin Avenue Bridge is located. No highway or railroad tunnels cross under

8073-555: The Virginia Military Institute library. Maury was initially buried in the Gilham family vault in Lexington's cemetery, across from Stonewall Jackson , until, after some delay, his remains were taken through Goshen Pass to Richmond, Virginia the following year He was reburied between Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. After decades of national and international work, Maury received fame and honors, including being knighted by several nations and given medals with precious gems as well as

8190-485: The advice of Robert E. Lee and other friends, he decided not to return to Virginia but sent a letter of surrender to U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Mexico and headed for Mexico. There Maximilian , whom he had met in Europe, appointed him "Imperial Commissioner of Colonization". Maury and Maximilian planned to entice former Confederates to emigrate to Mexico, building Carlotta and New Virginia Colony for displaced Confederates and immigrants from other lands. Upon learning of

8307-443: The age of 19. Maury joined the Navy as a midshipman on board the frigate Brandywine , which was carrying the elderly Marquis de La Fayette home to France following his famous 1824 visit to the United States . Almost immediately, Maury began to study the seas and to record methods of navigation . One of the experiences that piqued this interest was circumnavigating the globe on the USS  Vincennes , his assigned ship and

8424-555: The areas drained by them. Denser salt water from the Gulf of Mexico forms a salt wedge along the river bottom near the mouth of the river, while fresh water flows near the surface. In drought years, with less fresh water to push it out, salt water can travel many miles upstream—64 miles (103 km) in 2022—contaminating drinking water supplies and requiring the use of desalination . The United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed "saltwater sills" or "underwater levees" to contain this in 1988, 1999, 2012, and 2022. This consists of

8541-762: The building has been home to the Arlington Arts Center (rebranded in 2022 as the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington). There is a county historical marker outside the former school. Matthew Fontaine Maury School in Fredericksburg was built in 1919-1920 and closed in 1980. The building was converted into condominiums and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Adjoining it is Maury Stadium, built in 1935 and still used for local high school sports events. Numerous historical markers commemorate Maury throughout

8658-427: The course of the river, this gives an overall average of around 26 mi (42 km) per day, or 1 mi (1.6 km) per hour. The stream gradient of the entire river is 0.01%, a drop of 450 m over 3,766 km. The Mississippi River discharges at an annual average rate of between 200 and 700 thousand cubic feet per second (6,000 and 20,000 m /s). The Mississippi is the fourteenth largest river in

8775-424: The creation of what would eventually become the Naval Observatory. Maury occasionally hosted Adams, who enjoyed astronomy as an avocation, at the Naval Observatory. Concerned that Maury always had a long trek to and from his home on upper Pennsylvania Avenue, Adams introduced an appropriations bill that funded a Superintendent's House on the Observatory grounds. Adams thus felt no constraint in regularly stopping by for

8892-403: The delta of the Chippewa River of Wisconsin as it enters the Upper Mississippi, is more than 2 miles (3.2 km) wide. By the time the Upper Mississippi reaches Saint Paul , Minnesota, below Lock and Dam No. 1, it has dropped more than half its original elevation and is 687 feet (209 m) above sea level. From St. Paul to St. Louis, Missouri, the river elevation falls much more slowly and

9009-586: The depth averages 50–100 feet (15–30 m) deep. The deepest part of the river is in New Orleans, where it reaches 200 feet (61 m) deep. The Mississippi River runs through or along 10 states, from Minnesota to Louisiana , and is used to define portions of these states' borders, with Wisconsin , Illinois , Kentucky , Tennessee , and Mississippi along the east side of the river, and Iowa , Missouri , and Arkansas along its west side. Substantial parts of both Minnesota and Louisiana are on either side of

9126-408: The first U.S. warship to travel around the world. Maury's seagoing days ended abruptly at the age of 33 after he broke his right leg in a stagecoach accident. After that he studied naval meteorology, navigation, and charting the winds and currents. He told his family that his work was inspired by Psalm 8, "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands... and whatsoever passeth through

9243-483: The focus on the " Trans-Mississippi " region in the Trans-Mississippi Exposition . Regional landmarks are often classified in relation to the river, such as "the highest peak east of the Mississippi " or "the oldest city west of the Mississippi". The FCC also uses it as the dividing line for broadcast call-signs , which begin with W to the east and K to the west, overlapping in media markets along

