28 INTRODUCTION. 



II. THE MAP OP MOUNT DESERT ISLAND. 



SOME years ago it became very evident that there was 

 to be great difficulty in properly indicating stations for 

 the various Island plants needing such limitation. While 

 it was necessary in some cases to make the station some- 

 what indefinite in description in order to guard against 

 extermination on the one hand by the flower-puller and 

 the plant-digger, and on the other by the over-zealous 

 botanist, yet it was necessary in all cases to give a name 

 to the station that should be both accurate and well 

 known as a matter of geographical nomenclature. To 

 some it may seem that this involved merely a reference 

 to any map of the Island to ascertain the necessary 

 information, but this was a solution of only a portion of 

 the difficulty. In the first place the two maps most 

 readily consulted, the Land Map of Colby and Stuart and 

 the Coast Survey Map, pay very little attention to the 

 names of the points of minor interest on the Island. As 

 such points are often of the greatest botanical interest, 

 and must be referred to, it was clear that the present 

 maps would not be of much assistance in these cases. In 

 the second place, the geographical nomenclature employed 

 on the Coast Survey Map, and followed in some degree 

 on the Land Map, is often, we regret to say, absolutely 

 erroneous. In many a case, indeed, there is no explana- 

 tion whatever to account for the blunders, except that the 

 officers in charge of the work must have coined names for 

 their own use, regardless or in ignorance of the fact that 

 there might be names already attached to the places in 

 question. In other cases, by some curious mistake, names 

 have been carelessly transposed and interchanged. The 



