UNITED STATES BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES. 7 
than in the combination of the several words forming a name. Thns 
"La Fayette" has become well nigh universally "Lafayette," "El Do- 
rado" has become "Eldorado," etc. The Board approves this tend- 
ency and will further it as far as possible without forestalling usage too 
greatly. 
The use of diacritic characters in geographic names, in the United 
States, such as the German umlaut, the Spanish tilde, etc., is rapidly 
disappearing. It would be impossible, even were it desirable, to op- 
pose this change. 
The practice of adding the word city or town, as Boise city, Marshall- 
town, as a part of the name is a useless complication, growing in most 
cases out of an optimistic spirit on the part of the promoters of the 
place. It is often misleading and almost invariably unnecessary. 
Outside of the United States, where the Department of State and 
United States Hydrographic Office are chiefly interested, the work of 
the Board is directed to the harmonization of American usage in geo- 
graphic nomenclature with the usage of the great map-making nations — 
England, Germany, and France. The Department of State, by reason 
of its diplomatic and consular functions, is intimately concerned with 
the present style, change of names, transfers of territorial jurisdiction, 
cession and acquisition of territory by various governments abroad, and 
the proper forms of the titular political nomenclature of foreign states 
and nations. The interest of the Hydrographic Office is involved by 
reason of its publication of charts and sailing directions of all foreign 
waters, to the effective use of which uniformity of .geographic nomen- 
clature is obviously indispensable. The forms of foreign names recom- 
mended for adoption are determined on consultation of established 
usage, the best authorities upon ethnological and political history and 
derivation, and current geographic and political information from au- 
thentic sources. 
Many names in foreign civilized countries present a peculiar diffi- 
culty and appear to require that a further exception be made to the 
general principle of following local usage. This lies in the fact that 
many foreign names have been anglicized and the anglicized form, 
often quite different from the local form (meaning by local form that 
in use by the best authorities in the country having jurisdiction), is well 
established in usage in this country. 
It is understood by the Board that our charts of the coasts of foreign 
countries using Roman characters, made for the use of our Navy and 
merchant marine, generally require the use of the local forms of these 
names ; while, on the other hand, popular usage in this country, espec- 
ially in our atlases and text books, requires the anglicized form. The 
Board practically leaves this matter on the same footing as heretofore, 
permitting the use of local forms of foreign names upon our charts, and 
the anglicized forms upon maps designed for use in this country. It 
hopes, however, that the way may be opened in the near future to the 
adoption throughout of the local forms of these names, and the rejection 
of the anglicized forms. In such specific cases as have been brought 
to it^ attention, it has decided uniformly in favor of the local form. 
Most of the nations of Europe, either through national boards or geo- 
graphic societies, are engaged in the regulation of the orthography of 
geographic names. Their attention has been particularly directed 
toward producing uniformity in the transliteration of aboriginal names 
written in characters other than Roman. These nations have practi- 
cally agreed upon a system of transliteration, which, with one or two 
exceptions, has been adopted by this Board, thus coming into practical 
agreement in this matter with the rest of the civilized world. 
