282 
OBITUARY NOTICES. 
on Geographic Names, formed by President Harrison, to 
regulate and harmonize the nomenclature used in official 
publications. Of this body he was one of the best informed 
and most efficient members. During the intervals of other 
work he compiled the data for a Dictionary of Alaskan 
Geographic Names, afterward published by the Survey, a 
work entailing an immense amount of scrutiny of books 
and charts, and which has served a most useful purpose in 
promoting an intelligent selection by modern geographers 
from the tangled and discrepant nomenclature which pre¬ 
ceded the American occupation of the region. 
With the appointment of the Venezuela Commission to 
report on the facts in the controversy between Great Britain 
and Venezuela it became necessary for the commission to 
secure the services of an expert geographer. Early in 1896 
Mr. Baker was asked to assist the commission temporarily. 
His services were so acceptable that he was, at their request, 
detailed for work with the commission May 11,1896, remain¬ 
ing with them almost exactly a year, during which he was 
engaged on historical and geographical investigations bear¬ 
ing on the cartography and boundary claims of Venezuela 
and adjacent countries in northern South America. About 
this time Mrs. Baker fell into declining health, and during a 
long and trying illness was the object of a patient, loving, 
and assiduous attention which will not soon be forgotten by 
those whose intimacy with the family gave them opportuni¬ 
ties for observation. She died December 29, 1897. 
The suspension of the Venezuela Commission, due to the 
acceptance of arbitration by Great Britain, allowed Mr. 
Baker to return to the work of the Geological Survey in 
May, 1897, but when the preliminaries of the Paris arbitra¬ 
tion had been arranged he was recalled by those having 
charge of the interests of Venezuela to assist the commis¬ 
sion and its counsel, Mr. Mallet-Prevost, in the preparation 
of the historical and geographical statement which formed 
the basis of the Venezuelan claims. The historical atlas he 
prepared and the volumes he saw through the press while 
