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TOPOGRAPHIC TERMS OF SPANISH AMERICA 
The English pioneers gave to the tojDographic features of 
America only a few names. Eminences they described as moun- 
tains, hills, knobs, chains, ranges, lone mountains, and lost 
mountains. They called valleys lake valleys, l>asin valleys (a 
very ambiguous term), and river valleys. I cannot at present 
recall any established English words for varieties of plains. The 
words we use for these — plateaux, savannas, etc. — are all foreign 
terms. For declivities we have slope, bluff, terrace, escarpment, 
bank, etc. Possibl}" the paucity of descriptive words for plains is 
due to the fact that in England, where the English language 
developed, plains are not conspicuous topographic features. 
In the portions of America settled or explored by the Spanish 
race there is a remarkable stock of appropriate descriptive topo- 
graphic terms, as can be ascertained by studjdng and translat- 
ing the names upon any of the maps of southwestern United 
States. Although unfamiliar to eastern ears, these words are as 
euphonious as some of those invented by modern geographers. 
They also bear the stamp of priority, for they were probably ap- 
})lied to the features they now adorn before the English settled 
on the North American continent, and the}' have since been in 
constant use by the people of the region. They appear also on 
]niblished maj)S, and nearly every word used in this pa])er is 
taken from some ])rinted map of New Mexico, of the adjacent 
border states of Mexico, or of Trans-Pecos Texas. 
It should, perhaps, be stated that the ])resent article is not 
written from the standpoint of a philologist, and may not even 
bear the close criticism of a linguist. It is an outgrowth of the 
writer’s hal)it of looking up the meaning of names encountered 
in his travels in S}>anish America. Finally, on taking stock of 
tlie words collected, he has found that they cover nearly every 
possible topographic form in the region. These terms, as applied 
in America, may not exactly coincide in meaning with Castilian 
usage, but they are now Americanized and in daily use. They 
are now submitted to the criticism of intelligent geographers. 
INIany of them may seem unnecessary and even useless, but there 
are some admirable ones that will survive and that in their an- 
glicized form must be adopted in any scheme of geographic 
nomenclature which would seek to have an appropriate general 
term for every possible topographic form. 
NAMES APPLIED TO PROTUBERANCES (MOUNTAIN FORMS) 
The following names of protuberances above adjacent regions. 
