CHEMICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL WORDS. 693 



In 1885 the Council of the Royal Geographical Society of 

 England began a movement in behalf of systematic spelling in 

 geographical names, which has yielded most gratifying results. 

 The society adopted a system having the same basis that is em- 

 ployed for all scientific modes of spelling, namely, vowels pro- 

 nounced as in Italian (or German), and consonants as in English. 

 This system has been adopted by the British Admiralty Office, by 

 the War, Foreign, and Colonial Offices, and by the last has been 

 recommended to the colonies. 



In September, 1890, the United States Board on Geographic 

 Names was created by order of the President of the United States, 

 for the purpose of securing uniformity of geographical nomencla- 

 ture in Government publications. 



The board consists of ten officials in the departments at Wash- 

 ington, with Prof. Thomas C. Mendenhall, Superintendent of the 

 United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, as chairman. For 

 spelling names from Oriental or unwritten languages, this board 

 has adopted a system practically identical with that used by the 

 British Government offices. Since France, Germany, and Spain 

 have adopted methods substantially the same as this, the great 

 map-making nations of the world are now in close agreement as 

 to geographical spelling. The alphabet is used as follows by the 

 board in representing the sounds of Oriental and unwritten lan- 

 guages : a as in father (Java, Somali), e as in men (Tel el Kebir), 

 i as in ravine (Fiji), o as in mote, and u as 00 in boot. All vowels 

 are shortened in sound when the following consonant is doubled. 

 ( Yarra, Jidda). Doubling a vowel is necessary only where there 

 is a distinct repetition of its sound. English i in ice is represented 

 by ai (Shanghai), au represents oiv in hoiv (Fuchau), ao is slightly 

 different from au (Nanao), and ei is scarcely to be distinguished 

 from ey in th.ey (Beirut). 



Among the consonants, o, d, I, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, iv, x, and z are 

 the same as in English; c is always soft (Celebes), ch as in church 

 (Chingchin), / as in English, and its sound is never represented 

 by ph (Haifong), g is always hard, h is always pronounced when 

 inserted, j as in English, and its sound is never represented by dj 

 (Jinchuen), h as in English, and always takes the place of hard c 

 (Korea), kh stands for the Oriental guttural (Khan),o7i is another 

 guttural as in the Turkish (Dagh, Ghazi), ng as in finger, also as 

 in singer, q is not used, qu being replaced by lew (Kwangtung), y 

 is always a consonant and is to be replaced by i wherever it has 

 been used as a vowel (Mikindani). Accents should not generally 

 be used, but where there is a very decided emphatic syllable or 

 stress which affects the sound of the word it should be marked by 

 an acute accent (Galapagos, Sardwak). 



With regard to names in the United States the policy of the 



