Names and places; studies in geographical and topographical nomenclature

NAMES AND PLACES

STUDIES IN GEOGRAPHICAL

AND

TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE

By J.^'Dy WHITNEY

/I

CAMBRIDGE

PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

1888

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CONTENTS.

PAGES

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN , 7-27
OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES . . . 28-75

TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

I. Introductory 76-82

II. Mountains, Peaks, and Sierras . 83-128

III. Valleys, Gorges, and Canons . . 129-172

IV. Plains, Prairies, and Savannas . 173-234

INDEX OF TOPOGRAPHICAL NAMES . 235-239

STUDIES IN GEOGRAPHICAL

AND

TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN.

I. APPALACHIAN.

'HTHE Appalachian Mountains were first
seen by Cartier, in 1535, who, when
navigating the St. Lawrence, had in sight
the portion of the range which extends to the
south of that river, through what is now the
State of Maine. De Soto in his explorations
(1538-1543) became acquainted with this
mountain system, around the southern extrem-
ity of which he made his way to the southwest
and thence up the Mississippi River. This
bold explorer first gave currency to the name
^'Apalache," which also appears under the
form of Palassi (Montagues de Palassi) in the
report of Laudonniere's expedition of 1564.
This name was one given by the aboriginal
inhabitants, who also furnished Laudonniere
with a specimen of native gold from a region
at the base of the Appalachians where large

8 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN.

quantities of the precious metal have since
been obtained. The name " Apalache " ap-
pears on Mercator's map of 1569 in the form
of ^^Apalchen;" and the delineation of this
chain of mountains on this map is approxi-
mately correct, in so far as it indicates a range
extending parallel with the coast, through
what is now the United States, and bending
to the east in the northern portion (Norom-
bega) parallel with the St. Lawrence.

On one of the maps accompanying De Laet's
" Novus Orbis seu Descriptionis Indiae Occi-
dentalis Libri xviii." (1633), a group of hills
is indicated surrounding a small lake, cut by
the parallel of 35°; and to these hills the name
" Apalatcy Montes " is given. The name
"Apalache" is also found on this map a
little farther west of the Apalatcy Montes,
apparently intended to indicate the position
of a region inhabited by a tribe of that name,
since in the text, in a summary of the discov-
eries of Panfilo de Narvaez, in speaking of
nuggets of gold given to this explorer by the
natives, they are described as " auri ramenta
aliquot, quae barbari ab Apalache^ longissimo
intervallo ab ipsis dissita et auri divite regione,
se habere testabantur." The word " Apalache "
seems therefore, beyond doubt, to have come

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN. 9

from the southern part of the region now
called Appalachian, and to have been the ab-
original name of a locality, or of a tribe of
Indians inhabiting that portion of the country.
The first recognition of the peculiar topo-
graphical character of the Appalachian system,
and, indeed, the first important approximately
correct map of any portion of the interior of
the United States, is due to Lewis Evans, the
first edition of whose map bears the date of
1749. On this map, which is entitled "A
Map of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New
York, and the Three Delaware Counties," the
Appalachian Mountains are indicated as be-
ing made up of a number of distinctly paral-
lel ranges, and in accompanying " remarks "
engraved upon the map the principal topo-
graphical features of the system are de-
scribed with remarkable perspicuity and insight
into their character. These mountains are
said by Mr. Evans to be " not confusedly scat-
tered here and there in lofty peaks overtopping
one another, but stretching in long uniform
ridges, scarce half a mile perpendicular in any
place I saw them." In another map by the
same geographer, entitled ''A General Map
of the British Colonies in America," bearing
date of 1755, and to which thirty- two quarto

lO APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN,

pages of text are appended, the Appalachian
Mountains are indicated with more detail, and
as being made ap of a much larger number
of subordinate ranges than are shown on the
map of 1749. On the map of 1755 the main
subdivisions of the Appalachian System, as now-
recognized, are clearly outlined by Mr. Evans,
and a distinct name given to each. The South
Mountains and the continuation of them un-
der the name of the Blue Ridge are laid down ;
the Alleghany Ridge (spelled by Mr. Evans
AUe-g^ni) is shown ; and the Appalachian sub-
division of the Appalachian System, as this term
was used by the First Pennsylvania Geologi-
cal Survey, also receives a distinct name —
the Endless Mountains — and is described
in considerable detail with a remarkable com-
prehension of its principal topographic fea-
tures. The name ''Endless" is said to be
''a translation of the Indian name bearing
that signification." This name " Endless,"
adopted or suggested by Mr. Evans, seems
not to have met with approval, never having
become current ; but most of the other names
on his maps are those still in use, while some
have entirely disappeared.

On the map of the southern portion of
North America compiled by Poirson from the

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN. 1 1

materials collected by Humboldt on his Amer-
ican journey, and published in i8ir, a con-
tinuous lofty range of mountains is indicated
as extending from Alabama to New York, the
southern portion of which is designated as the
"Montagues Apalaches ou Alleghany" while
the northern extension is called " Mont Alle-
ghany," thus indicating as existing at that time
a condition of things which continued for
many years later; namely, an uncertainty as
to whether the complex of ranges in question
should bear the name of Apalachian (Appa-
lachian) or Alleghany. Morse, the earliest
American geographer, in his Gazetteer (third
edition, 1810) says as follows : "The general
name of the whole range, taken collectively,
seems to be undetermined. Mr. Evans calls
them the Endless Mountains ; others have
called them the Appalachian Mountains, from
a tribe of Indians who live on a river which
proceeds from this mountain, called the Appa-
lachicola ; but the most common name is the
Alleghany Mountains, so called probably from
the principal ridge of the range."

On Maclure's Geological Map of the United
States, accompanying an article read before
the American Philosophical Society in 181 7,
and published in 18 18, the name "Alleghany,"

12 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN.

spelled "Allegany," is repeated three times,
but always on the westernmost member of the
system of ranges, while various other desig-
nations are applied to more eastern portions
of the system. Some of these designations
appear never to have become current ; others,
like that of the Blue Mountains, are still, and
have — since the time of Evans, at least —
been in use. Maclure's map emphasizes a
tendency existing from early days to limit
the use of the name *' Alleghany " to that por-
tion of the Appalachian Range which in the
form of a bold escarpment marks, in Pennsyl-
vania, the most western important topographi-
cal feature of the region, and from the crest
of which to the west declines a gently rolHng
plateau-like region, uninterrupted by conspic-
uous ridges.

At the time of the beginning of the Geo-
logical Survey of Pennsylvania (1836), when
the necessities of a more precise geographical
nomenclature began to be felt, the State geol-
ogist, H. D. Rogers, wished to retain the name
"Alleghany" (spelled by him "Allegheny")
for the escarpment and plateau for which this
name was most current, and also to limit the
term " Appalachian " to the middle area of
Pennsylvania, comprising the "wide mountain-

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN, 13

ous zone embraced between the southeastern
region [the South Mountams and Blue Ridge]
and the principal ridge of the Allegheny Moun-
tains." In reference to this matter of nomen-
clature, Professor Rogers says, in his First
Geological Report (1836): "It is true that
the signification of the word [' Appalachian ']
has been so extended as to comprehend the
great table-land of the Allegheny Mountains
and its spurs, though it is greatly to be wished,
for the sake of giving greater exactness to
geographical reference, that the latter moun-
tain, with the ridges west of it, should be
known exclusively as the Allegheny chain ;
and the mountains from its base, east, to the
great Cumberland Valley, exclusively as the
Appalachian chain. When occasional allusion
may be necessary to these two systems of
mountains, so dissimilar both in their geolog-
ical structure and their external configuration,
we shall always employ the names ^ Allegheny '
and * Appalachian ' in the restricted sense here
specified."

