38 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
search necessitated a minute examination of all the coasts of the great 
Arctic archipelago, one of the indirect results was the mapping of tens 
of thousands of miles of coast line and the naming of hundreds of topo- 
graphical features. 
Between the second and third periods, Hayes and Hall discovered 
Kennedy and Robeson channels—the northern extension of Smith 
sound—and the great sea of Palæocrystic ice that extends northward 
from the northern shore of Ellesmere island and Greenland. 
During the third period, various expeditions attempted to reach 
the Pole and, last year, Peary’s efforts were crowned with success. 
As one result, nearly all the names of features along the eastern coast of 
Ellesmere island, are named after citizens of the United States, more 
or less celebrated; the west coast of Ellesmere and the islands to the 
west of it were explored by the Sverdrup expedition and, therefore, 
bear Norwegian names. Elsewhere, British names are almost universal, 
though many non-British royalties and statesmen have not been over- 
looked. 
The study of the place-names of Arctic Canada is an extremely 
fascinating one and involves the study of all the narratives of Arctic 
exploration, of the previous careers of the principal actors—their 
relations, friends, brother officers, past and present, of their former 
commanders, of contemporary officials of the Admiralty and scientists, 
particularly those interested in the exploration of the North, etc. Natur- 
ally, as about nine-tenths of the coast was explored by naval officers, 
the names of Arctic explorers, of naval officers and officials and of Arctic 
exploring vessels predominate, the most striking feature in a general 
survey, being the extreme paucity of native names, due, partly, to the 
uninhabited nature of the greater part of the region and, in a minor 
degree, to the lack of communication with the Eskimos owing to the 
failure to provide the expeditions with interpreters. To this rule, there 
is one exception, viz., along the south shore of Victoria island and along 
the Arctic coast of the mainland between Coronation gulf and the 
northern extreme of Melville peninsula. As these coasts were explored 
by Rae, Dease and Simpson, officers of the Hudson’s Bay Co., they are 
a veritable directory of their contemporary chief traders and chief 
factors, of the Hudson’s Bay Co. 
Derivations of place-names are arrived at in a number of ways:— 
1.—When a definite statement by the author is obtainable. For- 
tunately, there are many books of Arctic exploration and, during the 
Franklin search the reports made by the various expeditions were 
published as Parliamentary blue-books. Unfortunately, the reports of 
the two most important expeditions sent out during this period—the 
Austin and the Belcher—do not give much information respecting the 
