The Name ''Mt. Rainier: 



89 



Within the last year, after years of waiting, we have 

 received tracings from the originals of twelve early Span- 

 ish surveys on the Northwest Coast, with hundreds of 

 names which we have placed upon Coast Survey charts 

 for the Bureau at Washington. They have no counter- 

 part in the United States, and we hope to obtain others. 



We pray you will pardon this much of what we have 

 been doing upon this coast since 1850, to gather the facts 

 about the names thereon; but it seemed necessary to 

 indicate that the matter of ''historic" names had been 

 constantly before us in geodetic and geographic work. 



It is now pertinent to ask. By what authority are 

 geographic names applied to special land and sea objects? 



We need not go back to the early centuries; we must 

 be governed by the methods and usages of recent date; 

 and we may fairly assert that the first and highest 

 authority is, 



(1) By governmental decree. After that we acknowl- 

 edge 



(2) The accepted right of the discoverer in a new 

 country with uncivilized inhabitants, or with no inhab- 

 itants. 



(3) The long usage of geographers, navigators, trav- 

 elers, and historians. 



(4) The general opinion of experts in either or all of 

 the preceding sources of authority. 



(5) The striking peculiarity of the locality or object; 

 and lastly, 



(6) The names adopted by any other country for geo- 

 graphic objects; although this might be considered as 

 coming under the first heading. 



Under the first source of authority, a case was pre- 

 sented by the Government of the United States in the 

 discussion of the proper location of the boundary-line 

 between the United States and Great Britain from the 

 parallel of forty-nine degrees through the Gulf of 

 Georgia, Washington Sound, and the Strait of Fuca 

 to the Pacific. It was declared that all the waters from 