In spite of the manifest desire of the geolo-
gists of the First Pennsylvania Survey to limit
the name " Appalachian " to a portion of the
range, the need of some general designation
for the whole region becoming more and

14 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN

more decidedly felt, and such not having
been furnished by Professor Rogers, his
wishes and those of his assistants have been
disregarded; and during the past twenty
years, by general usage, the entire system of
ranges from Gaspe to Georgia, with all its
valleys and table-lands, has become known to
physical geographers and geologists as the
Appalachian Range or System. No doubt
the fact that Guyot's all-important paper, pub-
lished in 1861, bore the title "On the Ap-
palachian Mountain System," had a marked
influence in favor of bringing about the pres-
ent unanimity of usage in this matter among
geographical and geological writers.

That Guyot was himself somewhat in doubt
whether to call this system of ranges " Appa-
lachian " or " Alleghany," is evident from the
fact that on the map accompanying this paper,
which was engraved and published in Germany
a year before its appearance in America, the
latter name is used. This map, in both the
German and American editions, has as its title
" Physikahsche Karte des Alleghany-systems."

II. CORDILLERAN.

npHE mountainous region on the western
"^ side of the continent remained almost a
terra incognita until after the beginning of the
present century. In spite of the known great
breadth of the continental mass in the latitude
of the United States, and notwithstanding the
fact that as early as the middle of the sixteenth
century ranges of mountains had been seen on
the Pacific coast by explorers, notably by Cor-
tez and Cabrillo, and named by them, while
subsequent explorations down to the time of
those of Vancouver made the pubHc aware
that there were high mountains on the western
side of the continent, the fact that these were
a portion of an immense complex of ranges,
valleys, and table-lands seems hardly to have
become appreciated by geographers until
nearly the middle of the present century.

As late as the year 1794 the text-book of
geography chiefly, if not exclusively, used in

1 6 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN.

the United States (Morse's " Geography made
Easy," fourth edition), contained the follow-
ing statement repeated from former editions :
" North America, though an uneven country,
has no remarkably high mountains. The
most considerable are those known under the
general name of the Allegany Mowitains.
These stretch along in many broken ridges
under different names from Hudson River to
Georgia. The Andes and Allegany Moun-
tains are probably the same range interrupted
by the Gulf of Mexico."

In 1802 there seems to have been the first
recognition, on the part of American geogra-
phers, of the fact of the existence of moun-
tains on the western side of the continent
which were in some sort the continuation
of the already somewhat familiar Andes of
South America. In Morse's " American Uni-
versal Geography," fourth edition, 1802, we
read as follows : " In New Spain the most con-
siderable part of this chain [the Andes] is
known by the name of Sierra Madre. . . .
Farther north they [the ranges of the Sierra
Madre] have been called from their bright
appearance the Shinifig Moimtainsr Again,
in the fifth edition of the " Elements of Geog-
raphy " by the same author, published in 1804,

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN 17

we have the same statement repeated in re-
gard to the " Shining Mountains," with the
additional notice that they He " away west of
Louisiana," and are but little known.

At the beginning of the present century the
names '^ Shining " and " Stoney," or " Stony,"
were both given by different geographers and
cartographers to a range of mountains on the
western side of the continent, which was in-
dicated on various maps as a single ridge,
and placed in various positions, sometimes in
the vicinity of the one hundredth meridian
and sometimes on the remotest northwestern
edge of the continent. Thus Arrowsmith's
map of North America (1795) has the name
^' Stony Mountains " upon it, with the remark
that " they are 3,5 20 feet above the level of their
base, and according to the Indian accounts of
five ridges in some parts." But a later edition
of this work — that of 1 802 — has " Rocky " in
the place of " Stony " Mountains. The name
" Mountains of the Shining Stones " is also
used on various maps issued towards the close
of the eighteenth century; also "Mountains
of Bright Stones," which latter is the name
found on the map accompanying Carver's
Travels, and which bears the date of 1778.
In the text, however, these mountains are called

1 8 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN.

the " Shining," and the origin of this name is
thus stated by him : " Among these momi-
tains, those that he to the west of the River
St. Pierre are called the ' Shining Mountains/
from an infinite number of chrystal stones
of an amazing size, with which they are cov-
ered, and which when the sun shines full upon
them sparkle so as to be seen at a very great
distance." Carver seems to have been the
first to use the names '•' Shining Mountains "
and " Mountains of the Bright Stones." The
locality where the sparkling crystals occur
which so excited Carver's imagination, is not
known; but it has been suggested by the
Abb^ Domenech that the crystalline plates
of selenite in the Tertiary beds of the Bad
Lands may have been the " Shining Stones "
which gave the name for a time to the moun-
tainous region to which the Bad Lands form
a sort of introduction, and which had at a
very early period become known to the fur-
hunters and trappers of the Far West.

Although the name " Rocky Mountains " is
the one exclusively employed by Lewis and
Clarke in the report of their expedition
(1804-1806), yet the term "Stony," which
was that used by Jefferson in his instructions
to them, continued to make its appearance

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN. 19

on the various maps issued by Morse up to
as late, at least, as 181 2 (American Universal
Geography, sixth edition). Gradually, how-
ever, " Rocky " took the place of " Stony ; "
and "Shining," as a name for the complex
of ranges, or any part thereof, soon entirely
disappeared from the map. Long after the
time of Lewis and Clarke, however, various
attempts were made to give entirely new
names to these mountains ; as, for instance,
by Tardieu in his finely engraved map of
Louisiana and Mexico, published at Paris in
1820, in which the main range, forming the
back-bone of the Far West, is, in three places,
named "the Columbians \sic\ Mountains,"
while the designation "Rocky " is hmited to
a small spur or parallel range on the east,
occupying a very subordinate position as
compared with that assigned to the " Colum-
bians." Again, in the geological map and
sections accompanying the English edition
of Hinton's " History and Topography of the
United States," of which a new and improved
edition was published in Boston in 1834, the
Rocky Mountains are called the "Chippe-
wayan Mountains."

