178 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



use does it matter in the least how that association originally came about, 

 whether the sounds imitate a noise made by the object in case it be 

 animal or audible phenomenon, or whether, as is most common, they 

 describe some quality of it, or whether it arose in some other now for- 

 gotten fashion. — association, and that only, is the leading attribute of a 

 name. While, therefore, it is association which gives names their value, 

 and some ancient circumstance which supplies the sounds, the exact 

 forms which they have are controlled by a series of secondary principles, 

 of which the greatest is that of convenience, which means in the main, 

 economy of etîbrt, mental and physical, and which is therefore physio- 

 logical as w^ell as psj^chological ; and the number and exact combinations 

 of sounds used are thus fixed. 



All names of places do not appeal to us as equally pleasing, and the 

 reasons for their diflerences are worthy of analysis. When, for the first 

 time, we hear or read a new place-name, it may strike us in any one of 

 several ways — as grand, sonorous, pretty, pathetic, uncouth or ludicrous. 

 Our sensations in this case are, of course, in part personal or individual, 

 and influenced by our own experiences ; names of places where we have 

 suffered become hateful to us, and memories of a happy childhood may 

 make pleasing the most uncouth of names ; and feelings called up by 

 these are extended to others which at all resemble them. But, in addition 

 to the taste in names thus peculiar to each individual, he shares at the 

 same time, to a greater or less extent, in the taste for names characteristic 

 of the race or nation of which he is a member. That this national taste 

 exists there is everywhere evidence. Thus, to the average American, 

 most of the place-names of England seem dignified and pleat-ing — so that 

 he has adopted very many of them ; those of Italy seem musical ; those of 

 Arctic America often pathetic ; those of China awkward, and those of 

 the newer west absurd. The origin of this race-taste is complex, but in 

 general we may recognize that there has developed in an}^ given people, 

 as the aggregate result of the experiences of the past, a certain taste in 

 such matters which forms a standard with which new experiences are 

 unconsciousl}' compared and tested, with the result that they fall into 

 their proper categories as above. How widely the standards in ])lace- 

 names differ with different peoples speaking différent languages, becomes 

 plain on inspection of their maps. 



We have now to examine our own race-taste in jilace-names ; in 

 other words, to learn what ones are among us considered as the best, and 

 why? In general, no doubt, we give first place to those which, at the 

 same time, are pleasing in sound, suggest no incongruous ideas, and involve 

 no confusion of localities — that is, the best place-names are those which 

 l)ossess Melody, Dignity and Individuality. 



MtLODY. — This consists in a well-balanced succession of pleasing, 

 easily-pronounced sounds. It is the vowels which give the musical note, 