9360-704: The future location for a transatlantic telegraph cable . The existence of such a ridge was confirmed by sonar in 1925 and was found to extend around Cape Agulhas into the Indian Ocean by the German Meteor expedition . In the 1950s, mapping of the Earth's ocean floors by Marie Tharp , Bruce Heezen , Maurice Ewing , and others revealed that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge had a strange bathymetry of valleys and ridges, with its central valley being seismologically active and

9477-496: The hotspot's activity declined, the crust beneath the embayment region cooled, contracted and subsided to a depth of 2.6 km, and around 80 million years ago the Reelfoot Rift formed a trough that was flooded by the Gulf of Mexico . As sea levels dropped, the Mississippi and other rivers extended their courses into the embayment , which gradually became filled with sediment with the Mississippi River at its center. Through

9594-654: The institution of slavery has been termed "proslavery international". Maury, along with other politicians, newspaper editors, merchants, and United States government officials, envisioned a future for slavery that linked the United States, the Caribbean Sea, and the Amazon basin in Brazil. He believed the future of United States commerce lay in South America, colonized by white southerners and their enslaved people. There, Maury claimed,

9711-402: The last two decades, this number was only 160 million short tons (145 million metric tons) per year. The reduction in sediment transported down the Mississippi River is the result of engineering modification of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and their tributaries by dams, meander cutoffs , river-training structures, and bank revetments and soil erosion control programs in

9828-531: The length of voyages. His Sailing Directions and Physical Geography of the Seas and Its Meteorology remain standard. Maury's uniform system of recording synoptic oceanographic data was adopted by navies and merchant marines around the world and was used to develop charts for all the major trade routes. Maury's Naval Observatory team included midshipmen assigned to him: James Melville Gilliss , Lieutenants John Mercer Brooke , William Lewis Herndon , Lardner Gibbon , Isaac Strain , John "Jack" Minor Maury II of

9945-546: The lower 10 miles (16 km) of the Kaskaskia River, forming a new Mississippi channel and cutting off the town from the rest of the state. Later flooding destroyed most of the remaining town, including the original State House. Today, the remaining 2,300 acres (930 ha) island and community of 14 residents is known as an enclave of Illinois and is accessible only from the Missouri side. The New Madrid Seismic Zone , along

10062-608: The mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney ordered the removal of a statue of Maury erected in 1929 on Richmond's Monument Avenue. The mayor used his emergency powers to bypass a state-mandated review process, calling the statue a "severe, immediate and growing threat to public safety." Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States . From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota , it flows generally south for 2,340 miles (3,766 km) to

10179-471: The modified form of plate tectonics . The ridge is central to the breakup of the hypothetical supercontinent of Pangaea that began some 180 million years ago. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge includes a deep rift valley that runs along the axis of the ridge for nearly its entire length. This rift marks the actual boundary between adjacent tectonic plates, where magma from the mantle reaches the seafloor, erupting as lava and producing new crustal material for

10296-449: The new river channel, contiguous with the adjacent state. Also, due to a meander in the river, a small part of western Kentucky is contiguous with Tennessee but isolated from the rest of its state. Many of the communities along the Mississippi River are listed below; most have either historic significance or cultural lore connecting them to the river. They are sequenced from the source of the river to its end. The road crossing highest on

10413-533: The northern states of Mexico . Maury also advocated construction of a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama . For his scientific endeavors, Maury was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1852. Maury also called for an international sea and land weather service. Having charted the seas and currents, he worked on charting land weather forecasting. Congress refused to appropriate funds for

10530-598: The past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance toward the Gulf from 15 to 50 miles (24 to 80 km). The currently active delta lobe is called the Birdfoot Delta, after its shape, or the Balize Delta , after La Balize, Louisiana , the first French settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi. The current form of the Mississippi River basin was largely shaped by the Laurentide Ice Sheet of

10647-606: The paths of the seas." As officer-in-charge of the United States Navy office in Washington, DC , called the "Depot of Charts and Instruments," the young lieutenant became a librarian of the many unorganized log books and records in 1842. On his initiative, he sought to improve seamanship by organizing the information in his office and instituting a reporting system among the nation's shipmasters to gather further information on sea conditions and observations. The product of his work

10764-489: The plan, Lee wrote Maury saying, "The thought of abandoning the country, and all that must be left in it, is abhorrent to my feelings, and I prefer to struggle for its restoration, and share its fate, rather than to give up all as lost." In the end, the plan did not attract the intended immigrants and Maximilian, facing increasing opposition in Mexico, ended it. Maury then returned to England in 1866 and found work there. In 1868 he