All the older maps are defective, especially
in that they do not recognize the fact that the

20 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN.

western highlands are made up, not of one,
but of many ranges, quite distinct from each
other, and often separated by wide valleys and
table-lands. The map accompanying Hum-
boldt's " New Spain," previously alluded to as
having been compiled by Poirson, was the first
attempt to make it appear that the orography
of the western region was much less simple
than it had been previously assumed to be.
On this map a very marked mountain range
is indicated as closely bordering the Pacific,
and continuous from the southern extremity of
Lower California to the northern limit of the
map in latitude 42°. Another very strongly
indicated continuous range extends through
the centre of Mexico, north through what is
now the United States as far as the northern
limit of the map. This range is placed approx-
imately on the meridian of 109° to iio^ (west
of Paris). Behind the Pacific Coast Range
thus represented, there is in the latitude of
Central CaHfornia a vague indication of another
range lying farther eastward ; to this the name
of "Sierra San Marcos" is given, and this may
be taken as a hint at a recognition of the exist-
ence of the Sierra Nevada, although the range
is placed much too far from the Pacific. The
remainder of the area between the tv/o enclos-

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN. 21

ing ranges, to neither of which is any gen-
eral designation assigned, is occupied with
a few vague and incorrect details, but more
nearly correct than that which is given on
most of the maps published during the
twenty years following the appearance of
Humboldt's map, since in these the streams
running into the Pacific are made to head
far to the east, in what would now be des-
ignated as the Rocky Mountain Range
proper, and to run almost due west to the
sea. On Humboldt's map different portions
of the range forming the eastern boundary
of the Cordilleran region are designated as
the Sierra de los Mimbres and the Sierra
de las Grullas. A part of the Pacific Coast
Range is called the Sierra Santa Lucia, a
name still current ; and the extreme northern
portion of the Coast Range bears the name
of Sierra Nevada, which is that now given
to the range next east of the San Joaquin and
Sacramento Valleys.*

* This name first appears on the map made after Verra-
zano's chart, by Michael Lok, published in 15S2, and repub-
lished by the Hakluyt Society in 1850. It is spelled " Sierre
Neuada," and designates a range of mountains running east
from the head of the "Mare Bermejo," and forming the
northern boundary of the continent along an extent of 15°
of longitude.

2 2 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN,

The expeditions of Bonneville (1832-1836)
and of Fremont (184 2- 1844), which made
known the existence of an interior closed ba-
sin in the western highlands, and also revealed
the principal features of the topography of that
region, soon followed as they were by the dis-
covery of gold in the Sierra Nevada, almost
immediately made this designation a familiar
one all over the world ; and with the adoption
of this name for the prominent and important
range on the western edge of the country, it
was natural that the designation of "Rocky
Mountains " should become more and more
limited to the eastern edge of what was grad-
ually becoming recognized as being a great
complex of ranges, of which, however, the lim-
iting ones on the east and west were on
the whole the most elevated and continuous.
Meanwhile the interior ranges, or those en-
closed between the Rocky Mountains and the
Sierra Nevada, received names, or retained
those already given by the aboriginal inhabi-
tants, so that by the time the Pacific Railroad
was completed nearly all the ranges had dis-
tinctive appellations. Still, up to quite a re-
cent date there was no collective name for the
whole system of ranges on the western side of
the continent, including the Rocky Mountains

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN. 23

proper on the east and the Pacific Coast Ranges
on the west, and all the region of mountains,
table-lands, and valleys enclosed between
them. The desirability of such a name be-
came, however, more and more manifest, as the
region in question began to be written about
as a whole, and to be recognized as forming
one all-important feature in the topography of
the country. The condition of things in re-
gard to the nomenclature of the western com-
plex of ranges was almost exactly what it
had been in the east before the name " Appala-
chian System " or "Appalachian Range " had
been adopted by geographers as a designation
for the highlands of the eastern side of the
continent.

In 1868 the present writer, in a work de-
voted to a topographical description of a por-
tion of the Sierra Nevada (the Yosemite Book),
suggested the use of the name " Cordilleras "
(with the adjective " Cordilleran "), as a
proper, convenient, and euphonious designa-
tion of the great western complex of ranges ;
and this name has been generally accepted and
made use of, especially in the various publica-
tions of the Census Bureau, including those
of the Census of 1870 and 1880. A few
words, however, may here be added in refer-

24 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN.

ence to the origin of this designation and the
convenience and propriety of its use in the
manner designated.

Before any definite knowledge of the moun-
tainous region on the western side of North
America had been obtained, considerable
progress had been made toward a clear un-
derstanding of the nature and extent of the
clearly defined and lofty ranges on the Pacific
side of the southern division of the American
continent. The journeys of Humboldt in
that region, and the voluminous publications
following the completion of these explora-
tions, were the principal cause of this condi-
tion of things; but the great simplicity of
the orographic structure of South America
as compared with the complexity of the
northern topography, and especially of that
portion within the Hmits of the United States,
was an additional reason why the geography
of this latter region was so slowly worked
out.

Humboldt, in his "Personal Narrative" of
his South American travels, uses the term
"Cordilleras of the Andes" as the most general
designation for the system of ranges extend-
ing from Patagonia along the Pacific coast
" to the mountains lying at the mouth of the

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN. 25

Mackenzie River." In this work he some-
times calls the South American division of the
Cordilleras simply the Andes, and sometimes
the Cordillera (and also Cordilleras) of the
Andes; the prolongation of these ranges to
the north of the Isthmus is designated by a
variety of names, sometimes as the Andes of
New Mexico, sometimes as the Cordilleras
of Mexico, and sometimes the Andes of Ana-
huac. The most western division of the Cor-
dilleras he usually calls the Maritime Alps,
and occasionally the Mountains of California.
That the topography of the western side of
the North American continent was but vaguely
and imperfectly known at this time, is indicated
by the fact that Humboldt prolongs the east-
ern chain of the Andes from Potosi through
Texas and the Ozark Mountains to the Wis-
consin Hills, of which he says : "Their metallic
wealth seems to denote that they are a pro-
longation of the eastern Cordillera of Mexico."
In Humboldt's last great work, " Kosmos,"
written soon after the results of the Pacific
Railroad surveys had become known, he uses
the name " Cordilleras " as the equivalent of the
Andes, understanding by it, in general, the
Andes of South America ; sometimes, however,
including the mountains of Mexico. For the

26 APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN.

continuation of these ranges farther north the
name generally adopted by him is "Rocky
Mountains" (Felsengebirge), and instead of
" Maritime Alps " he uses the names, abready
current in the United States, of " Sierra
Nevada" and "Cascade Range."

From Humboldt's time on, however, the
name "Andes" became more and more Hmited
in its use to South American ranges, and the
word " Cordilleras," * which simply means
"mountain ranges," was omitted, so that a
long time has now elapsed since geographers
began — as a general rule — to designate the
South American Pacific coast mountain system
as simply the Andes, that term having been
entirely dropped as a name for any part of
the North American ranges. This condition
of things seems to leave the term " Cordilleras"
as a convenient, suitable, and euphonious one
for designating the entire complex of western
North American ranges, although it was not,
as some have stated, thus used by Humboldt,
who never at any time proposed any general
designation for the northern division of his
" Cordilleras of the Andes," as is clearly evident
from what has been stated above. That the
introduction of the name " Cordilleras " with

* See further on in this volume (p. 88).

APPALACHIAN AND CORDILLERAN. 27

the meaning given to it by the present writer
met a distinctly felt want among geographers,
is sufficiently proved by its immediate adop-
tion by authors of important works in which
the general topography and geology of North
America came under discussion.

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

" Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings."

nPHERE are two geographical names in
-"- North America which have given rise
to much speculation as to their origin and
derivation, with as yet but very unsatisfactory
results. These names are Canada and Ore-
gon. The present communication will, as the
writer believes, settle the difficulty with regard
to the second of them, although it is possible
that the Oregonians themselves may not be
particularly well pleased with the solution.

