Geographic Nomenclature. 269 
American geographic societies should express their views of it at 
an early day. The system is easily brought in harmony with the 
general principles adopted by the Royal Geographical Society, by 
a simple declaration in regard to the diacritical marks by which, 
mainly for the purpose of facilitating correct re-transliteration of 
Russian names, the vowels 7, 7, 7, e and @ and the silent semi- 
vowels are sought to be distinguished in the written names. For 
the benefit of those unacquainted with the system of transliterat- 
ing Russian, published in Nature, it is reprinted at the close of 
this paper. Lu 
A few words more in regard to the treatment of the Russian 
‘geographic names found in Alaska. This territory will in the 
course of time contain a large English-speaking population, and 
its geographic names of Russian and Eskimo origin should, in a 
certain sense, no longer be classed by us under the category of 
foreign names. 
The future official orthography of Alaska might, therefore, be 
treated liberally, that is to say, complicated spelling following 
from a strict transliteration might be simplified to a certain ex- 
tent, as has been done with the spelling of many aboriginal 
Indian names. 
Of the geographic nomenclature of Asiatic countries none has 
become so rapidly well known as that of the Japan Archipelago, — 
and we can already now class Japan among the countries having 
an official geographic nomenclature in Roman character. 
Within less than twenty years, the wonderfully progressive Jap- 
anese have established a geographic service for the survey of their 
domain, and a hydrographic service for the survey of their coasts 
and navigable waters. They have now published several hundreds 
of nautical charts, which are as good and practical as any published 
by other nations. 
On those Japanese charts, which are based exclusively on their 
own surveys, the names are printed in the signs of the ‘ Kana’ 
with the transliteration of the name in Roman character added. 
It is this feature which has materially helped us to a better and 
correct knowledge of their geographic names. Within the last 
few years the Romaji-Awai* has made immense progress, and 
I understand that the society’s system forms already part of the 
instruction in a number of schools in Japan. Hence, we may 
* Society for the introduction of the Roman character for writing the 
Japanese language. 
