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 HON. W. GA McADOO, 
 
 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI 
 
 ast-ienn^Bsee ftnibersHs, 
 
 Enoxville, Tennessee, June 20th, 1871 > 
 
 MILLEDOEVILLE, OA: 7 
 
 riDB&AL VBIOM BOOK ADD JOB OWWlCt. 
 187L 
 
 
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 *— — ■ 
 
 Knoxville, Tennessee, June 20th, 1871. 
 Hon. Wm. G. McAdoo : 
 
 Dear Sir: — At a meeting this day of the associated 
 Alumni of East Tennessee University, a vote of thanks 
 vras unanimously passed for your able, original, and in- 
 structive Address, this day delivered before them ; and by 
 their order I am instructed to request a copy of the same 
 for publication. 
 
 With the hope that you may return a favorable reply to 
 the request, and vi^ith sentiments of the highest personal 
 esteem, 
 
 I am, sir, &c., 
 
 W. A. Henderson, 
 
 Secretary, &c. 
 
 Knoxville, Tenn., June 21, 1871. 
 W. A. Henderson, Esq., 
 
 Secretary Associated Alumni E. T. Univeisity, 
 Dear Sir : — Your polite and complimentary note re- 
 questing a copy of my Address of yesterday, is before me. 
 I comply with unaffected pleasure, and transmit herewith 
 the MS. Its crudities and prolixities of composition I 
 regret, but cannot amend for the want now of the element 
 whose need in the hour of composition occasioned them — 
 time. When Sir Walter Scott was asked why he had not 
 written his life of Napoleon in two volumes instead of 
 three, he replied " Because I had not time." 
 I am, with great respect, yours, &c., 
 
 W. G. McAdoo. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Brethren of the Associated Alumni of East- Tennessee University : 
 
 Almost under the Equator in South America stands the 
 snow-capped peak, long supposed, but mistakenly, to be 
 the highest pinnacle ot land on our globe. It bears the 
 well known name of Ciiimborazo — familiar to the ears of 
 even school children. The name in one of our standard 
 works is pronounced to be Spanish. That is an error. 
 Baron Von Humboldt, in his "Views of Nature," devotes 
 some space to its derivation, ending by the closely reason- 
 ed conjecture that the name is a relic of lost people and a 
 perishtd language. What a superb monument — a grand 
 granite shaft 21,424 feet in height — its summit glittering 
 with perpetual snow beneath the splendors of a tropical sun, 
 — as the memorial of a lost race whose very name has 
 passed away, whose language has vanished save the one 
 word Chim/jorazo ! 
 
 The namehal descended, perhaps through several suc- 
 cessive nationalities in occupancy of that sublime Andean 
 region, to the proud race of the Incas. At time of the 
 Spanish Conquest, it passed unmutilated to the fol- 
 lowers of Pizarro, and thus is introduced to a permanent 
 place in the written languages of the world of modern 
 civilization. 
 
 In contrast to this notable example, the Geographical 
 Nomenclature of the United States presents in our day 
 some peculiar and perplexing evils. A brief consideration 
 of these will constitute the main subject of the discourse 
 this evening. 
 
 Our peculiarities of origin and history, and some of the 
 leading features of our governmental organization, very 
 naturally led to these evils. Blessings greater than the 
 evils came from these circumstances. Imperfections form 
 
4 6E0QBAPHICAL KOMENCLATUBE. 
 
 a composite feature of every human institution — I may add 
 of every earthly organization. The true philosophical 
 economy is to eliminate the faults, and develop and increase 
 the good elements, wherever possible, in all the wide range 
 of practicalities pertaining to human existence. Perfection, 
 though never attained, must be constantly sought il we 
 would attain eminence. Michael Angelo remarked to a 
 friend who wondered at the great artist's excessive labor to 
 remedy slight defects, •' Recollect that trifles make perfec- 
 tion, and that perfection is no trifle." 
 
 We have a vast Republic, destined doubtless to become 
 yet vaster ; a conglomerate mass of minor republics held 
 together in one nationality by a system pecujiarly our own. 
 The Fathers nicely adjusted its checks and balances; and 
 from their giant hands the orb of our Republic swung out 
 in space and revolved among the Nations. So nicely was 
 the adjustment of the centrifugal and centripetal forces per- 
 fected, that though convulsions of all sorts from the pet- 
 tiest to the mightiest, have tested our orbital powers, we 
 Btill revolve in the pathway of Republican Institutions, 
 escaping alike the contrifugal forces of anarchy on the one 
 hand, and the contripetal Sun of Despotism on the other. 
 May our terrestial astronomy — it such a term be admis- 
 sible — continue the same forever! 
 
 The very natural and deserved love of our people for 
 these fathers, and for the Revolutionary and subsequent 
 heroes who shaped our greatness, commend themselves to 
 our admiration. Gratitude for past favors has been said to 
 have been forgotten occasionally among the sons of men. 
 
 But this gratitude has assumed one shape against which 
 I beg this day to protest. I file my demurrer against ex- 
 cessive geographical gratitude. I will illustrate. 
 
 We have m the United States — or I should say had in 
 1864, the date of the latest authority on the subject within 
 my reach — 254 places named Washington — 243 named Jack- 
 son — 171 named Jefferson — with multitudinous Monroes 
 and Madisons and Marions — Putnams, Clintons, Knoxes and 
 Hamiltons. Ten of these leading names are applied to 
 1367 places — an average of nearly 137 places to each name. 
 There is not a State or Territory in the Union where these 
 favorite names have not been planted in the first footsteps 
 of the American pioneer, during the ninety years of our post 
 Revolutionary history. They spring up as spontaneously 
 in the pioneer's footsteps as the present poet laureate of 
 Great Britain makes the violets evolve from the footprints 
 of his hero's mistress in one of his finest productions, 
 "Maud." 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. O 
 
 We say nothing of names of streets in all of our Ameri- 
 can villages, towns and cities. There is not one in all the 
 land which has not one named " in honor" of some of these 
 great liistuk ical — and I may add geographical — heroes. The 
 authors of American Geographical Nomenclature are evi- 
 dently Ol the opinion of the noted " Captaine John Smith" 
 of Powhatan and Pocahontas memory, who writes in his 
 charming history of the Bermudas, "As Geography with- 
 out History seemeth a carcasse without motion, so History 
 without Geography wandereth as a Vagrant without a cer- 
 taine habitation." Geography has certainly conspired with 
 history in perpetuating these favorite names. They are 
 not left to the vagrancy of history : but we may almost ac- 
 cuse them of a species of Geographical " vagrancy," since 
 they have wandered into so many places ; and I could add, 
 I fear, idhj wandered : a vagrancy unknown to the right 
 valiant " Captaine John Smith," since we find on his map 
 of Virginia not a single Smithton, or Smithville ; and our 
 investigations lead to the conclusion that not one of the 
 84 places in the United States named Smith (with or with- 
 out " variations") has been named in honor ol the knightly 
 pioneer of that name in the New World. Alas ! he did not 
 live long enough to be a member of a State Legislature — 
 or a leading constituent of any member! In short, " Cap- 
 taine John Smith" lived too soon in the world's history, or 
 died before his time! So that whatever he may be histori- 
 cally, geographically he is a nobody ! 
 