10881-730: The plates. Near the equator , the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is divided into the North Atlantic Ridge and the South Atlantic Ridge by the Romanche Trench , a narrow submarine trench with a maximum depth of 7,758 m (25,453 ft), one of the deepest locations of the Atlantic Ocean. This trench, however, is not regarded as the boundary between the North and South American plates, nor the Eurasian and African plates. The islands on or near

10998-538: The plume did not mix with the surrounding sea water immediately. Instead, it stayed intact as it flowed through the Gulf of Mexico, into the Straits of Florida , and entered the Gulf Stream . The Mississippi River water rounded the tip of Florida and traveled up the southeast coast to the latitude of Georgia before finally mixing in so thoroughly with the ocean that it could no longer be detected by MODIS. Over geologic time,

11115-460: The proposals, and Maury's proposal received little or no support in the United States, especially in the South, which sought to perpetuate the institution and the riches made off the yoke of slavery. By 1855, the proposal had failed. Brazil authorized free navigation to all nations in the Amazon in 1866, only when it was at war against Paraguay, when free navigation in the area had become necessary. Maury

11232-496: The river highways of the Amazon valley". Brazil maintained legal enslavement but had prohibited the importation of newly enslaved people from Africa in 1850 under the pressure of the British. Maury proposed that moving people enslaved in the United States to Brazil would reduce or eliminate slavery over time in as many areas of the southern United States as possible and would end new enslavement for Brazil. Maury's primary concern, however,

11349-532: The river's silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile regions of the United States; steamboats were widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to ship agricultural and industrial goods. During the American Civil War , the Mississippi's capture by Union forces marked a turning point towards victory , due to the river's strategic importance to the Confederate war effort. Because of

11466-479: The river, although the Mississippi defines part of the boundary of each of these states. In all of these cases, the middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was used as the line to define the borders between adjacent states. In various areas, the river has since shifted, but the state borders have not changed, still following the former bed of the Mississippi River as of their establishment, leaving several small isolated areas of one state across

11583-593: The river. Due to its size and importance, it has been nicknamed The Mighty Mississippi River or simply The Mighty Mississippi . The Mississippi River can be divided into three sections: the Upper Mississippi , the river from its headwaters to the confluence with the Missouri River; the Middle Mississippi, which is downriver from the Missouri to the Ohio River; and the Lower Mississippi , which flows from

11700-400: The site of the head of navigation of the river. The Upper Mississippi has a number of natural and artificial lakes, with its widest point being Lake Winnibigoshish , near Grand Rapids, Minnesota , over 11 miles (18 km) across. Lake Onalaska , created by Lock and Dam No. 7 , near La Crosse, Wisconsin , is more than 4 miles (6.4 km) wide. Lake Pepin , a natural lake formed behind

11817-459: The slave trade that accompanied his scientific achievements. Maury staunchly opposed secession, but in 1860, he wrote letters to the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland urging them to stop the momentum toward war. When Virginia declared secession in April 1861, Maury nonetheless resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy, choosing to fight against the North. With the outbreak of

11934-415: The start of the U.S. Navy. He pored over the documents, collecting information on winds, calms, and currents for all seas in all seasons. His dream was to put that information in the hands of all captains. Maury's work on ocean currents and investigations of the whaling industry led him to suspect that a warm-water, ice-free northern passage existed between the Atlantic and Pacific. He thought he detected

12051-524: The state line still follows the old channel. The town of Kaskaskia, Illinois once stood on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia (Okaw) Rivers . Founded as a French colonial community, it later became the capital of the Illinois Territory and was the first state capital of Illinois until 1819. Beginning in 1844, successive flooding caused the Mississippi River to slowly encroach east. A major flood in 1881 caused it to overtake

12168-412: The substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that replaced steamboats, the first decades of the 20th century saw the construction of massive engineering works such as levees , locks and dams , often built in combination. A major focus of this work has been to prevent the lower Mississippi from shifting into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and bypassing New Orleans . Since

12285-524: The university president announced it would recommend to the JMU board of visitors to rename Maury Hall, along with Ashby Hall and Jackson Hall. Ships have been named in his honor, including various vessels named USS  Maury ; USS Commodore Maury (SP-656), a patrol vessel and minesweeper of World War I; and a World War II Liberty Ship . Additionally, Tidewater Community College, based in Norfolk, Virginia , owns

