GEOGRAPHIC NAMES IN WEST GREENLAND 103 



to San Francisco he was ill and did not immediately report the matter. 

 Mrs Sullivan has since examined the picture of Andree's balloon and 

 says it represents the object seen. The president Geographical Society 

 of the Pacific here instituted inquiries that have resulted as above." 



The locality described is very near Quesnelle lake. While 

 British Columbia is in the opposite direction to that in which 

 Herr Andree's balloon is believed by Arctic explorers to have 

 been borne, it is by no means an impossibility that it was carried 

 in that direction, and the approximate date, August 4-7, at 

 which a balloon is alleged to have been seen in that region would 

 be just about the expiration of the time that it is believed Herr 

 Andree's balloon would remain in the air. The physical features 

 and conditions of British Columbia are such as to render it abso- 

 lutely impossible to prosecute any search for traces of the al- 

 leged aerial visitant at this season of the year. Meanwhile the 

 consensus of opinion is that Andree, if alive, is much more likely 

 to be in Franz Josef Land, north Siberia, north or east Green- 

 land, or Spitzbergen, and his safe return seems to depend largely 

 on some fortunate accident that would lead to his being picked up 

 by a whaler. 



J. H. 



GEOGRAPHIC NAMES IN WEST GREENLAND 



In his article in this magazine (vol. ix, pp. 1-11) Mr Robert 

 Stein gives 46 new names to capes, bays, mountains, glaciers, etc., 

 chiefly in honor of the " advocates of a National University at 

 Washington." Most of these points were merely seen from a 

 distance and most of them have already been explored and 

 mapped, and some of them have been visited by at least two 

 parties, each of which applied as few names as possible. The 

 plan adopted by Mr Stein is not uncommon in " geographic ex- 

 ploration," though it is difficult to understand the importance 

 of such work. Doubtless the Danes will feel fully justified in 

 ignoring the nomenclature, which is burdensome, needless, and 

 meaningless. 



My chief object in this note is to call attention to the fact that 

 in the promiscuous naming of things, the Wyckoff glacier,* one of 

 the five names that I applied to this region, is ignored and re- 

 placed by the name Hearst. My belief is that names of places 



*Bull. Geol. Soe. America, Vol. viii, 1807, p. 257. 