 If these canonized geographical names in our Republic 
 were restricted to one in each State, that might be endured. 
 There are now but 37 States in the Federal Union. There 
 are 10 Territories, also ; and if the ten favorite Geographi- 
 cal names of Americans weie similarly allotted to them, 
 the total would be 47. Or if that should be deemed ia- 
 8uf!icient to attest our own quasi-apotheosis of our favorite 
 heroes, we might double the\ number by assigning to each 
 not only a town or city, but a county also, making a total 
 of about 74. And this brings us to mention another geo- 
 graphical monstrosity against which we peculiarly protest. 
 
 It is not enough that each State and Territory should be 
 running over with Washingtons, Jeffersons and the like ; 
 but their distribution on our great map has been effected in 
 as disorderly a manner as possible. 
 
 In this, my native State, we have a Washington county 
 to the East of us with Jonesborough as the seat of justice; 
 and the town of Washington lies to the West of us and is 
 the seat of Justice in Rhea county, whilst Rhea-town is in 
 Greene county. In my adopted State (Georgia) Washing- 
 
b GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 ton county has for its seat of justice Sandersville; and the 
 town of Washington is in Wilkes county. In our neighbor 
 Kentucky the co2^?i^?/ of Washington is in one part of the 
 State, the town of Washington in another. In this noble 
 State, Jaclison is in Madison county ; while Jackson county 
 has Gainesville for its county town ; Madisonville is in Mon- 
 roe county, and the town of Monroe in Overton county. 
 Occasionally, and quite exceptionally, we find the name of 
 the county and its seat of justice in accidental coincidence 
 — as this beautiful and flourishing city of Knoxville in 
 Knox county; our Tennessee Greenville \n Greene county ; 
 the town of Washington in Texas in the county of that name; 
 and a few others equally fortunate in what may be term- 
 ed their geographical covjunctivities ; but usually all the re- 
 sources of mathematical permutation have been exhausted 
 to scatter a few dozens of favorite names over our grand 
 national map of the United States to as many points as 
 possible. It would seem that these cunning architects of 
 our geographical system had used these patriotic names 
 with nice and distributive calculation — as the civil engin- 
 eer does his fastenings and his bolts when spanning an abyss 
 with a bridge. Happy are we to-day to be standing on a 
 portion of the structure braced by two good honored bolts 
 conjunctively commemorative of the patriotic Henry Knox, 
 the gallant Revolutionary hero, and the first American 
 " Secretary of War," under the present Constitution of the 
 United States ; and a name, too, not worn to a too degrad- 
 ing commonness by universality of National use — Knoxt-iZ/g, 
 in Knox county — perhaps a little overdone in usage geo- 
 graphical; but not subjected to the " wasteful and ridicu- 
 lous excess" of other great names. 
 
 If we withdraw our map-gazing eyes from these nomen- 
 clatural stars of the first magnitude, what a wilderness 
 of lesser luminaries arrest the vision ! And as we pass 
 from one State-map to another, what a sameness of names ! 
 Verily inventiveness seems to have been wholly wanting 
 in the improvisation of names, among the brave old pio- 
 neers who doubtless found the study of the arts of toma- 
 hawking and scalping of far more practical value than 
 geographical nomenclature. Their immediate successors 
 were too intensely occupied with daily practicalities of 
 life to bestovr names on localities with an enlarged consid- 
 eration which embraced our whole country. 
 
 Passing therefore from the great Revolutionary and other 
 historical names, we reach a still more numerous array — 
 "the rank and file" of the great nomenclatural host, if the 
 former names may be reckoned the commissioned oncers. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE 7 
 
 We are tempted to give the names of counties properly 
 (as we conceive) classified under this head, by way of illus- 
 tration — not in all the States; that would consume far 
 more time than could be spared on an occasion like the 
 present; but in one State. We select Texas: in fault-find- 
 ing, the principle is universal that the farther from home 
 we choose examples, the safer the fault-finding can be prac- 
 ticed. This principle is applicable from the humblest 
 walks of domestic life to the loftiest range of philosophi- 
 cal investigation. We take at random from the map of 
 Texas the follov/ing names of counties: Jones, Taylor, 
 Runnels, Edwards, Webb, Starr, Kerr, Gillespie, Mason, 
 Coleman, Brown, Archer, Young, Hamilton, Burnet, Hays, 
 Karnes, Caldwell, Williamson, Bell, McClellan, Johnson, 
 Parker, Cooke, Ellis, Robertson, Harris, Chambers, Walker, 
 Hardin, Anderson, Henderson, Smith, Wood, Hunt, Hop- 
 kins. 
 
 Very many of these names are identical with names of 
 counties in our own State; in our neighbor Kentucky; 
 and in half the other States of the Union. W^e complain 
 not at the deserveduess of their bestowal : doubtless in 
 each State where the names are found, the particular Jones, 
 and Smith, and Anderson and Walker were gentlemen of 
 sterling merit richly deserving the compliment ; but the 
 confusion growing out of the multiplication of such names 
 is interminable. We complain not of a want of euphony 
 or beauty in these names ; but the grandest poem, or rich- 
 est oratorio that ever human genius produced would fatigue 
 any mortal ears into a sense of monotony if constantly re- 
 cited. Aid this is the smallest of the objections. Not as 
 counties al ,>ue, but as towns and cross-roads, and streets and 
 post-officec. do these and similar names figure on our maps 
 of the various States in every conceivable combination. 
 
 In whose honor were the foregoing names of counties in 
 Texas conferred? In whose honor the similar or analogous 
 names of other States ? The few of the present genera- 
 tion who happen to know will soon pass away. The anti- 
 quarian of future times may discover, if idle curiosity be 
 worth the gratifying, and if haply the original acts of the 
 Legislature conferring them contain preambulary mention 
 thereof, and have escaped the " dusty death" which awaits 
 sooner or later all such records. 
 
