TrauKactions. 135 



In marked contrast to this is the poverty of inventive faculty 

 evinced by the earlier settlers in America, who were not savages 

 but civilised men, yet a large proportion of the names given by 

 them to places are thoroughly barbarous in character, and for 

 the most part utterly inappropriate, and accomplish very 

 insufficiently the purpose which names are intended to fulfil. 

 Such names as Salem, Bethel, Athens, Troy, Rome, London, 

 Paris, Corinth, and the like, are scattered broadcast throughout 

 the length and breadth of the land, and by their endless repeti- 

 tions must be a source of great perplexity in the post-office, 

 booking office, and schoolroom. Much may be said in favour of 

 the names whereby the Colonists have striven to reproduce in a 

 land of exile, the names of the beloved spots wiiich they had left. 

 I was much struck with this, when a few years ago I passed 

 through that part of Canada lying between the lakes Huron and 

 Erie, and generally known as the Huron tract. The Colonists of 

 that district being chiefly from the South of Scotland, the familiar 

 Galloway names were everywhere to be met with, and though 

 many of them were inappropriate in such a level country, yet on 

 account of their being given in memory of the old homesteads 

 they were excusable. Not so, however, the intolerable presump- 

 tion displayed by those who have ruthlessly seized upon the 

 grand historic names of the old world, and applied them by the 

 score to a limited number of wooden houses, a sawmill, grocery, 

 and grog stores, which go far to make up a city in a Western 

 forest. But from this digression to return to Galloway. A very 

 important point in ascertaining the meaning of topographical 

 words is to discover their ancient spelling. As the greater 

 number of these had been spoken for ages before they were 

 written, and when they came to be written the manner of 

 spelling would in a great measure depend on the accent of 

 the speaker and the ear of the writer, which accounts for 

 the diversity tiiat often appears in spelling the same word, 

 though it may be nearly at the same date. I have now before 

 me the Valuation Roll of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, 

 retoured to Exchequer, 15th July, 1642. The spelling used in it 

 makes plain the meaning of many words which modern spelling 

 has almost completely obscured. Words being like coins, they 

 get clipped and worn by constant use, until the legend which 

 they bore at first becomes almost effaced. The several races who 

 at different times held sway in Galloway, namely, the Caledonian 