12402-567: The upper and lower river, the Mississippi is further controlled by thousands of wing dikes that moderate the river's flow in order to maintain an open navigation channel and prevent the river from eroding its banks. The head of navigation on the Mississippi is the St. Anthony Falls Lock. Before the Coon Rapids Dam in Coon Rapids, Minnesota , was built in 1913, steamboats could occasionally go upstream as far as Saint Cloud, Minnesota , depending on river conditions. The uppermost lock and dam on

12519-473: The world by volume. On average, the Mississippi has 8% the flow of the Amazon River , which moves nearly 7 million cubic feet per second (200,000 m /s) during wet seasons. Before 1900, the Mississippi River transported an estimated 440 million short tons (400 million metric tons) of sediment per year from the interior of the United States to coastal Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. During

12636-606: Was "work to be done by Africans with the American axe in his hand." In the 1850s, he studied a way to send Virginia's slaves to Brazil as a way to phase out slavery in the state gradually. Maury was aware of an 1853 survey of the Amazon region conducted by the Navy Lt. William Lewis Herndon. The 1853 expedition aimed to map the area for trade so that American traders could go "with their goods and chattels [including enslaved people] to settle and to trade goods from South American countries along

12753-416: Was exhausted from traveling throughout the nation giving speeches promoting land meteorology. His eldest son, Major Richard Launcelot Maury, and son-in-law, Major Spottswood Wellford Corbin, attended him at the time. Maury asked his daughters and wife to leave the room. His last words, recorded verbatim, were "all's well," a nautical expression meaning calm conditions at sea. His body was placed on display in

12870-485: Was international recognition and the publication in 1847 of Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic , causing the change of purpose and renaming of the depot to the United States Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Office in 1854. He held that position until his resignation in April 1861. Maury was one of the principal advocates for founding a national observatory and he appealed to a science enthusiast and former U.S. president, Representative John Quincy Adams , for

12987-529: Was neither the freedom of enslaved people nor the amelioration of slavery in Brazil, but rather an absolution for slaveholders of Virginia and other southern states. Maury wrote to his cousin, "Therefore I see in the slave territory of the Amazon the SAFETY VALVE of the Southern States." Maury wanted to open up the Amazon to free navigation in his plan. However, Emperor Pedro II 's government firmly rejected

13104-484: Was not an enslaver, but he did not actively oppose the institution of slavery. An article tying his legacy in oceanography to the slave trade suggested that Maury was ambivalent about slavery, seeing it as wrong but not intent on forcing others to free enslaved people. However, a recent article explaining the removal of his monument from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, illustrated a proslavery stance through deep ties to

13221-635: Was offered the position as its first president but turned it down because of his age. He had previously been suggested as president of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia , in 1848 by Benjamin Blake Minor in his publication the Southern Literary Messenger . He considered becoming president of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, the University of Alabama , and

13338-612: Was pardoned by the federal government and returned to the US, accepting a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, holding the chair of physics. While in Lexington, he completed a physical survey of Virginia, which he documented in the book The Physical Geography of Virginia . He had once been a gold mining superintendent outside Fredericksburg and had studied geology intensely during that time, so he

13455-606: Was proclaimed Emperor of Mexico. At an early stage in the war, the Confederate States Congress assigned Maury and Francis H. Smith, a mathematics professor at the University of Virginia, to develop a system of weights and measures. Maury was in the West Indies on his way back to the Confederacy when he learned of its collapse. The war had brought ruin to many in Fredericksburg, where Maury's immediate family lived. On

13572-725: Was soon after the Brussels conference that Prussia, Spain, Sardinia, the Free City of Hamburg, the Republic of Bremen, Chile, Austria, Brazil, and others agreed to join the enterprise. The Pope established honorary flags of distinction for the ships of the Papal States, which could be awarded only to the vessels that filled out and sent to Maury in Washington, DC, the Maury abstract logs. Maury's stance on

13689-556: Was well-equipped to write such a book. He aimed to assist war-torn Virginia in rebuilding by discovering and extracting minerals, improving farming, etc. He lectured extensively in the United States and abroad. He advocated for creating a state agricultural college as an adjunct to Virginia Military Institute. This led to the establishment at Blacksburg of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College , later renamed Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in 1872. Maury

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