 In illustration of the uncertainty of the preservation of 
 legislative intentions in the bestowal of such honors, allow 
 the presentation of a singular instance. In whose honor 
 was the handsome and thrifty village of Clinton,m Tennes- 
 see, named ? That question was propounded to us recent- 
 
8 GBOORAFHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 ly ia another State. Inasmuch as we felt all the natural 
 pride in reference to the village connected with happy days 
 of early life, and nativity in the neighborhood, we investi- 
 gated the subject. After some effort we succeeded in find- 
 ing a copy of the official pamphlet acts of the Tennessee 
 Legislature of the year 1809, and examined the law chang- 
 ing the name from Burrville to Clinton. But which Clinton? 
 For at that period, two gentlemen of that name held de- 
 served eminence : De Witt Clinton, who had been actively 
 engaged in the Hamilton-Burr feud in New York which led 
 afterwards to Hamilton's death at the hands of Burr, and who 
 had, in 1802 fought a duel with Swartwout the friend of 
 Burr? Or George Clinton who succeeded Burr in the Vice 
 Presidency of the United States in 1805 ? There is noth- 
 ing in the preamble, or in tb body of the act, to indicate; 
 and if the precise significance of the honor is preserved in 
 any record, or runneth " in the memory of man," it lies 
 not within our knowledge. In 1864 there were one hun- 
 dred and one localities named Clinton on the map of the 
 United States. To honor whom were the other hundred 
 80 named? It would be an amusing (though excessively 
 idle) curiosity, it life had no more serious duties, to investi- 
 gate the subject. 
 
 In the United States are fifteen villages named Midway. 
 In Georgia not only is there a village named Midway^ sit- 
 uated about two miles distant from Milledgeville, but there 
 is in another county in Georgia a post village named Mid- 
 ville. Oglethorpe University, being situated in Midioay, a 
 flourishing Institution, it became desirable to have a post- 
 office established in the village- It was observed that the 
 students of the University, during the excitements attend- 
 ant on sessions of the Legislature of Georgia in Milledge- 
 ville, then the Capital, became seriously encumbered with 
 weighty correspondences. Visits to the Milledgeville Post- 
 Office were abnormally necessary: abnormally as regarded 
 scientific and literary progress — normally enough in preco- 
 cious political and other knowledge floating frothily on the 
 surface of life in State and other capitals. Hence the need 
 of the Midway Post- Office. But being established, distrib- 
 uting Post Masters and other careless officials made infinite 
 tonfusiou in the interchange of letters directed respectively 
 to Midu'ay and WiAviUe — to say nothing of that growing 
 out of the existence of the numerous Midways in adjacent 
 States. President Talmage of Oglethorpe University, one 
 of the ablest and best of men, represented the grievance to 
 the General Post-Office Department, and was surprised by 
 a change of the name of the Midway Fast-Office to " Tal- 
 
\ 
 
 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. » 
 
 mage." But the difficulty was increased : there were four 
 other places in the United States, with a similar name, Tal- 
 mage— slightly ditTerent in spelling, but substantially the 
 name ; and the r?7/</o-e yet being iianied " Midway," and so set 
 forth on our maps, careless persons persisted in addressing 
 letters to " Midway" as before. Letters addressed to Tal- 
 mage — especially if the " Georgia" designative of the State 
 were carelessly written, or carelessly examined by hurried 
 officials— went often to other Talmages; and if addressed to 
 Midway, they were sure to go astray. Wherefore — strange 
 to say — the young gentlemen of the University, with suf- 
 ficient perplexities aside from postal troubles in climbing 
 the rugged hill of science, prefened to conduct their neces- 
 sary and extensive correspondence through the Milledge- 
 ville Post-Office— especially during the sittings of the Leg- 
 islature. 
 
 And here one great practical inconvenience of this exten- 
 sive multiplication of a few favorite geographical names in 
 the United States — this wholesale dispersion of them all 
 over our national map, I might term it — may as well be 
 alluded to. Man — the term, be it well understood, is used 
 genericaUy, comprehending both sexes — man in this latter 
 half of the 19th century, is pre-eminently a letter-writing 
 and a letter-reading creature. If the whole of Prof. Dar- 
 win's startling philosophy of the Descent of Man be true, 
 we may expect, ere many generations elapse, to find the 
 advance corps in the march of literary " national selection" 
 stepping into the world with pens in their hands already fash- 
 ioned, nibbed and inked. It is of the highest moment that 
 the letters we write should reach their respective destina- 
 tions, and likewise those written to us. Steam and elec- 
 tricity by hastening human intercourse immensely, has 
 practically lergthened our lives as measured by our possi- 
 bilities of achievement in the matter of both physical and 
 intellectual results. But "Avarus semper eget." The more 
 we have, the more we want. In the particular now under 
 special consideration, I may say the moie we imperioiisly 
 need; for the rapidities of modern action by reason of the 
 great revolutionizing material agencies referred to, and the 
 consequent structural organization of our daily life (so to 
 speak) in the year 1S71, actually require the utmost certain- 
 ty and speed in our postal communications. We have not 
 time, therefore, to await the arrival of a letter which shall 
 perambulate the United States in search of the right "Mid- 
 way," or the right Washington, Jackson, Madison — or 
 Smithville, Jonesville, or Brownsville — until it stumbles 
 upon the proper species in that genua of Post-Offices, or 
 
10 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.' 
 
 drops defunct into the great postal Lake Asphaltites, the 
 tideless Dead Letter Office, 
 
 To obviate a similar difficulty, on a larger scale, than 
 that which led to the postal change of the G-eorgian Mid- 
 way to "Talmage," the General Post Office Department 
 has recently changed the name of the new Capital of West 
 Virginia from Charleston to Kanawha City. The name is 
 appropriate as being distinctive. In the boundaries of this 
 new State are tw3 places named Charleston — one, we be- 
 lieve spelled slightly differently from the other, but both es- 
 sentially the same, and so very similar at best as to cause the 
 Post Office Department to make the change just mention- 
 ed. But little good will come of this — indeed worse con- 
 fusion probably — unless the Legislature of that new and 
 vigorous scion of the Old Dominion likewise change the 
 name to Kanawha City, for State and all other purposes. 
 And inasmuch as one Virginia is enough on the map 
 of the United States, and ought to suffice the compli- 
 mentary duty to the shade of the gre. ^ Virgin Queen 
 in whose honor it was named, we venture to suggest that 
 American geographical conveniences would be served by 
 naming the State otherwise than Wat Virgirda. Ka?iawha, 
 the name of its chief interior River ; or Appalachian the 
 generic name of the vast mountain system of which 
 its area is a part : or Algonquin, the generic name of Abo- 
 riginal nationalities occupying that and other territory 
 prior to their displacement by the white man — either would 
 be better than the compound West-Virginia. And this 
 brings us to the consideration of the remedy for this great 
 geographical nuisance, the infinite multiplification of a few 
 favorite names, or multitudes of indifferent names, and 
 other cognate evils, which befog American geography to 
 an extent never attained in any other country. The reme- 
 dy proposed is the employment of distinctive and appro- 
 priate Aboriginalorother terms, in the designation of locali- 
 ties or districts. This should be effected in two ways : 1. 
 The application, in the main — not exclusively — of Aborig- 
 inal terms of euphonic peculiarity to new places ; and 2d. 
 The revision of our geographical nomenclature, and substi- 
 tution of distinctive Aboriginal, or other terms to places 
 now inappropriately named. 
 
