WORK OF THE BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES 
227 
name had a final hov not. The board at one stroke relieved the 
American public of this necessity b}'’ striking off the h in every 
case. The same thing was done with the termination ugh of 
borough and for the same purpose. Similarl}'- the word centre is 
now uniformly spelled center wherever it appears as a part of a 
geographic name. 
There is one other class of names to be considered, that is, 
names in remote, unsettled parts of the country, where there is 
no local usage. These are mainly of Indian origin, and they 
may be said to be still in an unsettled state, like the country in 
which they are found. How do we obtain Indian names ? The 
spelling given to an Indian name represents the way in which 
some white man understood some Indian to pronounce it, and 
every one knows that in such a case there will be just as many 
different spellings of an Indian name as there are white men to 
hear it and Indians to pronounce it. From our Northwest we 
could, if space permitted, give hundreds of such names, each of 
them with a dozen or perhaps twenty different versions, and each 
version just as correct as any other. In such cases the board 
selects from among the different versions the one which seems 
to represent the sound the most clearly and most simply. 
Early in the life of the board a long list of Alaskan names was 
sui)initted to it for decision. These names were referred by the 
board to some half-dozen gentlemen, all of whom were known as 
Alaskan geographers, and the subsequent decisions were based 
upon the weight of evidence submitted by these specialists. Of 
course, the decisions did not in all cases please all persons ac- 
quainted with Alaskan names. 
In the matter of names in unsettled countries under foreign 
jurisdiction, the ])olicy of the board has been to accept the spell- 
ing of the nation having jurisdiction there. 
The work involved in making these decisions is in the main 
simple in character. Although much of it involves investiga- 
tion, it is common every-day investigation, consisting mainly in 
finding out what people call themselves. The matters with 
which the boanl are concerned arc not, as a rule, scientific mat- 
ters. They are sim[)ly matters of fact or judgment. The board 
is often criticised for inc(msistency in its decisions; with having 
decided one way in one case and a dill'erent way in another case 
whicli appears to l»e (piih! similar. I think tlu^ board is (luito 
read}’’ to plead guilty to the charge of inconsistency, but with 
extenuating circumstances, since c<jnsistency in certain matters 
involves inconsistency in others. 
