NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 249 



the woods, make no use of maps, but adopt names only as they hear 

 them, or as they arise naturally from the fixation of descriptive phrases, 

 the method by which nearly all place-names arise among uneducated 

 people. Yet such people, as I have often observed, have great respect 

 for maps, and for their "correct," i. e., printed names; and undoubt- 

 edly they would adopt them when brought to their attention, for 

 otherwise unnamed places, provided only they are pronounceable and 

 familiar enough in form to be easily remembered. But surveyors, 

 tourists, hunters, scientists, and the better class of guides, do use maps, 

 and unhesitatingly adopt their names. The number of such visitors 

 to our mountains is increasing, and if the new names are on the 

 maps used by them, they will be adopted ; the guides will then hear 

 them and pass them to others, and so on, until in time they will 

 become widespread and fixed. The great practical point, then, is to 

 secure their insertion upon all new maps, not only upon geological and 

 other scientific maps, but upon all those issued by the Provincial and 

 Dominion governments. If the Society approves of this plan, and 

 will use its influence to urge the adoption of these names in all official 

 publications, setting the example in its own publications, it will go far 

 to secure this desirable end. 



We next consider what shall determine the names to be adopted. 

 I would suggest that such names be adopted and approved by the 

 Society as are given upon the same principles as are reeognized among 

 scientific men for the naming of new species of animals or plants ; that 

 is, the first name applied to a previously unnamed place shall be 

 accepted when published with such a description and illustration as 

 will enable any other person to recognize it. The illustration should 

 be a drawing, or better a photograph, or a survey (not a sketch) map 

 accurately locating the place. 



We ask, finally, what kind of names may best be given 1 Here 

 we are much aided by taking account of the known qualities of the 

 best place-names. The best names are, first, melodious, that is, they 

 have a well-balanced succession of a few pleasing easily-pronounced 

 sounds ; second, they are dignified, that is, are free from incongruous 

 associations, and have sounds consistent with the character of the 

 place ; third, they are individual or unique, that is, are applied to but 

 a single place, and not met with elsewhere. Few names can realize 

 all of these qualities, but they put before us an ideal to be striven for. 



