Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod AND Gun. 
Copyright, 1902, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1902, 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. ; 
( VOL. LIX.— No. 25. 
( No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
Through the beneficence of Providence these magnificent moun- 
tains, having fOrty-six peaks and forty-one miles of ridges exceed- 
ing six thousand feet in lieight, and two hundred and eighty-eight 
other peaks and tliree liundred miles of ridges of over five thou- 
sand feet, "the greatest masses of mountains east of the Rockies," 
and "the higliest mountains covered witli liardwood in America," 
have been provided as an unfailing source for tlie rivers of six 
great States. 
Wliat a wonderful provision! First the bountiful, even wonder- 
ful rainfall; then these splendid forests to preserve and store it 
for the use of man! But the work of man is fast destroying the 
handiwork of God. Let us at once see to it that this shall stop, 
and that what was intended for the benefit of toiling millions 
shall not be perverted to their ruin. — Speech of Hon. William 
Elliott, of South Carolina in the House of Representatives, on the 
Appalachian Forest Reserve. 
FOR CHRISTMAS WEEK READING. 
The next issue of the Forest and Stream will be 
the Christmas Number, and will contribute its share 
to the enjoyment of Christmas week by providing a 
rich fund of entertaining reading. 
Mrs. Llewella Pierce Churchill has written for this 
number a story of "The Rainy Chase of the Robber 
Crab," a bit of experience which has all the novelty 
and charm of her other Samoan sketches. 
Francis Moonan will contribute a story of Rocky 
Mountain adventure, "The Wolf at the Door," in 
which the wolf plays a part quite different from that 
of the conventional creature whose presence at the 
door is expressive of the never ending struggle for 
bread. 
"The Passing of the Sledge-Dog," by H. M. Robin- 
son, describes the new conditions in the North under 
which the sledge dog, once the common transporta- 
tion agency, has disappeared. 
Alma will tell in "Stubble Rhymes" and picture a 
story of quail shooting in Michigan. 
Yo will record the winning of a goat head by a 
novice amid the peaks and crags of the St. Mary's 
River country in the Rocky Mountains. 
Charles L. Jordan will chronicle the extreme difti- 
culties and some marvelous achievements of photo- 
graphing the wild turkey in its native haunts. 
Dr. Geo. McAleer will relate an amusnig incident 
of simple and ingenuous backwoods life in Canada. 
Coahoma will give some further notes drawn from 
his close study of rattlesnakes and squirrels. 
The Old Angler will continue the "Reminiscences 
of an Octogenarian," papers which Charles Hallock 
in another colunjn to-da3' characterizes as graphically 
imparting to the reader the realism of salmon fishing. 
And to give further representation of the "Old 
Guard," Von W. will have a poem, "When the Long 
Shadows Fall," which, if it shall not be understood of 
the younger readers, will surely appeal to him who, 
looking back, reckons the tally of many a Christmas 
week long, long gone by. 
PLACE NAMES. 
One of the first' things to be done when a new 
country is entered by man is to name its various geo- 
graphical features. Hills and mountains, rivers and 
brooks, buttes and divides, springs and swamps, must 
receive names by which they shall be generally known, 
in order that the business, of the new occupants of the 
territory may be carried on. As towns and villages 
spring up, and as roads are established, these, too, are 
named. Later, often much later, the surveyor and the 
topographer pass through the country, establish the 
location of its various natural features, and finally 
these features and others which depend on its occu- 
pancy by civilized man are transferred to maps and 
charts. 
The note found elsewhere from the pen of our cor- 
respondent Juvenal calls attention to the unhappy meth- 
ods used by Americans in naming places and ^ 
natural features. It would seem as if some early 
surveyor jfi );he Mphawk yalley, in New York State, 
had taken a classical dictionary and had at random 
named the various villages and towns after the best^ 
known names in classical history. Utica, Attica, Syra- 
cuse, Ithaca, Marathon and Rome are examples of the 
devotion to the classics of this early surveyor, who may 
be responsible also for such names as Marcellus, 
Cicero, Manlius and others. The French blood of long 
ago is seen in such names as Massillon, Marseilles and 
Vincennes, a little further to the West. 
The early settlers of this country seem to have suf- 
fered from a sort of anaemia of the imagination, or, 
perhaps, it would be truer to say that they had no 
imagination to be anaemic. 
West of the Missouri River we find names often 
given by people who were also without imagination, 
but who applied to the natural features of the coun- 
try names that were either descriptive or historical. 
For creeks such names as beaver, elk, deer, muddy, 
v/illow and box elder, are scattered over the whole 
western country, duplicated, we dare not say how 
many times. But if they are commonplace and mean 
little, it seems better that a stream should be called 
Muddy Creek or White River, rather than Tiber River 
or Pactolus Creek. 
In the matter of naming the streams along which 
they lived and which they had to cross, the Indians 
showed what will appear to many persons much bet- 
ter taste than has been displayed by the white man. 
Usually their names are historical and have a distinct 
meaning, the story of which still lives in the tribe. A 
certain stream in Montana, which we call Armell's 
Creek, is called by the Indians, "It Fell on Them," 
because once, when women were digging out from un- 
der its high bank the red earth which they used as 
paint, the bank caved in and the falling earth crushed 
a number of people. Another Montana stream, at 
which a bear, rushing out of the bushes, seized an In- 
dian and tore him to pieces, the Blackfeet call "Where 
We Were Bitten." So there are Punished Woman's 
Fork, Crazy Woman's Fork, Antelope Pit River, Paw- 
nee Buttes and the Hill of the Pile of Bones and many 
others, all of them based on events whiclT are still 
remembered. 