 1. There should be a distinctive and peculiar name as- 
 signed to each geographical object which needs a name. 
 Especially is this true in reference to those places which 
 are, or may become, Post-Offices. And it would be better 
 for the General Post-Office Department to have ample 
 power over the geographical nomenclature of the United 
 
GEOaRAPHICAL NOMENCLETURE. 11 
 
 States, under the guidance of wise and careful constitutioa- 
 al and legal authority. That authority should not be lim- 
 ited to the fixation of a mere postal name to a locality, as in 
 the cases mentioned of "Talmage" in Georgia and " Kan- 
 awha City," in West Virginia; but it should be ample to 
 pass upon the name officially tor all purposes; to revise, if 
 necessary, State Legislation in the bestowal of names ; to 
 have in short, that stipreme control over the geographical 
 nomenclature of the country which should insure to us a 
 system of uniformity in variety, of combined beauty and 
 utility, worthy of a great people : not a separate system 
 for each State, but one uniform system for our great 
 national Republic. Surely the veriest stickler for "State 
 Rights" can not find in this suggestion any attempted 
 abrasion of aught valuable in State sovereignty. Nation- 
 al authority, ample, and lodged in some one Depart- 
 ment of the Government — v.^e have suggested the Post- 
 Office Department — would be absolutely necessary to se- 
 cure the desirable elements mentioned in Geographical 
 Nomenclature. State Legislatures, however desirous of 
 conforming to the nomenclatural philosophy here advo- 
 cated, would be liable to fall into duplicative mistakes, act- 
 ing often simultaneously and at widely distant parts of 
 our continent. Hence the need of one supreme central 
 revisory authority. 
 
 The magnitude of our geographical nomenclature as- 
 sumes gigantic proportions if we pierce with a vision of 
 sure calculation, not of conjecture, for a few moments, that 
 veil which an elegant modern writer has termed " a veil of 
 mercy" because it " hides the future from our sight," and 
 gaze as we may do, without pain, in pride at the great fu- 
 turity to which our Republic is tending. In an area of 
 nearly three millions of square miles contained in the ter- 
 ritorial limits of the United States, we have a population, 
 according to the census of last year of only 38,095,680 
 souls — about 13 to the square mile. What population la 
 that as compared with our territorial capacity in this respect? 
 Belgium supports a population of 430 inhabitants to the 
 square mile. France, prior to the great desolating war 
 which in the last eleven months has reduced her from a 
 a first to (at most) u second rate power of the world, and 
 has smitten her with a frightful mortality, reckoned 182 to 
 the square mile. Our State of Massachusetts contains ac- 
 cording to the census of 1870, one hundred and eighty-sev- 
 en inhabitants to the square mile. It may be safely esti- 
 mated that the whole territory of the United States, on an 
 average, will be supporting not many ages hence, one hua- 
 
12 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 dred people to every square mile of territory. And as 
 Bishop Berkeley poeticall)- prophesied a century and a 
 half since, the moving of " the star of empire" Westward, 
 now in the course of rapid fulfilment, we feel that we are 
 indulging no conjectural dream at reckoning our popula- 
 tion in the not very distant future at 293,616,800 — 100 to 
 the square mile. In a *' settlement" ot this immensity, and 
 density, it is easy to perceive that a mighty host of geo- 
 graphical names will be required. If we proceed under 
 the present system, the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Jacksons, 
 Joneses, will each run up into thousands instead of hun- 
 dreds, and confusion will be, indeed (to speak M'dtonically) 
 " worse-confounded." 
 
 To obviate the difficulty, we have but to take the hint 
 given us by those who have handed down through succes- 
 sive races, and unwritten languages, the grand old mystic 
 name Chimhorazo, and follow that hint to its legitimate re- 
 sults. That philosophy of nomenclature was indeed large- 
 ly followed by the cartiest explorers and conquerors of ter- 
 ritory in the New World. Not only did Chimhorazo survive 
 a conquest the most cruel that defaces the pages of history ; 
 but the map of Spanish America is rich in the number of 
 euphonious Aboriginal names enstamped there indelibly. 
 The names of Mexican States afford some fine examples — 
 as Sonora, Cinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and others, not 
 omitting Mexico itself. 
 
 The comraenr'able habit of adopting Aboriginal names 
 into our Greographical nomenclature within the boundaries 
 of the United States has never been wholly omitted ; but 
 it has not kept pace with the real wants of our expansion 
 as a great people. It seems to have fallen considerably 
 into disuse in later times. In our colonial days perhaps 
 men were less aspiring after Geographical honors than in 
 later times they have shown themselves to be. They left 
 more Aboriginal names to designate newly found objects. 
 
 If we turn, for example, to the map of Virginia, the old- 
 est of the English settlements in America, we shall find a 
 singular adoption of Aboriginal names into geographical 
 use. We shall find a singular absence of names of the 
 early explorers pasted with ready facility, like labels on 
 bottles, along the borders of the newly discovered streams. 
 Those early explorers had not learned the easy trick of 
 geographical immortality so much practised in later times. 
 Perhaps we may assume that they had less "asswwac?/" in 
 them than more modern heroes : we introduce a Georgian 
 word " assumacy" to our audience this evening as a wor- 
 thy candidate for admittance into the columned temple of 
 
OEOGEAPAICAL NOMENCLATURE. 13 
 
 the next edition of our great National Dictionary ; a word 
 truly meeting a want of the age to express without circum- 
 locution the peculiar quality most necessary to modern 
 eminence. The word came into use in that State some 
 twenty years since, and has been adopted in the usage of 
 scholars and eminent public men. Smith, as we have 
 seen, baffled the cunning of Powhatan, and founded on a 
 secure basis " The Old Dominion," without leaving a 
 Smithville in all the domain he had wrested from the sav- 
 age. Neither did Amidas, nor Barlow, the adventurers of 
 1584, attempt to affix their names to a single stream of 
 water or a strip of land which they explore ^ in the territo- 
 ry reckoned at that period as Virginia, but now a part of 
 our own noble mother-State, North Carolina. Even Sir 
 Walter Raleigh — the mightiest of the early Virginian ex- 
 plorers and adventurers, although some idle attempt was 
 made, no where persisted in leaving on mountain peak or 
 plain, by river, shore, or island border of his favorite ele- 
 ment, the ocean, any one of the seven different forms in 
 which that great name was written in his day. How well 
 he could omit to climb by such steps towards earthly im- 
 mortality we can judge, (and judging, ej^c^^se the humbler 
 means of notoriety in later days) when we reflect on the 
 estimate which his great life, and still greater death, has 
 elicited from the pens of men of genius in different ages. 
 Well has the most brilliant writer of modern times, Lord 
 Macaulay, summed up his character in the following lan- 
 guage : " Raleigh, the soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the 
 poet, the historian, the philosopher; whom we picture to 
 ourselves sometimes reviewing the Queen's guards, some- 
 times giving chase to a Spanish galleon, then answering 
 the chiefs of the country party in the House of Commons, 
 then again murmuring one of his sweet love-songs too near 
 the ears of her Highness's maids of Honor, and soon after 
 poring over the Talmud, or collating Polybius with Livy." 
 Not even Raleigh, after linking his name inseparably in 
 History to the shores of the New World, and introducing 
 thence to the Old World the universal narcotic of modern 
 days, tobacco, left his name geographically linked to any 
 locality. The long after-thought of posterity has feebly 
 done him that "honor" in the days when honors are easy. 
 In West Virginia, a portion of Fayette county was cut off a 
 few years since and erected into the county of Raleigh in 
 honor of the great Sir Walter. Five other localities named 
 Raleigh exisi in the United States : the chief one, the beau- 
 tiful Capital of our parent State, so named in 1792 in revi- 
 val of the futile offer of two centuries before to found a city 
 
14 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 of that name. The very attempt at that species of hero- 
 worship in the days of Raleigh may well illustrate how 
 very modern is the sort of " improvement" concerning 
 the excess of which we have ventured to complain. 
 