The first appearance in print of the name
"Oregon" was in the "Travels through the
Interior Parts of North America in the Years
1766, 1767, and 1768," by J. Carver, Esq.,
from which (second edition, published at Lon-
don, 1779) the following extract is quoted:
" The four great rivers that take their rise
within a few leagues of each other, nearly
about the centre of this great continent ; viz.

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 29

the River Bourbon, which empties itself into
Hudson's Bay ; the waters of Saint Lawrence ;
the Mississippi, and the River Oregon, or the
River of the West, that falls into the Pacific
Ocean at the Straits of Annian."

Carver furnishes no explanation of the origin
or meaning of the name " Oregon." Besides
its occurrence in the quotation above given, the
name (spelled " Oregan ") is once more used
by him (p. 542) when this river is again called
the " Oregan or River of the West." On the
general map attached to this work the name
" Oregon " does not appear, but only that of
"River of the West," the head of which is laid
down in about longitude 104° and latitude
46°, and the mouth in latitude 45°, with the
legend "discovered by Aguilar." The course
of this river as given by Carver on this map
is an exact copy of the same on a map of J.
Palairet, revised by L. Delarochette, and pub-
lished in 1763. Carver did not himself see
any part of the river which he called the Ore-
gon, or any of its tributaries ; but it seems
that soon after the appearance of his book
this name began to come into use. Had it not
been picked up by him, it might never have
become known beyond the region where it
originated. Carver's representation of the

30 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES,

country to the north and west of Lake Supe-
rior, as far west as the "Western Sea/' as well
as that of the Pacific coast, is an almost exact
copy of Palairet, the legends only being some-
what altered, while his use of that map in
preparing his own is also clearly shown by the
fact that the scales of the two are exactly the
same. These remarks apply to that one of
the two maps accompanying Cancer's travels
which bears the title of " A New Map of North
America from the Latest Discoveries, 1778.
Engraven for Carver's Travels." The other
map in the same volume, entitled " A Plan of
Captain Carver's Travels in the Interior Parts
of North America in 1766 and 1767," em-
braces Lakes Superior and Michigan and the
region west, extending a little way beyond
the Mississippi with the Lake of the Woods
in the northwestern corner. It has the author's
route upon it, and is somewhat different in its
details from the other map in the same vol-
ume, which embraces all of North America
lying between the parallels of 25° and 70°.
Directly south of the Lake of the Woods, on
the parallel of 47"^, on Carver's route-map, are
the words " Heads of Origan."

It is very easy to make out whence Carver
got the idea of a " River of the West." Dur-

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 31

ing the French occupation of Canada, from
the early part of the last century on, there
was constant talk among the explorers about
the possibihty of reaching the "Sea of the
West " by some interior route starting from
the Great Lakes. Since the French carried
on their explorations almost exclusively by
the aid of canoes and boats, they naturally
followed the streams and lakes, in this respect
forming a marked contrast to the Spaniards,
who spread themselves on horseback towards
the northwest, introducing the horse among
various Indian tribes far down the Columbia,
to such an extent that Lewis and Clarke,
through much of the region they traversed,
found that the aborigines were as familiar with
this animal as the Spaniards themselves.
Indeed, no inconsiderable part of the work of
these adventurous explorers was done by the
aid of horses purchased from the Indians.*

* " The horse is confined principally to the nations in-
habiting the great plains of the Columbia, extending from
latitude forty to fifty north, and occupying the tract of ter-
ritory lying between the Rocky Mountains and a range of
mountains which pass the Columbia about the Great Falls
from longitude 16" [j:V, in both English and American
editions, — should be 1 16°] to 121° west. The Shoshonees,
the Chopunnish, Sokulks, Escheloots, Eneshures, and Chil-
luckittequaws, all enjoy the benefit of that docile, noble,
and generous animal ; and all of them, except the last three,

32 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

The French, on the other hand, were as
naturally led to extend their trading-posts, and
to explore geographically the region lying to
the north and northwest of Lake Superior,
towards Lake Nepigon, the Lake of the
Woods, Winnipeg, and the Assiniboine River.
Explorations in this direction took them far
away from the continental divide, which they
must have crossed before they could find
waters flowing into the Pacific.

Still, the idea of reaching the Sea of the
West from the east through a connected chain
of rivers and lakes was a favorite one with the
Canadian explorers, both lay and missionary,
among whom certainly were men of unbounded
zeal and abundant courage. Based on vari-
ous stories gathered by the traders from the
Indian tribes to the west of the Lake of the
Woods and the Assiniboine, the idea of a
" River of the West " leading to the " Sea of
the West" gradually took form, and began
to be made a feature of the maps furnished

possess immense numbers." — Lewis and Clarke, Eng.
ed., p. 461.

" The Chayennes reside chiefly on the heads of the
river [Chayenne], and steal horses from the Spanish settle-
ment, a plundering excursion which they perform in a
month's time." — Lewis and Clarke, Am. ed., vol. i.
p. 95.

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 33

by various explorers. In one of the maps
accompanying the " Histoire et Description
G^n^rale de la Nouvelle France," by Charle-
voix, we find the notion of a River of the
West completely developed. This map bears
on its face the legend " dress^e par N [ico-
las] B[e]lin] Ing. du Roy, et Hydrog. de la
Marine" (1743). It shows a complete water-
way, consisting of alternate river and lake,
through from Lake Superior to about longitude
135° (west of Paris), where " suivant le raport
des Sauvages commence le Flux et Reflux."

In a later map of Bellin's, published sepa-
rately, and bearing the title of " Carte de
I'Am^rique Septentrionale depuis le 28 Degr6
de Latitude jusqu'au 72" (1755), the geog-
raphy of the Northwest is very considerably
changed, and in some respects improved.
Lake of the Woods is moved ten degrees
nearer to its true position. Lakes Winnipeg
and Winnipegosis are better defined, but still
greatly too far to the west. The " River of
the West " disappears ; while along the course
of the Assiniboine (Riv. des Assiniboiles),
which is correctly given as uniting with the
Red River just before it falls into Lake Winni-
peg, it is noted " qu'on pent croire aller a la
mer de I'Ouest."

34 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

A few pages may here be devoted to an
examination of what was done by the French
during their occupation of Canada in the way
of geographical exploration of the region ly-
ing to the west and northwest of the Great
Lakes.*

D'Iberville, in 1 700, proposed an explora-
tion of the region beyond the Mississippi to
the southwest. In a note developing this
idea he says : " Trouvant la hauteur des terres
et les rivieres qui descendent a la Mer de
rOuest, sgavoir si on les descendra, si elle
tombe dans la Californie pres des establisse-
mens des Espagnols, et s^avoir s'il y aura
seuret^ de s'aller livrer a eux ou aux Sauvages
qui leur sont soumis."

