62 



I UaUi ) uur Guulburn Dotvtu, iiiul Uoulburn PUiinr, 

 And Goxilburn River, and the Goulburn Range, 

 And Mount Guulburn and Goulburn Vale. One's brain.o 



Are turned with Goulbiirns ! Pitiful — this mange 

 For immortality ! Had I the reins 



Of government a fortnight, I would change 

 These common-place appellatives, and give 

 The country names that should deserve to live."'* 



The change which frequently occurs in the names of places 

 is often explained by the fact of two contemporary names. 

 Eor several years, the two are used indiscriminately, like two 

 equally respectable pronunciations of the same word, or like 

 any similar fact in language. In the course of time, however, 

 one form becomes current and popular, to the neglect of the 

 other, until the latter becomes a mere matter of history. 

 When a place has two names, therefore, it is liable to change 

 its name ; but it sometimes happens that the original retains 

 its supremacy and the assumed one is forgotten. Examples of 

 double and triple names are common, not as mere untranslated 

 synonymes, but as given on separate and independent grounds. 

 Thus Byzantium, Constantinople, Stamboul; Jebus, Salem, 

 Jerusalem, El Khuds ; St. Domingo, Hayti, Hispaniola ; 

 Whitetown (in five different forms). Cross of Oswald (in three), 

 Maes-hir (the long field) corrupted to Maserfield, aJl mean 



During the last and previous centuries, navigators some- 

 times tried to celebrate themselves or their friends, at the ex- 

 pense of others who had gone before them, by endeavouring 

 to substitute new names. No doubt this was occasionally done 

 in ignorance or mistake, but the confusion to learners is not 

 the less on that account. The following is a curious case. A 

 group of islands near the southern extremity of America, was 

 discovered by Sir John Davis, and called J)avis's SonlA Land; 



♦ I discovered this about fifteen years ago, in a Sydney newspaper. Dr. Lang 

 has printed it without acknowledgment, in his New South Wales (1837), vol. ii., 

 p. fW; a fact which suggests the inferruce that it was wrilton by himself. 