 Among the early Royal Governors of Virginia, how few 
 the names transmitted to us geographically ! Neither Lord 
 de War, nor Sir Thomas Dale, nor Sir 'I'homas Gates, nor 
 George Yardley, nor Francis West, nor Sir Francis VVyatt, 
 nor his " Excellency" (as we now style them) plain John 
 Potts, left Geographical names. They could have command- 
 ed such honors — all but the last — had they wished ; but 
 they permitted the Chickahominy, and the Mattapony, and 
 the Appomattox, to roll their waters to the sea with pagan 
 names written on the maps along the shores. And we 
 may add the same ot Governors Harvey, and West, and 
 Bennett, and Diggs and Matthews— all ante-Revolutionary 
 Governors. And of about 650 names of "Adventurers for 
 Virginia alphabetically set downe according to a printed 
 Booke set out by the Treasurer and Councill in this present 
 yeeie 1620," as Captain John Smith informs us in his charm- 
 ing "Historic of Virginia, New England and the Summer 
 lies" not one, we believe has a "local habitation" on the 
 map of Virginia, or ever had. Very many of them were 
 British Knights and noblemen, filled with high personal 
 ambition: yet they did not seek to supersede Aboriginal 
 names of places in the New World. 
 
 Right well has noble Virginia preserved geographically 
 the fine old Aboriginal names — especially in that which I 
 will venture to designate as her jluvial nomenclature. In 
 addition to the three examples just mentioned, \vq may 
 add Potomac, Monongahela, Kanawha, Shenandoah, Rappa- 
 hannock, Roanoke, Chickahominy, Pamuuky, Mattapony, 
 Piankatank, Opequan, Nottaway, Occoquan, and Chopo- 
 wamsic. In later times other names came to other Virginian 
 streams. Rivers named respectively Buffalo; Little River, 
 with an " East Fork" and " West Fork :" Roach's River ; 
 State River, and North, and Meadow, and Cherry Tree 
 River, and Cranberry River, and William's River, Coal 
 River, Little Coal River, and Tug River, with tributaries 
 designated on the map-as the Dry South Fork, and the 
 Beach Fork, and the North Fork, and the Elk-Horn Fork, 
 all of that same Tug River ! We shall add but three more : 
 Pole River, and New River, and Cheat River. We simply 
 submit the question to human taste which is the superior 
 Geographical nomenclature, that of the Red man or that oi 
 the White? 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 15 
 
 We trust no one will imagine for a moment we are en- 
 deavoring to hold up Virginia — either of the Virginias, for 
 now there are two — to ridicule. There is no especial 
 room for ridicule in that quarter, among Tennesseeans — or 
 indeed the people of other States. Let us illustrate : 
 
 In Tennessee are the following Rivers; Reelfoot — Fork- 
 ed-Deer, with a North Fork, a South Fork, a Middle Fork 
 and a Little Middle Fork! — Wolf, Beech, Big Sandy, with 
 a West Sandy tributary ; Duck, which one of her native 
 poets celebrated more than a half century ago by a spirited 
 ode commencing with the couplet, 
 
 " Down on the little river Duck, 
 Where many a wagon and team has stuck" — 
 
 Red River with two "Whippoorwill" Forks, and others, 
 flowing from Kentucky into the main stream — Stone's Riv- 
 er, with East and West *' Forks" — and Harpeth, Elk, Col- 
 lins, Buffalo, Caney Fork, Cumberland, Roaring, Obeys, 
 Big Emory, Little Emory, New, Powell's, Little, Pigeon, 
 Clinch, French Broad. Many of these have numerous 
 " Forks" which we omit. As a set off against these, we 
 have a fewer array of fine Aboriginal names than the Vir- 
 ginians. Tennessee, Obion, Hatchee, Sequatchee, Hiwassee, 
 Ocoee, Tellico, Nollichucky, and Watauga very nearly ex- 
 haust the supply. 
 
 The Georgians have done better in preserving the fine 
 old Aboriginal names of Rivers. The map of that State 
 displays but the following of English origin, with perhaps 
 a few unintentional omissions: Flint; Turtle; North; 
 Newport ; South Newport ; Broad ; Yellow ; Cumberland ; 
 Macey's; St. Mary's ; St. Simon's; Great Saint Ilia, Lit- 
 tle Saint Ilia ; and two Rivers in distant parts of the State, 
 each named Little River ! We have seen that Virginia and 
 Tennessee, also, is each enriched with a Little River. We 
 have not examined critically the maps of the numerous 
 States and Territories; but we presume not one of them 
 can do without one, at least — or two, as in the instance of 
 Georgia. 
 
 On the other hand, Georgian fluvial nomenclature exhib- 
 its a large catalogue of euphonious, and I may add with- 
 out attempting in this discourse to explore that field at 
 length, signi/icayit and appropriate Aboriginal names. The 
 following are examples : Chattooga — Tallulah — Tugaloo — 
 Chattahoochee — Conasauga — Oostenaula — Chicamauga — 
 Thronateeska, which is the beautiful Aboriginal name for 
 the stream in Georgia in later times characterized by the 
 highly original and distinctive name of Flint River (a name 
 which designates only eleve7i other streams in the United 
 
16 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 States) — Ocopilco — AUapahaw — Ogeechee — Oconee — Oc- 
 mulgee — and Altamaha. 
 
