Explanations and sailing directions to accompany the wind and current charts : approved by Commodore Charles Morris, chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography.

Maury - often referred to as "Pathfinder of the Seas" and "Father of Modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology" - was one of the first cartographers to study and show winds and currents systematically on charts. These maritime charts represents a major turning point in the history of maritime trading and oceanography in general.

Using a creative set of symbols for winds (small brushes), currents (arrows), water temperatures (simple numerals), and adding color coding for the seasons Maury was able to present an enormous volume of data in a small area, data he had collected from numerous naval and commercial vessels. He distributed special logs, each with 12 blank pages in the back, to Navy and merchant captains to record data from their travels. Maury and his staff poured over the notes from the crossings and generated the first edition of "Wind and Current Charts" in 1847.
"Captains who were once reluctant to take part in Maury's study began to take notice when crossing times began to be dramatically reduced. One captain cut 35 days off a 110-day journey to Rio de Janeiro. Maury offered the charts for free to anyone who would send in data. Time was money for the sea captains." (Annotated History of the Gulf Stream Current). Maury's work was only partly superseded once steamships replaced sailing vessels.

He believed that his charts could be further improved if ships from all nations systematically collected and recorded details of wind and weather: "As a result of his efforts, an international conference was held in Brussels in 1853 at which governments agreed to adopt a standardized scheme of observations. [...] The Brussel meeting was a milestone in the development of maritime meteorology." (Thorpe, Oceanography).

Maury's detailed charts eventually ended up being one of the very earliest successful attempts to map the Gulf Stream: ""There is a river in the ocean," wrote oceanographer Mathew Maury in 1855. "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 Sea. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters.".