32 TRANSACTIONS. 1 897-8. 



bury we did a foolish thing seeing that it means Soiithborough 

 and has been transplanted to Ontario and given a local habi- 

 tation in the Noi^tJi country, contrary to all the regulations of 

 Onomatology.* Mr. Suite at the last meeting of the Society 

 gave us samples of foolishly selected names, including, as he 

 contends, the place-name of this city — Ottawa. Sir William 

 Van Home mentions Bergen as a singularly inappropriate 

 place-name, being situated in the middle of a great plain of 

 Manitoba, while the original Bergen is a seaport of Norway 

 surrounded by high mountains. Every feature in the new 

 place 'is the direct opposite of the old place — the one a moun- 

 tain-begirt town, the other a plain-encompassed village ; the 

 one washed by the briny ocean — and if you want to know 

 what that means read Robert Stevenson's tale of the " Merry 

 Men" — the other without any water, fresh or salt, in it ; the 

 one a great entrepot for fish and fish products, the other 

 scarcely seeing a fish from one year's end to another. 



A few months ago the Royal Society of Canada affixed 

 a tablet to the Province Building in Halifax to commemorate 

 the connection of the Venetian merchant fwith our country. 

 The plan adopted in this case has been a favorite for many 

 years ; only the tablets have taken the form of place-names 

 derived from surname, christian name and title of persons 

 who in some way or other have been associated with Canada. 

 Our borrowings in this line have been extensive. Very few 

 Ivords of Plantations, Secretaries of War (when these were 

 also Secretaries for the Colonies) and Secretaries and 

 Under-Secretaries for the Colonies (since 1854) have escaped 

 the seaching place-name hunter called upon to baptize the 

 new township or county or village with a name that will suf- 

 ficently identify it. Of the 108 of these functionaries who 

 have administered our affairs in the Imperial Government 

 since 1768, I failed to find among our place-names, Castle- 

 reagh, Hicks-Beach, Chamberlain, Ball, Pirbright, Meade, 

 Pauncefote and Bramston — 8 out of 108. 



Since Jacques Cartier's time Canada has had 300 kings 

 and queens, governors, governors-general and lieutenant-gov- 



*SomeLimes a great and important fact is euil)almed in a place- 

 name applied in the reverse of the Geographical position. Thus 

 Sutherlandshire occupies a far North place on the map of the Island of 

 Great Britain though it means the SoxMi \i\,\\\\ . The name was t^vi- 

 dently given by persons living north of Great Btitaiii ; probably the 

 Norwegian settlers of the Orkney Islands gave it. 



tCabot is appropriately memorized in Cabot Straits- the water pas- 

 sage between Newfoundland and Cape Breton. 