 We may remark that rivers and mountains seem to have 
 preserved more frequently their Aboriginal names than 
 other geographical objects. The latter — as the civil boun- 
 daries of newly settled districts — were for the most part, 
 artificial, and the creations (in one sense) of the white 
 man. No corresponding name to represent the precise 
 object existed in the Aboriginal languages; or if it 
 did, the pioneer was not learned enough in the red man'a 
 tongue to use it; or, if he were, possibly he did not admire, 
 or love him sufficiently to fancy its adoption. There were 
 often tomahawking and scalping scores to settle between 
 them, and a general feeling of " unpleasantness." The 
 white man was relatively to the savage in the wrong 
 focal distance of sound to blend the discords of the red 
 man's language into harmony. We can well comprehend 
 this. The most natural spirit in the world, and illustrative 
 of what we are considering, is observable in the quaint old 
 title page of 1716, as follows: •' The entertaining History 
 of King Philip's War which began in the month of June, 
 1675, as also of Expeditions more lately made against the 
 Common Enemy and Indian Rebels in the Eastern parts of New 
 England : With some account of the Divine Providence 
 towards Col. Benjamin Church : By Thomas Church, Esq., 
 his son." Whilst, therefore, most naturally, and indeed 
 often from necessity, adopting his own geographical names 
 (and of course English names) for definite boundaries of terri' 
 iory, it is no less surprising than gratifying that these honest 
 old Indian haters should have adopted so many Aboriginal 
 geograjthical names of mountains and streams as they did. 
 Wherever they did otherwise, however, their tampering 
 hands touched but to damage. 
 
 The map of the State of South Carolina may afford a good 
 illustration of what has been said in the foregoing para- 
 graph. Of her 29 Civil Divisions, and the 29 cities and 
 towns where the courts for these divisions are respectively 
 held, not one is of Aboriginal origin. Of her thirteen 
 principal Rivers, ten bear Aboriginal names, and most of 
 them very euphonious. Three, only, bear names of Eng- 
 lish origin. Of these, two in widely distant parts of the 
 State bear the name of " Broad." One of these South Car- 
 olina Broad Rivers (there are more of the same name ia 
 other States) stretches its beautiful waters through the 
 very region once occupied by the romance-famed Yamas- 
 see Indians. The pen of a distinguished litter'iteur of South 
 Carolina has preserved the romance of the history of the 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 17 
 
 Yamassees. A small paragraph in history of colonial days, 
 and a scanty corner in old colonial maps ; these remain. 
 The beautiful river of the tribe is now Broad River, No. 2, 
 South Carolina. Why not Yamassee f 
 
 A glance at the map of New England will show a com- 
 mendable preservation of Aboriginal geographical names : 
 not so euphonious, usually, as those of more Southern climes, 
 but distinctive and far preferable to any of those great 
 crops of nomenclatural tares which threaten all the har- 
 vest of variety the geography of a grand country and a vast 
 people ought to possess. We shall find that the heroic 
 Pilgrim Fathers had other duties to perform than those of 
 affixing, or causing to be affixed, to towns and villages, 
 counties or territories, their own immortal names. Ply- 
 mouth was named in commemoration and gratitude of the 
 sympathy and hospitality of Plymouth in Old England, 
 the point from which the Mayflower took her departure 
 from the Old World. Of the fourteen counties of Massa- 
 chusetts, we find but one of Aboriginal derivation ; but we 
 find the name of the State itself, and those of the Rivers 
 Connecticut, Chicopee, Housatonic, Quiunebaug, and Mer- 
 rimac; and of the Hoosac, Wachusett and Taconic Moun- 
 tains ; and Narragansett Bay ; still redolent of naemories 
 of the good Massasoit. But of the names of the good 
 Samoset who exclaimed " Welcome Englishmen /" and of 
 the noble old Chieftain Massasoit ; and Squanto, and Ho- 
 bomac his braves — the four who first "interviewed" (to 
 use a fashionable modernism) the travel-worn pilgrims from 
 a distant shore, not one lives in Geography. Almost has 
 the ungrateful old colonial geography treated with equal 
 neglect the Pilgrims themselves. John Carver, Governor 
 of the Colony, who received Massasoit, perhaps has one 
 such memorial in Massachusetts. Bradford, his successor 
 in the Executive, is barely remembered : so with Brewster. 
 And Robinson, Cushman, Winslow, Standish, and a host of 
 others, live alone in that " vangracy" which Captain John 
 Smith saith " wandereth without any certaine habitation," 
 to-wit : History; but they do not so much as touch the 
 aolea of their teet to the firm land of geography. 
 
 In other New England States, and indeed in the other 
 old States of ante-Revolutionary origin, it is perhaps need- 
 less to institute research. What has been said already of 
 the geographical nomenclature of some of them, will doubt- 
 less, with little modification apply, in its general princi- 
 ples, to all. 
 
 The newer States springing into existence at the close 
 of the Revolutionary struggle, or soon afterward, exclude(J 
 
18 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATUKE. 
 
 in great measure Aboriginal names. The pioneers were 
 too patriotic to omit all possible honors to the heroes in 
 the Senate and in the field during the great struggle ; and 
 the Red man's conduct during that bitter and protracted 
 War had not been of the character to create any fresh fund 
 of loye for him. An Aboriginal name of the utmost eu- 
 phony — made up of flowing liquds, and vowels in sweet 
 profusion — would have been less attractive to his patriotic 
 judgment than the harshest combination of consonants of 
 which any name of a great Revolutionary leader was com- 
 posed. It is almost to be wondered at that our forefathers 
 selected the name " Tennessee" when they obtained ad- 
 mittance as a State into the Union : that " Frankland," or 
 "Franklin" — or as Lippincott erronenonsly has it in his 
 great "Gazetteer of the World," Frankliniay should not 
 have been preferred. 
 
 In selecting names for States and Territories, however, in 
 post-Revolutionary times, a commendable good taste has 
 usually prevailed. Euphonious and appropriate names are, 
 in general, the result. Our patriotism must forbid com- 
 plaint at the selection of the name of Washington, the 254th 
 geographical time, to designate a territory lying on the 
 Pacific. ' But one of its capes on the Pacific Ocean is named 
 Flattery. Just compliments, too often repeated, degenerate 
 into flattery; and in the most beautiful elegy in any lan- 
 guage, our English poet remarks on the futility of flattery 
 " to soothe the dull cold ear of death." By multiplying 
 that great name geographically we but flatter ourselves that 
 we do not degenerate from his grand example of probity 
 and patriotism : Human vanity often essays to reap where 
 it affects to sow. The fame of Washington towers sub- 
 limely above all geographical names. It needs them not. 
 We but stultify ourselves by overdoing such honors. Stand- 
 ing beside the tomb on Mt. Vernon, as we did a few 
 months since, and in the apartment where bis eyes closed 
 forever on earth, we felt with full force for the first time, 
 his immeasurable exaltation in true glory above every other 
 hero of ancient or modern times. 
 
