176 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The values of exact and exhaustive study of place-nomenelatui-e in 

 limited districts are as follows : 



First. It contributes to historical facts. It gives evidence of the 

 presence of earlier or pre-historic races ; of their migrations ; in old 

 countries, even of their habits and grade of civilization, and of the structure 

 of their language. It locates exactly the sites of historical events, and 

 makes the geography of old documents intelligible. It renders great 

 service to cartograph3% with which indeed it is inseparably bound up. 



Second. It conti'ibutes to education in facilitating the study of 

 history and geography, of which it is a connecting link. Place-names 

 form a permanent register or index of the course and events of a country's 

 history ; the}* are the fossils expo.sed in the cross-section of that history, 

 marking its successive periods ; and so lusting are they that records in 

 stone or brass ai-e not to be compared with them for endurance. Scarcely 

 a great event in a country's life fails to leave evidence of its happening 

 in some place-name, and the skilful teacher may use these to make the 

 event seem more real, to arouse interest, rix attention and aid memory. 



Third. It contributes to desirable uniformity and relative stability 

 in the use of place-names, and supplies data for appropriate nomenclature 

 in the future. Where more than one form of a name is in use, reference 

 to its origin and history will always show which should be adopted. The 

 making known of pleasing and appropriate historic names, which have 

 become obsolete, may suggest their revival as new ones are needed in the 

 future — an obvious gain. 



Fourth and last, though not least, it has a subjective, or if one 

 pleases, a hobby value, in that it otfers t(j non-professional students a 

 subject which calls forth the exercise of the best investigating faculties, 

 with the accompanying pure and keen intellectual pleasures. 



To realize these values, at least the first three, the theor}' and history 

 of place-nomenclature in the given country must be fully and accurately 

 known, not mei'ely as a collection of curious and interesting derivations, 

 but philosophically, in the light of its evolution. The logical basis for 

 such knowledge is a monograph, which shall treat in summary the 

 abstract principles of the general subject, its historical development in 

 the particular district, and the individual history of each name. Such a 

 work not only renders present knowledge available to the historian, the 

 teacher, the geographer, but it forms the best possible basis for further 

 investigation. In this spirit the present work is offered to those whom 

 it mav interest. 



