[cvnong] additions TO MONOGRAPHS S 



Place-nomenclature. 



A striking fact about most commemorative names is their failure 

 to comm.emorate. Imiiunerable names are given, especially in new 

 countries like 'New Brunswick, to honour some individual. The great 

 majority of our parish names have thus originated. But almost in- 

 variably no record is made of the reason for the name, its origin is 

 speedily forgotten, it is used by millions of people with no thought oi 

 its significance, and it is only finally by the laborious search of some 

 antiquarian that its significance becomes known to him and his little 

 circle of fellow students. 



184. Of changes in place-names caused by mis-prints on maps we 

 have several in ISTew Brunswick. Thus, the name Mascahin Point (in 

 Charlotte) is, I have no doubt, simply a misprint for Mascarin (a form 

 for Mascareen) Point; the new form is not known locally except that, be- 

 ing on the charts, it is known to some captains in that vicinity. Again, a 

 branch of the Little South-West Miramichi is called on some maps Mainor 

 Lake Brook ; but I find by comparison with the originals in the Crown 

 Land OfiBce that this should read Main or Lake, Brook being named 

 for a lumberman, one Main. But a very striking case occurs in the 

 the name UpsalquitcJi. This form, though universal on maps and 

 in such literature of the region as exists, is not used locally, for 

 the river is called by guides, lumberman and others who use ii 

 Absetquetch or some similar form of this word. I find, as I have shown 

 in the Bulletin of the Natural History Society of N. B., V. 180, that 

 the- word was written Upsatquitch on Van Veldens's original survey 

 map of the river, but was copied with a misprint of I for t, giving ua 

 the present form Upsalquitch upon Purdy's printed map of 1814^ 

 which has been followed by all others down to the present day, thus 

 estahlishing a literar}^ as distinct from a local form. Again the map- 

 name Belas Basin, at Lepreau, has no doubt been formed, as later noted, 

 by an accidental map-combination of two separate words. 



The persistence of these forms by the way, shows the great effect 

 of publication in giving stability to place names, and another illus- 

 tration of the same principle is seen in the survival of St. John and 

 St. Croix, much-printed names in early times, which are among the few 

 European names which have been able to displace the native nameti 

 on our rivers. All humanity has a reverence for that which is in print 

 and attributes to a printed statement an authority it only rarely merits. 



185. Another danger to be guarded against in seeking the origin 

 of place-names, is the acceptance of a folk-etymology, based upon the 

 accidental resemblance of the name to some striking word or phrase. 

 Such explanations are of all degrees from plausible to absurd, and a 



