186 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



legends, guided chiefly by accidental resemblances between words, grow 

 up to explain the origin of place-names Avhose real origin has been 

 forgotten. Europe is full of such (^A)iUverp, Mouse Tower on the 

 Ehine. etc.). But every region even in a new country must supj^ly 

 examples (Tormentine, M'uhjic in New Brunswick), and they are com- 

 mon among aboriginal peoples (Chi(/necfo). Many of these stories, no 

 doubt, are manufactured originally with no more intention of deception 

 than fairytales or Santa Claus legends, while others probably have grown 

 by slight unconscious additions from different narrators. Such explana- 

 tions always explain the name in its present form, aiid its history as 

 traced in documents often shows it to be very different. Sometimes, 

 however, tradition, and often would-be philologists, who can find no 

 explanation in the present language, and more or less conscious of the 

 great changes which names undergo, trace it back into another and fit 

 the explanation to it there {Shepody from Chapeau Dieu), or it is sup- 

 posed to arise from some expression said to be often repeated (as 

 Canada from the Spanish Aca nada). Errors of these, or indeed of other 

 kinds, once introduced ai'e repeated without investigation by one author 

 from another, especially in books of travel, etc, and often become 

 widely believed. There is probably no subject in which there is wilder 

 theorizing or more desire to upset received explanations than in this 

 division of philology. For later events, however, tradition has its value, 

 but always must be used with caution. 



It will be possible, I think, in time, for philologists to work out for 

 the investigation of place-names a series not only of principles but of 

 laws, which would be of the widest applicability and greatest usefulness. 



PAET II. 



The Historical Development op the Place-no.aienclature op 

 New Brunswick. 



While- the place-nomenclature of New Brunswick, Hke that of other 

 new countries, lacks the charm and polish of antiquity, it has with them 

 the advantage that its history is largely preserved in documents, and over 

 many of them the advantage that the languages of its native tribes are 

 still S])oken. The history of its development, therefore, falls into periods 

 answering exactly to the pei-iods of its general history which for New 

 Brunswick are as follows : 



1. The Indian Period. 



2. The Period of Exploration, the Norsemen to Champlain, 1000-1604, 



3. The French Period, lOOil-HOO. 



4. The New England Period, 1760-1783. 



5. The Loyalist Period, 1783-1790. 



6. The Post-Loyalist Period, 1790-1896. 



7. Present and Future. 



