REPORT OF BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES. 
13 
other hand, have been applied either by legislative enactment or char¬ 
ter, and therefore possess some degree of formal authority. 
Differences of usage exist to a large extent, not onty in the names 
of natural features and unincorporated places, but even in those of 
organized bodies of population whose names have been bestowed by 
formal authority. These differences have originated in numerous 
ways. 
In the unsettled parts of the country different exploring expeditions, 
ignoring the work of their predecessors, have given new names to 
features already named. As elsewhere noted this difficulty has often 
occurred in Alaska, which has been visited in recent years by numer¬ 
ous expeditions. 
The transliteration of Indian names has everywhere been a fruitful 
source of differences in spelling, inasmuch as no two persons under¬ 
stand alike or render into the same English characters the obscure 
sounds of Indian names. 
It often happens in the case of the larger geographic features, such 
as extended mountain ranges, rivers, etc., that different names have 
been applied locally in various parts and these names have become 
well settled in usage. 
It frequently happens that railroads adopt names for their stations 
different from those of the towns or villages in which they are situated 
and thus divide usage. To a much greater extent, however, than the 
railroads has the Post Office Department confused the nomenclature 
of the smaller towns and villages by attaching names to the post offices 
not in accordance with those in local usage. Indeed, an examination 
shows that there are in this country thousands of cases where the name 
of the post office does not conform to the local name of the place in 
which it is situated. These differences are very confusing to those 
using the postal service, and it seems desirable to reduce their number 
so far as practicable, at the same time recognizing the necessity of 
having no post office name duplicated in a state. 
By far the greater number of differences in usage, however, have 
their origin in carelessness or ignorance on the part of those making 
use of the names. Such errors appearing in print are frequently per¬ 
petuated, especially in popular works, and often supplant the original 
name in usage. 
Originating in these diversities of spelling there is distinctly trace¬ 
able a development of geographic nomenclature which is, on the whole, 
proceeding in a beneficial direction. Its tendency is toward the dis¬ 
carding of objectionable names and the adoption of pleasing ones, and 
toward the simplification and abbreviation of names, particularly as 
shown in the dropping of silent letters. The Board, recognizing this 
course of development, deems it to be within its power to guide it, 
and even to forestall it, so far as its future course may be foreseen. 
