16 - REPOBT OF THE UNITED STATES GEOGEAPHIC BOARD. 
The practice of adding the word "city" or "town," as Boise City, 
as a part of the name is a useless complication, growing in most 
cases out of an optimistic spirit on the part of the promotors of the 
place. It is often misleading and almost invariably unnecessary. 
There are in Alaska a good many names of Russian origin end- 
ing in oBb, which terminating syllable has been variously rendered 
of, off, ow, and ov. The Board uniformly uses of. Examples: 
Baranof, Chichagof, Popof, and Shelikof. 
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 
geographic 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 inti- 
mately concerned with the present style, change of names, transfers 
of territorial jurisdiction, cession and acquisition of territory by 
various governments abroad, and the pjoper forms of the titular 
political nomenclature of foreign states and nations. The interest 
of the Hydrographic Office is involved by reason of its pubUcation 
of charts and sailing directions of all foreign waters, to the effective 
use of which uniformity of geographic nomenclature is obviously 
indispensable. The forms of foreign names recommended for adopt- 
tion are determined on consultation of established usage, the best 
authorities upon ethnological and political history and derivation, 
and current geographic and political information from authentic 
sources. 
Many names in foreign civiUzed 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 hes in the fact that 
many foreign names have been anghcized, 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 jurisdic- 
tion), is well estabUshed in usage in this country. 
Such cases wherein English-speaking nations use names differing 
from those locally accepted are not numerous, but they are among 
those most in use and represent the most prominent features of the 
earth; for instance, we call Deutschland Germany, Espaiia Spain, 
Ldvorno Leghorn. In many cases we translate the foreign name, if 
it is capable of translation, into English words. Other countries, 
in turn, treat the names of this country in a similar manner. In- 
deed, most non-English-speaking people translate the name of this 
country into their own tongue, forgetting that geographic names, 
like personal names, should not be translated. 
