Читать книгу Matthew Fontaine Maury, the Pathfinder of the Seas онлайн

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Maury took charge, on July 1, 1842, of the Depot of Charts and Instruments, of which he had just been made the superintendent by Secretary of the Navy Upshur. This depot had been established by the Navy Department in 1830, and Lieutenants Goldsborough, Wilkes, and Gilliss in succession had been its former superintendents. Wilkes had moved it from the western part of the city to Capitol Hill probably, as has been suggested, that its virtues and its needs might the more readily be noticed by Congress. Be that as it may, Congress passed an act on August 31, 1842, appropriating the sum of $35,000 for supplying adequate buildings and equipment for the depot. On the same day was passed another act, which dissolved the Board of Navy Commissioners that had ruled the navy for twenty-seven years and had recently been attacked so forcefully by Maury, and established the Bureau System in its place. The Depot of Charts and Instruments, accordingly, was placed under the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography.