40 EARLY GAZETTEER AND MAP LITERATURE 



by David William Smith. In each successive instalment of that 

 work in the Journal, I have added annotations, explanatory of the 

 names attached to the several localities, thinking that it would be a 

 matter of some interest to intelligent persons to be acquainted with 

 the source of the appellation by which their neighbourhood or their 

 own place of abode, was generally known, which appellation is occa- 

 sionally, in some sense and degree attached to themselves also. 



The Gazetteer of 1797 is, of course, a book of moderate size, and 

 the list of names to be remarked upon, not extensive. To annotate 

 in a similar way, the whole of a modern Grazetteer would be a dif- 

 ferent thing ; yet an addition of the kind referred to, would, doubtless, 

 be an enhancement to the value of the work in an historical point of 

 view. For many years to come in Canada, then? will be new areas 

 to be surveyed and set off into townships, and new local names to 

 be found and applied. Wherever it is possible to make use of the 

 aboriginal Indian names, it is plainly in good taste to retain them. 

 Uncouthness of form and sound may be frequently got rid of by 

 certain modifications, in accordance with principles of euphony and 

 structure obtaining in the English language. It is in this way, that 

 Niagara, Acadia, Canada itself, and many other beautiful proper 

 names, have acquired their present form. Algoma, Muskoka, Mani- 

 toba, are other*more recent instances. Spadina, here in Toronto — 

 and the word Toronto itself, may be also mentioned. The retention 

 of the old French names, attached to former distant outposts of traffic, 

 (fee, is to be Commended. But a favourite method of designating 

 newly surveyed townships, adopted in the Crown Lands Department 

 of late years, as in the past too, is the application thereto of the names 

 of ministers, or ex-ministers, of the Crown, Judges, Chancellors, 

 Civil Engineers, and other public characters of the country. It has 

 become, indeed, a kind of perquisite of high office for the holder to 

 have his name" inscribed on the map as the designation in all future 

 time of a township, village, or county. To the articles in Gazetteers 

 from time to time hereafter, it will be of use to add brief annotations 

 on such names. We may all know very well who Mr. Malcolm 

 Cameron, for example, was ; but the inhabitants of the areas distin- 

 guished by his name will, perhaps, not be so fortunate, and they may 

 be desirous of indulging a not unnatural curiosity on the point. 