 In selecting a distinctive name for each geographical ob- 
 ject, we do not advocate the exclusive resort to Aboriginal 
 sources. Without doubt that is the great fountain whence 
 the desired uniformity of disimilarity must be supplied. 
 But peculiar circumstances may occasionally suggest an 
 appropriate word as the aame of a geographical object, 
 and in adopting it, we may run but a small risk of repeti- 
 tion elsewhere. The example of our East Tennesseean 
 And beautiful river Clinch is at hand. The story is well 
 
GEOaBAPHlCAL NOMENCLATURB. 19 
 
 known — how the name originated in a circumstance attend- 
 ant on its earliest exploration. An Irishman of the party 
 who was ignorant of the art of swimming, fell from the 
 rude raft into the water, and so energetically exclaimed 
 *♦ Clinch me boys!" as to undergo much raillery after res- 
 cue, and the stream acquired from the circumstance the 
 appellation which has displaced the euphonious and more 
 appropriate one of Aboriginal origin — Pelissippi. The lat- 
 ter has been fortunately preserved to our day in an old 
 map accompanying Adair's quaint old book, " History of 
 the American Indians" publi&hed almost a century ago in 
 London. The name no where appears in the text of the 
 book. We have felt more anxious for the restoration of 
 the beautiful appellation Pelissippi, since the name ia 
 Georgia is often supposed to commemorate a very distin- 
 guished citizen and soldier of that State, Gen. Duncan L. 
 Clinch, in whose honor a county in Georgia is named. Our 
 River Clinch had received its name long before General 
 Clinch as the intrepid drummer-boy at Lundy's Lane woa 
 his spurs of knighthood, or had been born. 
 
 Notwithstanding the unfortunate result of the nomen- 
 clatural effort to commemorate with certain and indisputa- 
 ble distinctness the Irishman's exclamation by the name of 
 Clinch River, we need not be wholly discouraged in refer- 
 ence to English nanaes. Those of persons of eminent ser- 
 vices, and not too general distmction, and of names not too 
 common or widely dispersed, may well be adopted. Even 
 in that case, however, the name should possess certain ele- 
 ments of dignity, euphony and uniqueness. Colquitt 
 county in Georgia and Sevier county in this State, may 
 serve as happy examples. Maynardsville — if the *' ville," 
 (so very unnecessary) were but Legislatively elided, is dis- 
 tinctive and appropriate. If the distinguished gentleman 
 who bears it, and for whom the village was named, will 
 refrain from that excess of distinction which will plant a 
 hundred Maynardsvilles in the United States, we know of no 
 handsomer name — associated as it is with many of the 
 noblest aspirations of some of us at this University in the 
 " long ago" when that gentleman so ably filled the chair of 
 mathematics here. 
 
 To merit geographical honors, according to our own phi- 
 losophy, our great men must be compelled to win them in 
 moderation only. Our humorous poet, Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, tells of some funny verses he wrote once in ^'won- 
 drous merry mood^" which his footman read as he carried 
 them to the printer, so greatly exciting the miith of the 
 
20 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 footman that a dangerous " fit" was the result ; wherefore, 
 the poet concludes — 
 
 Since then, I never dare to write 
 As funny as I can/' 
 
 We warn all candidates for ^eo^flp/tuv/Z distinction that 
 they must not be as disti7iguished as they can. If their names 
 come to be-dot our maps until they become nuisances, no 
 matter how euphonious, or how immortal in history, we 
 favor expunging resolutions in the domain of Geography. 
 
 2. Yes : Expunging Resolutions. We sorely need a 
 national revision of our already existing Geographical No- 
 menclature. Not only should national authority be exerted, 
 as already suggested, to prevent evils in the future ; but 
 those in the past should be corrected^. One vast and har- 
 monious and beautiful system, characteristically American, 
 free from duplication and confusion, should be provided for 
 the tens of millions of people of our day, and the hundreds 
 of millions of future ages. National and individual good 
 taste, and convenience, will be thereby immensely sub- 
 served. We say this with full knowledge, and approval in 
 general, of the wise caution of Lord Bacon in his essay on 
 " Innovations" in States, where he remarks "It is good not 
 to try experiments except the necessity be urgent, or the 
 utility evident ; and well to beware that it be the reforma- 
 tion that draweth on the change, and not the desire of 
 change that pretendeth the reformation." Surely in this 
 case the " reformation" — the sore need of it — demands the 
 change. 
 
 The late Mr. Schoolcraft, the eminent American Archae- 
 ologist, suggests an unfailing fountain from which an abun- 
 dant supply of distinctive geographical names can be 
 drawn. His two valuable papers entitled respectively 
 
 1. '* Plan of a System of Geographical Names for the Uni- 
 ted States, founded on the Aboriginal Languages ;" and 
 
 2. "A description of the Aboriginal American Nomencla- 
 ture;" present a complete plan for that purpose. Long 
 catalogues of Aboriginal words in •everal of their lan- 
 guages, appear in the volumes of Mr. Schoolcraft. With- 
 out going into particulars, we may simply say that an am- 
 ple magazine of materials is there stored for the formation 
 of an almost illimitable supply of distinctive, euphonious, 
 and appropriately significant names. The two papers re- 
 ferred to appear in the Third Volume of Mr. Schoolcraft's 
 great work, which was published in 1853. Already a 
 glance at the maps of some of the newly-risen States of 
 the West will show that the hint of Mr. Schoolcraft has 
 l5een put iato practical operation. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATUBB. 91 
 
 Mr. Schoolcraft's philosophy, however, is only present 
 and prospective in its proposed beneficence. Ours ie retro- 
 active, also. We would undo what has been illy done in the 
 past, and subject the maps of even our oldest States to that 
 process whose term has grown familiar to American ears — 
 Reconstruction. Power for that purpose should be lodged in 
 some of the Briareus-like arms of the National Govern- 
 ment. The Post-Office Department would perhaps be 
 most suitable. Since Conventions are the ready American 
 expedients for manufacturing or directing public opinion, 
 we suggest a Great National Geographical Reform Conven- 
 tion to meet in Washington City on the assembling of Con- 
 gress next December, to devise proper measures for the 
 needed reform. 
 
 Our poverty-stricken Geographical nomenclature has 
 two Carolinas : cannot one be styled Catawba, from one of 
 her Rivers? Or the other Pamlico from one of her border 
 seas? — thus avoiding the threadbare prefixes of "North" 
 and "South." Could not York State, and Hampshire 
 State cast otF their old garments of " New" at the least ? 
 And if that would too greatly Anglicise them, could not 
 Monadnock, or Merrimac suffice for the latter, and Niagara 
 or Ontario for the former ? So with the two Virginias. 
 Or better — peculiar and distinctive Aboriginal names can 
 easily be exhumed from the early history of these several 
 States where they have slept for ages without any geo- 
 graphical application. But the naming of States is mainly 
 a matter of taste. There is a needful reform which we 
 may almost characterize as one of necessity : that of strik- 
 ing from our national Geography all precise repetitions of 
 names. Possibly we could endure two of each of the favor- 
 ites: but they should lave a certain relation to each other: 
 one should contain the other, as the county, a city ; or the 
 State a county, or a River. 
 
