U. S. BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES 517 



usage includes (a) that of the President of the United States (creator of 

 the Board on Geographic Names), who employs the form Porto Rico in 

 all his messages and documents; (!>) that of the local official govern- 

 ment, which, since the American occupation, has been designated "The 

 Military Department of Porto Rico;" (c) that of the Treaty of Peace, 

 executed at Paris last year, in which the name of the island is given as 

 Porto Rico; ((/) that of the Post-Office Department, through which all 

 post offices of the island are officially located in the " island of Porto 

 Rico,'' and {<■) the prevailing custom of the U. S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture, the U, S. Geological Survey, and other governmental departments 

 and bureaus (from which the membership of the Board on Geographic 

 Names is made up), all of which use the form Porto Rico in their official 

 publications. 



3. The name Porto Rico is established by 300 years of world-wide usage, 

 as I have shown in detail elsewhere. This form has been adopted by all 

 the best English writers, and by all the world-famous cartographers of 

 England, France, Holland, and Germany almost since modern geography 

 had its beginning in the discovery of America. 



4. The term Porto is easily pronounced and is written phonetically, 

 while the word Puerto is practically unpronounceable in English, and 

 hence involves non-phonetic writing; accordingly, the former is so fully 

 in accord with the laws of linguistic evolution, which cannot here be fully 

 set forth, that it could not possibly be supplanted by the latter. 



5. If it is the principle of the Board to adopt " for other countries the 

 names by which they are known to their own inhabitants," they have 

 undertaken a needless and impossible task. In my opinion, it will be a 

 long time before the English people will use such names as Kraljeorna 

 Srbyia, Fspafia, Deutschland, etc., for Servia, Spain, and Germany, or 

 before we can make the Germans, French, and Spaniards call our own 

 country by any other names than the Vereingten Staaten, Les Etats Unis, 

 and Los Estados Unidos, respectively. In endeavoring to enforce such a 

 revolution upon a world-wide custom of language the Board is trans- 

 gressing its powers and diminishing its field of usefulness. 



R. T. Hill. 

 Washington, l>. V. 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE AND THE 

 U. S. BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES 



On September 4, L890, the President of the United States issued the 

 following order : 



As it is desirable thai uniform usage in regard to geographic nomencla- 

 ture and orthography obtain throughoul the Executive Departments of 

 the Government, and particularly upon the maps and charts issued by 

 the various Departments ami Bureaus, I hereby constitute a Board on 

 Geographic Names, and designate the following persons, who have here- 

 tofore cooperated for a similar purpose under the authority of the several 

 Departments, Bureaus, and Institutions with which they are connected, 

 as members of said Board : 



I Here follow names. 