Such names have character and meaning, and where 
possible should be retained. They compare favorably 
with the names applied to some of the old towns in 
New York, or with some given recently — but which, 
happily, will not stand — to certain peaks in the Rocky 
Mountains, as Mt. Olympus, the Matterhorn! 
In our cities, which so often are governed by bodies 
of men whose education is very slight, whose interests 
are largely confined to politics, and who are likewise 
destitute of imagination, we may expect to find names 
such as Edgecomb Boulevard, Pinehurst Avenue and^ 
BIythebourne Terrace. These things are past remedy. 
It is hopeless to attempt to raise the average city 
dweller above the level of his own commonplaceness. 
Yet while, in place names in America, we have a 
vast number that are quite hopelessly bad from any 
point of view, we should be grateful for the large 
number that are not in that category, and which really 
represent something. Indian names are many, and 
all of them good; old Dutch or French or English 
names — those of the discoverers or early settlers of any 
region — may fittingly be used to perpetuate the mem- 
ory of persons who came first into the country. But 
names that are high-sounding, yet without meaning, 
are an abomination, and should not be used. 
The good old names that we have are yet in danger 
of being changed for others that are fanciful and mean- 
ingless, and many people who appear to believe them- • 
selves better than their forebears believe also that these 
old names are not good enough for them. It may 
have been a New York City Council which altered the 
name Tubby Hook to Inwood; and it was probably a 
village council which altered the name of the village 
of Schraalenburgh, descriptive and euphonious as it 
is, to the name of a living bank president! 
The place names in old Canada, given chiefly by the 
French, are musical and pleasant sounding to the An- 
glo-Saxon ear — Rimouski, Trois Rivieres, Trois Pis- 
toles, St. Jean de Matha, Notre Dame des Anges, 
Temiscamingue. Many of them are of Indian origin, 
and of those which are French, the majority are the 
names of saints or are in some way descriptive. 
The account given elsewhere by Mr. E. A. Rich- 
ard of the working of the new Newfoundland cari- 
bou law is very interesting. Whatever we may think 
of non-resident licenses, either betweeii different coun- 
tries or different States, it seems clear enough from 
Mr. Richard's statement that the increase of the New- 
foundland license fee for the killing of bull caribou 
from $50 to $100, has had its effect in protecting the 
caribou. The extraordinary reduction in the number 
of American sportsmen visiting Newfoundland for 
caribou was due primarily to the exaction of a tax so 
high that it was regarded as an imposition. A fee of 
$100 is practically prohibitive, as the event has proved. 
Other influences, too, have operated to reduce the 
number of visitors. In sport, as in other things, 
fashions prevail. A dozen years ago very few Ameri- 
cans had ever been to Newfoundland for the purpose 
of hunting caribou, but half a dozen years ago it 
seemed as if every big-game hunter one met was ask- 
ing questions about Newfoundland, how to get there, 
and what the prospects were when this land should 
be reached. For two or three years after that there 
was a great slaughter of caribou, and many men who 
believed themselves sportsmen, in pure wantonness 
shot down the beasts, as they attempted to cross the 
streams or later the railroad embankment. Against 
such methods there was before long a natural reaction, 
and American sportsmen of the better class were not 
slow in expressing their views on such butchery. It 
became apparent that to kill caribou in such a way 
required no skill, and was not sport, and men ceased 
to care for it. 
The action of the authorities in setting aside an area 
of country fifteen miles long by ten miles wide, in 
which no caribou should be killed, was wise and far 
seeing, but this law has had a deterrent influence upon 
visiting sportsmen, for it requires the hunter to go 
further and work harder for his game. 
Tourists in the Yellowstone National Park have been 
plagued by the nuisance of the clouds of dust, stifling 
and blinding, which have made travel on the Park 
roads a pilgrim's penance rather than a pleasure ex- 
cursion. Government engineers in charge of the 
roads have put in operation a water sprinkling system 
which has accomplished so much in making the roads 
agreeable that it will be continued permanently. Not 
only has the comfort of tourists been promoted, but 
the roads have been subject to less deterioration than in 
other years. It has been proposed to apply to the Yel- 
lowstone Park roads the system of oil sprinkling, which 
has been such a notable success in California. 
The time for discussing the expediency of setting 
apart the Southern Appalachian Forest Reserve has 
gone by. The wisdom and necessity of the istep have 
been demonstrated. The country is convinced, and 
demands the park. Boards of trade, manufacturers' 
associations, town and city authorities, and State Leg- 
islatures have spoken for it. Nothing remains but for 
Congress to act. The action may well be prompt, be- 
cause the measure is no longer debatable. It has 
been debated. Give us the reservation. 
; *t _ 
A novel movement in Colorado is the organization 
of a secret society for the protection of game. 
Game Commissioner Harris is at the head of it. The 
membership is to be made up of influential business 
men and other substantial citizens; each member will 
be expected to give to the commissioner information 
of any game law violation he may have knowledge of, 
and in every case the identity of the informer is to be 
kept a profound secret, even from his fellow mem- 
bers, thus to secure immunity from any revenge of 
prosecuted individuals. 
Three carloads of elk from the October Mountain 
preserves of William C. Whitney, "in the Berkshires, 
have been liberated in the Adirondacks. One lot was 
put out at the foot of Raquette Lake, and the other 
two were distributed near Long Lake, West Station. 
There must now be in the Adirondacks sufficient par- 
ent stock to insure a permanent elk supply if the 
newcomers can be shielded from the bullets pf 
ttiQuglit-it-w?is-a-deer sliooter??^ 