 And while the car of Geographical Reform is in progress, 
 we should not fail to carry back to the Old World, and 
 drop them there, our very many absurd importations of 
 names of towns and cities from that quarter. Our 2S 
 American Homes — an average of one in each State, and one 
 Territory — we should write their names on bits of paper 
 like the good Buddhist Sandara of whom Father Hue tells 
 in his Thibetan travels, and waft them across the seas on 
 the passing gales to the "Eternal city" of Romulus 
 whence they sprung ; and we should affix to each locality 
 thus denuded a name indigenous to the soil, characteristic 
 euphonious, appropriate, and beyond all, American. No 
 servile imitation of the Old Woyld should find a point, or 
 
fi2 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 a line, or a fragment of the alphabet on all our great Nation- 
 al Map. Even our own proud Memphis, grandly seated on 
 the shores of the Mississippi River, we would divest of her 
 Egyptian name, dropping it on the border of the Nile at the 
 foot of the colossal statue of Sesostris where amid ruins it 
 belongs ; and we should affix to her Chisca the grandest of 
 the names of the Princes who there held his royal Court 
 and admitted De Soto to an audience at the foot of his 
 throne in the year 1541 ; and all the air over mid ocean 
 should be darkened with the hosts of other names servilely 
 and most inappropriately borrowed from the East, as they 
 should wingiheir flight in flocks like wild pigeons across 
 the great deep. A mere glance at the map of the State of 
 New York reveals Troy, Utica, Syracuse, Ithaca, Venice^ 
 Genoa, Lisbon, Canton, Madrid, Pharsalia., Salem, Stockholm^ 
 Potsdam, Carmel, Waterloo, and Greece. How many thous- 
 ands of these and others of analagous kinship exist on our 
 National Map, in New York and the other 46 States and 
 Territories, no man knoweth. Take one of these names as 
 an example : there are 52 Troys in the United States : an - 
 amount of Troy-weight oppressive and scarcely endurable. 
 To these places, each and every one, however thrifty in 
 goods and merchandize, in money and trade, in bank and 
 railway stock, in morals, in all other sorts of greatness, yet 
 absolutely starving with a frightful nomenclatural famine, 
 the salutary specific of a peculiar distinctive American 
 name is needed for perfect geographical normalcy. We 
 commend to th 'i the study of Mr. Schoolcraft's volume 
 already alluded to where they will find suggested, but nev- 
 er yet (so far as we know of) applied, such names as Adosia^ 
 meaning in Algonquin, the original language of the locality 
 of Troy New York, " Fair deer land" — Ago8ia,yair shores — 
 Minoma, good VVater—Moriana, Good Spirits. From the 
 Iroquois, the other great language of New York State, 
 Onatta, Hills of the Valley — Tiaroga, place of water and 
 rocks — Ontio, beautiful hills — Conataro, tree at a gorge — 
 and many others — with a supply of radical words in vari- 
 ous languages providing for their indefinite multiplication 
 by the simplest laws of permutation. 
 
 Our beloved mountain land, in the midst of which we 
 are assembled this evening, is rich in the nomenclatural 
 euphony her geography borrowed from the beautiful lan- 
 guage of our predecessrs — the Men of Divine Fire, as the 
 laborious old author Adair translates the word Cherohees. 
 To the South of us stretch the lofty and picturesque sum- 
 mits of the Uoaka, or as the oldest authorities better had 
 the orthography, Unicoy, Mountains — a name signifying 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURK. 23 
 
 snoun/t or white, from the early sheen of snows upon their 
 summits in autumn, and their late lingering there in the 
 season of spring. With how many of the holiest and no- 
 blest aspirations of our earlier years, when we pursued our 
 studies in the honored precincts of our beloved Alma Ma- 
 ter, is that distant and misty mountain chain associated ! 
 Thanks to the accomplished East Tennesseean artist, Mr. 
 F. J. Fisher, for transferring to canvass so many of its 
 worthiest scenes. 
 
 We may mention further among the geographical names 
 of this region, borrowed from our Aboriginal predecessors, 
 Tuckaleechecy signifying about to catch on fire, doubtless from 
 some incident, now lost, in the early Cherokee occupancy 
 of that region — Tdlico, signifying between the mountains — 
 Watauga, intensively " Thank you" — Pelissippi, a name des- 
 cended from former races (as Chimborazj) to later tribes in 
 possession of the territory, and adopted by them without 
 retaining the signiiScation — Wariotu, the handsome Abori- 
 ginal name for Cumberland River whose signification is 
 likewise lost, but which should be geographically restored 
 to the beautiful stream now bestrid by an inappropriate 
 name borrowed from England, and which ought to be paid 
 back — Ayquosti, the beautiful name for our East-Tennessee 
 Little River (there are only 21 " Little" Rivers in the U. 
 S.) handsomely signifying /i^e a mcr — i. e. not quite a river, 
 and yet large enough to be like one — Chilhowee, signifying 
 wound around, or spiral. And the following names should 
 be restored : to Lookout-Mountain — there being at least 
 three other localities in the U. S. designed as " Lookout" — 
 Tantacana, signifying looking at each other: Tacunuwalli, or 
 fVeenastujia (the latter signifying endless) in lieu of the bor- 
 rowed plumage under which the beautiful Cumberland 
 Mountain chain has been compelled to disport himself in 
 these latter days. And others : but this discourse ap- 
 proaches its allowable limit, and we forbear. We had in- 
 tended to offer some remarks in comparison of such a great 
 system of Geographical Nomenclature as we advocate, with 
 those prevailing in other great nationalities of the globe; 
 and also some reflections on the incidental influence of 
 Geographical names on national character itself. But we 
 forbear, with these remarks, intended to incite others to 
 think and to reason out the principles in their own way 
 rather than to adopt ours. If we have suggested aught 
 valuable, either in avoidance of future evih, or the reform- 
 ation of old ones, we shall flatter ourselves that we have 
 done the State some service. "General observations" 
 (saya Locke) drawn from particulars, are ths jewels of 
 
24 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 knowledge." And that we should seek a thorough, not a 
 partial reform, touching the past as well as the future, we 
 may consider the pithy saying of wise Sir Richard Baker, 
 in his fine old " Chronicle of the Kings of England" that 
 ^* Policy looks to the middle — Wisdom to the end.^^ 
 
 The intense industry of modern research is exploring 
 every field of inquiry ; and with new aids borrowed con- 
 tinually from nature, human reason penetrates more and 
 more profoundly into the mysteries of the universe. In 
 astronomy, especially, the progress of present knowledge is 
 marvelous. In various other branches of physical science, 
 it is scarcely less so. In all the arts of Peace — and alas, in 
 those of War, also — man's inventiveness and energy presses 
 forward with unceasing and accelerated force. Even in 
 morals let us continually pray that we may be making 
 progress. In the vast field we might have essayed to be a 
 more ambitious reaper ; but we have been content with an 
 humbler task, and now we lay the littl© sheaf down before 
 you. In the language of a great poet's apostrophe to 
 Time: 
 
 "Among the mlg;htier ofiTerings, h«re are mine !" 
 
 108 f 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
V ' * " 
 
 
 '.^-^^