Prophet Without Honor

00:00:27 The Hall of Fame in New York City...

00:00:54 ...who was once branded deserter and traitor to his country.

00:01:17 The siren sea, that vast enigma whose call some men can never resist.

00:01:46 So in rapid chorus and with almost fabulous facility...

00:02:13 ...and hence was an easy victim riding on top when disaster came.

00:02:39 Never again in some unknown sea will you shoot the sun...

00:03:04 These old records may at least unfurl the sails of your mind...

00:03:25 Recorded untold years ago.

00:03:59 No guesswork this, but hitherto unknown laws of ocean behavior.

00:04:33 Then comes word of a skipper who has sighted a rudderless vessel...

00:04:56 Mysterious? Not to Matt Maury.

00:05:22 Treason to every timeworn tradition...

00:05:48 Can all your years of study be wrecked by one careless whim of thoughtless nature?

00:06:10 And there in the precise spot of longitude and latitude...

00:06:33 Travel across the Atlantic is for the first time organized in two-lane traffic.

00:06:59 ...with its thousands of aids to America's priceless farming industry.

00:07:28 And how shall a naval officer take sides?

00:07:51 .-.that his resignation is refused.

00:08:16 ...as ambassador for the Confederacy.

00:08:41 ...on the face of this graceless and ungrateful Earth.

00:09:14 ...as a professor at the Virginia Military Institute...

00:09:40 The Panama Canal is a reality, not merely his vision.

00:10:04 ...long before either of them suspected its ultimate and intimate possibilities.

00:10:35 Matthew Fontaine Maury, the pathfinder of the seas.