62 TRANSACTIONS. 1 86 7-8. 



place-names of Canada. It will be in the future increasingly 

 difficult to bestow appropriate place-names. Now that we 

 are one country we must avoid the duplications that have 

 come to us as a legacy from the ante-confederation period. 

 Perforce, the fund of appropriate names from France and 

 Great Britain nears the bottom. We have not by any means 

 exhausted the names of the saints in the Roman and Saxon 

 Hagiologies but as we had 499 places in the Census com- 

 memorative of these worthies and have a good many more of 

 them outside of the Census lists it is plain that we cannot 

 depend much longer upon the saints to supply us with place- 

 names. * 



The finer taste of modern times requires that we do not 

 imitate our neighbors and hunt in ancient Greek history for 

 such names as Athens, Troy, Tyre, Sidon, or give such fan- 

 tastic names as Tomb City, Henpeck City and the like. The 

 practical tendency of the age is opposed to names having an 

 eponymicf existence. Isaac Taylor, already quoted, says, " If 

 the true principles of Anglo-Saxon nomenclature were under- 

 stood our Anglo- Americ-an and iVustralian cousins might con- 

 struct an endless series of fresh names which might be at once 

 harmonious, distinctive, characteristic and in entire conson- 

 ance with the genius of the language." 



I suggest that it would be a step in the right direction 

 for the Government to appoint a permanent commission of 

 three or more competent persons to provide the new place- 

 names we are continually needing, 



* The extent to which Canadians were a maritime people, in the 

 early years, is seen in the fact that there are, in the Dominion, 55 places 

 to which the name of Ste. Anne, the Patron Saint of sailors, has been 

 given. 



tA personal name evolved by popular speculation to account for 

 some geographical term the true meaning of which has not been under- 

 stood ; as the speculation that France takes its name from Francus, a 

 son of Heel 01 ; and Britain from Brydain, a son of Aenius ; and Scot- 

 land from Scotia, a daughter of Pharoah. 



P. S.--Page 44, line 5. Since writing that the <^. P. Ry. is respon- 

 sible for tl e place name of Mount Macdonald, I found froii) official re- 

 ports that this Mountain, as well as others, was named by Mr. Otto J. 

 Klotz, our efficient President, who was the first to triangulate the 

 mountains in the Rockies and Selkirks along the route of the O. P. Ry- 



G. .T. 