Again, in 1 703, the same officer, in a letter
dated at La Rochelle, speaks of twenty Cana-
dians having started from Tamaroas for New
Mexico, "pour y commercer des piastres et
voir ce que sont les mines dont les Sau-
vages leur ont parl^." In 1 705 " un nomm^

* The facts here stated in regard to the various attempts
of the French to reach the Sea of the West, or to explore
the region at the head of the Missouri, are compiled from
the original documents published in the sixth part of Mar-
gry's " Decouvertes et :^tablissements des Frangais dans
rOuest et dans le Sud de I'Amerique Septentrionale " ( 1 614-
1754). ^Memoires et Documents originaux: Paris, 1SS6.

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLE S. 35

Laurain '* brings to the Chevalier de Beaurain
news about the Spaniards Hving on the borders
of New Mexico. In 1708 La Salle plans an
expedition to discover the source of the Mis-
souri. He says, in giving reason why this
should be attempted, that he has learned pos-
itively "que des hommes blancs, comme nous,
qui ne sont autres que les Espagnols, vont
fort frequemment avec des mulets en ce pays.
... II y a des voyageurs canadiens qui Font
remontee presque 3 a 400 lieues au nord-ouest
et a I'ouest, sans qu'ils aient pu apprendre
d"ou provient la source." In 1709 a French
officer named Mandeville reports that the ex-
ploration of the Missouri would lead to great
discoveries. In 1714 the Missionary Lemaire
says, " On a remonte la Missouri plus de 400
lieues sans renconti-er aucune habitation Es-
pagnole, et ce n'est qu'a quelque 500 lieues
qu'on commence a en avoir des nouvelles par
des Sauvages, qui font la guerre avec eux."

An elaborate memoir addressed to the
"Conseil de la Marine" in 171 7, by the
Sieur Hubert, sets forth the advantages which
would accrue to the Government of France
from the exploration of the Upper Missouri.
In this memoir the mines worked by the
Spaniards, akeady several times mentioned in

36 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

despatches of previous years, are again brought
forward, and reason given why the high moun-
tains at the head of this river might be expected
to prove metaUiferous. The point is raised
whether, if the Spaniards should be found to
be in possession of valuable mines in that re-
gion, it might not be possible to drive them
out with the aid of the natives, " qui out les
Espagnols en horreur, et qui seroient dans les
interests des Frangois." Furthermore, it is
suggested that at the source of the Missouri
there will be found " une grande riviere qu'on
pretend qui sort de la mesme montagne ou
est la source du Missouri. On croit mesme
qu' e'en est une branche qui va tomber dans
la Mer de I'Ouest." This seems to be the first
time the idea of a " River of the West " was
prominently brought forward in any official
despatch from the French in Canada to the
home Government, and it is strongly insisted
on that by this route commercial relations
could be opened with Japan and China, — " le
chemin en serait court." To this is added :
" Cela paroist d'une grande importance a
m^riter d'en approfondir la verite."

In a memoir signed " B^gon," added to a
letter of Messrs. Vaudreuil and B^gon, bearing
date Nov. 12, 1716, the statement is made

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 37

that twenty-eight years before — in 1688,
namely — the Assiniboines had offered to
conduct a traveller named De Noyon to the
Sea of the West, on the borders of which peo-
ple went on horseback. The journey thither
and back was to occupy five months ; the river
(Ouchichiq, " which leads to the Lac des As-
siniboils [Manitoba and Winnepegosis] and
thence to the Sea of the West ") is said
to be " tres belle," and tide-water (" le flux
et reflux ") would be met at three days'
journey from the sea. It is insisted at the
end of this memoir that in order to derive
any profit from commerce with the Sea of the
West, it must be by means of the land route
indicated.

In view of the great expense of the explora-
tions thus meditated, it was decided to wait
and endeavor to acquire more definite infor-
mation in regard to the Sea of the West ; and
it was for that purpose that the services of
Charlevoix were engaged, who in 1723, after
three years of exploration and inquiry, reported
that the best way to reach the Sea of the West
was to ascend the Missouri ; but this plan was
definitely rejected by the Government, and it
was concluded, instead of carrying out the
ideas of Charlevoix, to estabUsh missions among

38 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

the Sioux, which was done on the borders of
Lake Pepin, where, from the year 1723 on, a
post was irregularly maintained and finally
definitely abandoned by Legardeur de Saint
Pierre in 1737.

A few years later the name of Pierre Gau-
thier de la Verendrye became conspicuous in
the French Archives as that of an explorer
strongly possessed with the idea of reaching
the Sea of the West. He was a man of zeal,
of some means, and the father of three sons
who helped him in his task, and one of whom
was killed in the course of his explorations.
De la Verendrye, in a memoir addressed to
the Minister of the Marine, dated Oct. 31,
1744, sets forth that for thirteen years he
has been engaged in endeavoring to reach
the Sea of the West, during which time he has
suffered the greatest hardships. He had es-
tablished trading-posts on Rainy Lake, Lake
of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg, the Assiniboine
River, and the Saskatchewan (Poskoyac). In
1742 he sent two of his sons with a well-
equipped party " aux Mantanes," — that is, to
the region inhabited by the Mandans, — with
the idea of penetrating in a southwesterly direc-
tion to the mountains, and reaching the much-
wished-for Western Sea. They returned after

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 39

fifteen months of absence, and the report of
their journey was forwarded by the Governor-
General of Canada (De Beauharnois) to the
Minister, Oct. 27, 1744. Unfortunately this
report is so vague that it seems impossible
to make out much more from it than that the
expedition came within sight of the Rocky
Mountains in January, 1743, having left the
Mandans July 23, and having travelled in
general in a southwesterly direction, probably
in the wide belt of land lying between the
Yellowstone and the Missouri. The French
were accompanied for some time by a large
band of Indians (" Gens de I'iVrc"), and with
them were obliged to turn back, when near
the base of the mountains, on account of their
fear of the " Gens du Serpent." At the time
of this turning back they may — as nearly as
can be guessed — have been within one or
two hundred miles of Snake River, and dis-
tant fifteen degrees of longitude from that
Western Sea, of which La Verendrye hoped
to get a sight from the summit of the moun-
tain at whose base he was. Here they heard
accounts of the missions of the Spaniards in
California, which contained enough of truth-
ful items to prove beyond doubt that there
had been communication across the country

40 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

between the Pacific coast and the Upper
Missouri Region.*

The maps accompanying the work of
Charlevoix have already been noticed. This
work was published at just about the same
time that the expedition of La Verendrye
took place. Indeed, its preface bears a date
very near that of the day of the return to Fort
la Reine of La Verendrye's expedition, July 2,
1 743. How confident Bellin, the cartographer
who prepared the maps accompanying the
narrative of Charlevoix, was, that the Sea of

* The following is a quotation from the report of La
Verendrj'e to De Beauharnois in regard to this journey. It
contains a part of what the old chief of the " Gens de I'Arc "
told him in regard to the people living on the ocean, and
whom they were prevented from reaching by fear of the
*' Gens du Serpent,"

" II poursuivait son discours ainsi : ' Les Fransois {^Span-
iards-^ see further on] qui sont k la mer, me dit-il, sont
nombreux ; ils ont quantite d'esclaves, qu'ils etablissent sur
leurs terres dans chaque nation ; ils ont des appartements
separes, ils les marient ensembles et ne les tiennent pas
genes, ce qui fait qu'ils se plaisent avec eux et ne cherchent
pas k le sauver. lis elevent quantite de chevaux et autres
animaux, qu'ils font travailler sur leur terre. lis ont quan-
tite de chefs pour les soldats, ils en ont aussi pour la priere.'
II me dit quelques mots de leur langue. Je reconnus qu'il
me parloit Espagnol, et ce qui acheva de me le confimier
fut le recit qu'il me fit du massacre des Espagnols qui
alloient \, la decouverte du Missouri dont j'avais entendu
parler."

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

41

the West would be reached by way of internal
exploration, can be easily seen by reference
to his remarks, in the volumes of Charlevoix,
in regard to his own cartographic work. He,
namely, expresses his belief that Lake Supe-
rior is not more than three hundred leagues
from the " Mer de I'Ouest," and adds that it
is almost certain that there is " une suite de
Lacs et de Rivieres, par lesquelles on pent
communiquer de Lac Sup^rieur avec cette
mer ; " and the region is thus represented
on Bellin's maps, as already mentioned.

A comparison of the various maps published
about the middle of the last century shows
how extremely vague were the notions of
people in regard to the trend and position
of the northwestern coast of North America.
The map accompanying Hennepin's Travels
arranges things so as to accord as completely
as possible with the theory of reaching the Sea
of the West with ease from the region of the
Great Lakes. The coast north of 45° is made
to trend to the eastward so as to bring it only
a httle over 20° in longitude west of the head
of the Mississippi ; " La terre de Jesso " and
the upper part of the Gulf of California are
in the same latitude, and only distant five
degrees of longitude from each other. In

42 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

conformity with the idea already alluded to
as prevalent during the earlier part of the last
century, that Asia could be easily reached from
the Great Lakes of North America, the map
accompanying Venegas's '* Noticia de la Cali-
fornia," bearing the legend " Formado sobre
las Memorias mas recientes y exactas hasta el
aiio de 1754" gives an independent existence
to the Sea of the West, distinguishing it from
the Mar del Sur or Pacific, calling it the " Mar
o Bahia de el Vest," and representing it as a
vast interior sea extending from the opening
discovered by Aguilar east to within five de-
grees of the Lake of the Woods and north to
the latitude of the central portion of Hudson's
Bay. On Carver's map (1778) the legend
"Western Sea" occupies a space only about
ten degrees west of Winnepegosis, but no at-
tempt is made to give its boundaries. This
map, however, is simply an exact copy of
Palairet's map, of thirteen years' earlier date,
as already mentioned. The first discovery of
the point at which the " River of the West " en-
ters the Pacific was made by Heceta, on the
17th of August, 1775. This navigator did
not, however, enter the mouth of the river, as
he found the difficulties greater than he could
overcome, nor did he positively ascertain that

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 43

this was the mouth of a great river, although
he surmised that it was. Hence this discovery
of Heceta's must be looked upon as being a
very unsatisfactory one. Meares, the English
navigator, also failed to enter this river, al-
though he was in the bay of the Columbia
and gave to its northern headland the name
which it still bears — that of Cape Disappoint-
ment. The disappointment was that there
was no good harbor here, as he had been led
by Heceta's account to expect. The entrance
to the Columbia is indeed a dangerous and
difficult one for sailing vessels, except under
specially favorable conditions of wind and
weather. Only steamers with skilful pilots
can get in or out without liability to great
delay or even serious danger, as is clearly
shown by the great number of shipwrecks
which have taken place on the bar of the Co-
lumbia, including that of the United States ship
*' Peacock " — one of the Wilkes Exploring
Expedition vessels.

Vancouver was also unfortunate in missing
the mouth of the great River of the West,
although he noticed that the color of the
water in the bay was that indicating the out-
let of a river. The surf was breaking in a
continuous line along the bar from highland

44 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

to highland, north and south, and he did not
dare incur the risk of crossing it, especially
as he had no idea of the importance of the
discovery he would have made had he been
successful in getting over the bar.

These various navigators were either not
acquainted with, or paid no attention to, the
prevalent ideas of the French explorers from
the East overland, with regard to the existence
of a great river system, through which access
could be had to the region to the northwest
of the head of the Missouri. The relatively
small importance of the rivers entering the
Pacific from the western side of South and
North America, as compared with the magni-
tude of those draining the Atlantic slope, may
not unreasonably be supposed to have oper-
ated as a check on the search for great rivers
on the Pacific coast. It is only fifty years
since the character of the drainage of the
part of the coast lying between the Colorado
and the Columbia became known even in its
rudest oudines ; and the writer has within ten
years purchased, from prominent map estab-
lishments in London and on the Continent,
maps offered for sale as including all the
newest investigations, in which this drainage
was represented as it was beheved to be before

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 45

the explorations of Bonneville had revealed
the existence of the " Great Basin." Fremont
himself, when at Tlamath (Klamath) Lake, in
1843, expected soon to strike, in going south,
the " famous Buenaventura River . . . form-
ing, agreeably to the best maps in my [his]
possession, a connected water line from the
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific." He seems
either to have been unacquainted with Bonne-
ville's work, published six years earlier, or else
to have ignored or misunderstood it.* And
yet at that time Fremont was himself within
the Great Basin, Klamath Lake, like many
others in that vicinity, being without any
drainage to the sea.

Mr. Robert Gray, commander of the ship

* Fremont could not have been entirely unacquainted with
Bonneville's expedition, since he met with Joseph Walker,
and mentions the fact that this renowned fur-hunter and ex-
plorer "was associated with Bonneville in his expedition to
the Rocky Mountains." This is the only allusion made in
any part of Fremont's reports to his predecessor and the
unquestioned discoverer of the Great Basin. It would seem
impossible that a work coming from the pen of so distin-
guished an author as Washington Irving could have been
unknown to one who was about to undertake the explora-
tion of the same region which Bonneville had visited a few
years before. Bonneville was unfortunate in having Irving
as the editor of his travels. The editing is badly done ; but
the maps mark an important step in the progress of geo-
graphical knowledge in this country.

46 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

" Columbia," which had sailed from Boston,
Sept. 28, 1790, was more fortunate. On a
second trial, he succeeded, May 11, 1792,
in overcoming the dreaded obstacle, and en-
tering the river, up the estuary of which he
sailed about twenty miles. Lieutenant Brough-
ton, of the " Chatham," one of Vancouver's
expedition, shortly after this ascended the
Columbia, as far as what he called Point
Vancouver, about eighty miles from the
mouth, where was afterwards Fort Vancou-
ver, the chief trading-post of the Hudson's
Bay Company on the Pacific. This is a
little below the Cascades, and nearly oppo-
site the entrance of the Willamette into the
Columbia.

Captain Gray gave the name of his vessel
to the river whose mouth he was undoubtedly
the first white man to enter, but which was
well known to the numerous natives along its
course, and which, as we now know, was the
great " River of the West " and the Oregon
or Oregan of Carver. The name given by
Gray to the river is the one which it now
bears; but many years elapsed before this
name became generally current. To see what
names were in use at any particular time in
the early history of the geography of this

OREGON AND PENU' OREILLES.

47

country we naturally look in the various edi-
tions of Morse's "American Gazetteer," or of
the Geographies of the same author. In the
Gazetteer, edition of 1 797, we find only " River
of the West " used as the name of what is
now called the Columbia. In the edition of
the "American Geography" of 1805, how-
ever, the new name " Columbia " makes its
appearance in the text ; but the accompany-
ing map has only " Oregan." The riv^er is
said to " deserve notice, and to have been
ascended in boats to more than eighty miles."
Lewis and Clarke speak only of the Columbia
River ; and except that they mention its In-
dian name,* never once allude to its having
at any time borne any other appellation in
any part of its course, or to its identity with
the " River of the West." Neither do they
ever mention the name of Carver, Gray, or of
any of the previous explorers of the region
they visited, with the exception of that of Mr.
Fidler, one of the geographers in the service
of the Hudson's Bay Company.

But at the time the instructions for the
Lewis and Clarke expedition were made out
(1803) by Jefferson, it is evident that he

* Mentioned twice — once as " Shocatilcum " and again
as " Chockalilum."

48 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

did not consider that it was known whether
the Oregon and the Columbia were one and
the same river ; for he expressly directs them
to find out whether " the Columbia, Oregan,
Colorado, or any other river may offer the
most direct and practicable water-communi-
cation across the continent for the purposes of
commerce."

The explorations of Vancouver on the
northwestern coast of North America had
just about this time put an end to the pre-
vailing condition of uncertainty with regard
to a possible unbroken navigable communica-
tion between the Atlantic and the Pacific ; but
it remained to ascertain how far rivers could be
made to take the place of the ocean, and what
difficulties would have to be surmounted in
order to get from navigable water on the
Atlantic slope to the same on the Pacific side
of the continent.

The Arrowsmith maps are those which con-
tain the geographical information collected
by the Hudson's Bay Company, so far as they
saw fit to allow it to be given to the world.
The Arrowsmith map of North America, which
Lewis and Clarke had with them, or used
when writing up their notes for publication,
is evidently that of 1795, perhaps "with cor-

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

49

rections to 1802." On this map nothing is
given in regard to the region at the head of
the Missouri, or of that traversed by any of
the head-waters of the Columbia, which could
have been of any use to explorers of that
region.*

How vague the knowledge of the geogra-
phy of this part of the country was at the end
of the eighteenth century, and even during
the earlier years of the nineteenth, is shown
by the fact that Mackenzie, when he crossed
over the divide between Peace River and a
river which, as the natives assured him, ran
into the salt water, did not know at all what
river he had reached. In his journal he care-
fully avoided giving it a name, calling it only
'^ the great river." It was in fact the Fraser ;
and learning from the Indians how much it
was obstructed by rapids, he, after having de-
scended it for a short distance, retraced his
steps, and made his way to the Pacific by
land, crossing some of the southern affments

* The " remarkable mountain called the Tooth " {vide
Lewis and Clarke, Am. ed. vol. i. p. 253), laid down by
Arrowsmith from Mr. Fidler's observations, it seems quite
impossible to recognize or locate. The same may be said
of Mr. Fidler's other names given to various points in the
Rocky Mountains, no one of which appears to have become
current.

4

50 OREGON AND PEND* OREILLES.

of Dean's River, and reaching the head of
the Bentinck Arms, near what is now called
New Aberdeen. This was in 1793, and the
narrative of his journey was not published
until some years later, — namely, in 180 1. By
this time the name given to the Columbia
River by Gray in 1789 had become known,
and Mackenzie had heard of it ; for in the
general remarks at the close of his volume on
the discovery of a passage from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, he speaks of the Columbia, call-
ing it "the Tacoutche or Columbia," but not
in such a manner as to render it certain whether
he did or did not consider the "great river " of
his journal to be the Tacoutche. Arrowsmith,
however, did so consider it ; for his map, pub-
hshed about that time, part of which is included
in Mackenzie's volume, shows the river which
this explorer reached as connecting by a dotted
line with the Columbia, which is laid down
from Broughton's Survey, and the whole is
named the " Tacoutche Tesse {Tesse=z river
in Chipevvyan) or Columbia River."

Humboldt as late as 181 1 — the date of the
pubhcation of his great work on New Spain
— was still very much in the dark as to the
identity of the Tacoutche with the Columbia,
which he calls the " Tacoutche Tesse ou Or^-

OREGON AND PEXD' ORLILLES. 51

gan de Mackenzie." It should be '' of Arrow-
smith ; " for Mackenzie never used the name
"Oregan," or '"Oregon," and he e\-idently
depended on Arrowsmith entirely for his gen-
eral cartographic ideas outside of the field of
his own especial explorations. Humboldt at
that time was decidedly inclined to consider
the Oregon as being distinct from the Colum-
bia, and as perhaps empt}ing into Great Salt
Lake (" un des grands lacs sales que, d'apres
les renseignemens donnes par le pere Esca-
lante, j'ai figur^ sur ma carte de Mexique sous
les 39^ et 41° de latitude"). Humboldt
calls attention to a curious blunder of Malte-
Brun's, who in his geography had seemed to
recognize the name '' Oregan " on a map of
Mexico published by Antonio Alzate, on
which in regard to the Colorado River it is
said, " cuyo origen se ignora " (whose source
is unknown) .* Malte-Brun at this time agreed
with Humboldt in inclining to the belief that

* It is not a little curious that Humboldt makes, in his
"Ansichten der Natur," a slip almost as amusing as that
of Malte-Brun, which he twice records, once in his " New
Spain" and again in the " Ansichten der Natur." In the
last-named work he remarks that Malte-Brun thought he
recognized the name " Oregon" in the ignora of "aun se
ignora." Of course it should have been, as above, the
origen of "cuyo origen se ignora."

52 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLE S.

the Oregon was distinct from the Columbia ;
but the first-named geographer considered it
more hkely that the Oregon emptied into the
Gulf of California, while Humboldt thought
that this would be ascribing to that river a
very improbable length, and therefore pre-
ferred to adopt the view that it was a river
belonging to the Great Basin System, as, with
our present knowledge of the region, it would
be proper to say. It may seem strange that
so much ignorance in regard to the topography
of the Northwest should have prevailed as late
as 1811 ; but it must be remembered that it
was not until several years after the completion
of Lewis and Clarke's explorations that the
results of their memorable journey were given
to the world. The very eccentric course of the
Columbia proper, and the enormous distance
between its head and that of its principal south-
ern tributary — the Snake — are sufficient
reasons why the hydrography of this region
should have offered a puzzling problem to the
early explorers ; and it was not until about
1864 that the difficulties were all finally cleared
up, although Fraser and Stuart descended the
river named for the first of these explorers as
early as 1808. The name " Tacoutche-Tesse,"
as that of the Fraser, is seen in maps published

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 53

in England certainly as late as 1832, and per-
haps much later.

From the time of the naming of the River
of the West by Gray, this western region rap-
idly increased in importance, and the names
of tribes, places, and rivers began to become
more or less fam.iliar to Europeans, and to the
inhabitants of what was then the United States.
The exploration of Lewis and Clarke brought
the region at once into notice, and the vague
way in which " Louisiana " had been described
in the purchase of that vast and not distinctly
Hmited region made it not unlikely that the
claims of the United States would, sooner or
later, be extended over it.

Although the name '^ Oregon " nowhere
occurs in Lewis and Clarke's report on their
expedition, yet this name continued in use,
and gradually became a familiar word in the
United States as well as in Europe. The Co-
lumbia River was called the Oregon, as well
as the Columbia, down almost to the present
day. Twiss says, writing in 1846, "The Great
River of the West is best known in Europe
by the name of Oregon." The quotation given
at the head of this article, from a poem pub-
lished in 1 82 1, shows that the name was in
this country also a familiar one at this time.

54 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

Bryant, in the original edition of "Thanatop-
sis," spells the name " Oregan," and the same
spelling is preserved in the authorized edition
of 1847. In later editions, and especially in
that of Parke Godwin of the collected works
of this author (1883), the name is spelled
" Oregon." As a good illustration of the un-
certainty in the use of the name, it may be
mentioned that Flint, in his " History and
Geography of the Mississippi Valley" (1832),
twice calls this river the Oregon, on the very
same page in which he says that the name
of Columbia was given to it by Captain Gray.
Indeed, it was not until the limits of the State
of Oregon became fixed, and it had been
received into the Union, that Columbia began
to be the generally accepted name of the river.
The State and the river might, however, easily
have both retained the name of Oregon, as
there are thirteen States which have the same
designation as the principal rivers forming
portions of their boundaries, or by which
they are traversed (Mississippi, Missouri,
Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Tennessee,
Arkansas, Minnesota, Kansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, Alabama) . The popularity of the
name " Columbia," and the desire to perpetuate
the memory of the fact on which so much

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 55

seemed to turn in the settlement of the boun-
dary question with England — namely, that
this river was first entered by a citizen of the
United States — finally inclined the scale in
favor of Columbia, especially after the name
''Oregon" became definitively fixed as the
name of a State.

While " Oregon " continued in common use
as the name of the Columbia River, the same
name was universally applied from a very early
period to a region of indefinite extent border-
ing the Pacific Ocean. The area to which
this name was generally given was that lying
between the possessions of Mexico on the
south, and of Russia on the north, on the
Pacific coast ; and it was understood that Ore-
gon extended eastward from the coast as far
as the crest of the Rocky Mountains. As
soon as Oregon became a State, and the name
of Washington was given to the region bor-
dering the Pacific north of the Columbia
River, the former name acquired a definite
meaning, and at the present time by Oregon
only the State of that name is meant.

We come next to a consideration of the
meaning of the word " Oregon," first appear-
ing in print in Carver's Travels, but of the
origin of which he gives no hint. As before

56 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

remarked, the word in question has been a
stumbhng-block ever since Carver's day. No
one has ever professed to have discovered
its derivation or meaning. Various — in fact,
numerous — suggestions have been made by
writers ; but no one has been insisted en, or
attempted to be sustained by evidence. In
fact, the condition of things in regard to the
meaning of this name remains, up to the pres-
ent time very much as indicated by Greenhow :
" As to the name ' Oregon,' or the authority for
its use, the traveller [Carver] is silent ; and
nothing has been learned from any other
source, though much labor has been expended
on attempts to discover its meaning and de-
rivation. It was most probably invented by
Carver."

It has never been seriously claimed that
Oregon was an Indian name, although Mr.
Twiss does say, " The native name, however,
will not totally perish in the United States, for
it has been embalmed in the beautiful verse
of Bryant." Neither is it French nor English.
The only language left from which it possibly
could come is Spanish ; and here, too, it has
been repeatedly sought, but apparently never
by any one acquainted with that language and
at the same time with the names of the Indian

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 57

tribes inhabiting the region drained by the
Columbia. The nearest approach made to
the real signification of the word " Oregon " was
that of Lieutenant Symons in his official Report
on the Columbia River (p. ^d)^ who has the
following : " Although it does not seem possi-
ble to determine with certainty the origin of
the word ' Oregon/ it does not seem at all
probable that it is a meaningless word invented
or coined by Carver. It has been claimed,
and not without some reason, that it is from
the Spanish word Oregano, the wild marjoram
(^Origanum Vulgar e, L.), found growing in
abundance along the coasts. It may also be
from the Spanish word oreja^ ' the ear,' or some
of its derivatives, as ore/on, or ore/ones, signify-
ing ' dried fruits ; ' and in the familiar language
of Spain signifies 'a'ogs'-ears,' an ^ ear-pulling^^
etc. A derivative word, orejera, signifies * a
sort of ear-ring worn by Indians.' " It seems
strange that Lieutenant Symons, having got so
near the origin of the word in question, did
not advance farther in the same direction.

The name " Oregon " is unquestionably the
Spanish word Orejon, as we will now proceed
to show.

In the first place, it may be mentioned that
on the Columbia River this word was admitted

58 OREGON AND FEND' OREILLES.

to be of Spanish origin. Alexander Ross, who
was one of the Astor Expedition, and who
published a book entitled " Adventures of the
First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia
River," expressly calls this river the " Oregon
of the Spaniards." Hence, if we can find a
plausible or reasonable derivation of the word
from the Spanish, we shall have no difficulty
in accepting it.

It may seem to some that the evidence of
the presence of the Spaniards on the various
branches of the Columbia was not so clear as
to warrant the belief that they gave a name to
this river. We may here recall what has been
already mentioned with regard to the expec-
tations of the French explorers, that, in case
they attempted to reach the ocean, they would
be brought in contact with the Spaniards, of
whom and of whose doings reports were con-
stantly being brought to the French posts by
the Indians. The abundance of horses along
the Columbia and to the north of that river,
and the skill of the natives in the use of that
animal, are already strong proofs of the pres-
ence of the Spanish race in that region. The
Indians not only had an abundance of horses,
but they knew how to take care of them,
and even had learned to use the lasso with

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 59

dexterity. But Lewis and Clarke speak re-
peatedly of the near neighborhood of Spanish
colonies from whom the Indians stole or pur-
chased horses, and supplied themselves with
bridles and stirrups. They do not, however,
locate these colonies with any degree of exacti-
tude. In the case of the Shoshones it is said
that they could reach the Spanish settlements
in ten days " by way of the Yellowstone ; "
but whether this means by going up or going
down that river is not certain, since at the
time of Lewis and Clarke's expedition the
Shoshones lived alternately on the Columbia
and the Missouri sides of the Rocky Mountain
divide. The evidence, therefore, that the
Spaniards during the last century were more
or less spread over the Columbia basin is
positive ; and there is no reason whatever why
they should not have had a name for that
river, or why this name should not have been
known to people of other nationalities over a
wide area.

The question arises, then, What does Orejou
mean, and how is it applicable to this river?
Orejon is the regularly formed augmentative
from oreja^ " ear ' ' — orejon, " big ear." This is
the original meaning ; and if it is not found with
that meaning in dictionaries of the present

6o OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

time, this only shows that, like many other
words, it has lost in part its original significa-
tion. An orejoii at present is a slice, or " big
ear," of a peach or some other fruit cut off
and dried in the sun. The ear-shape of the
piece thus prepared is sufficiently suggestive of
the reason why it came to be thus named. If,
however, we look in a Spanish dictionary two or
three hundred years old, we find " Orejon^ one
that hath large eares." (Minsheu's Dictionarie
in Spanish and English. London, 1599.)

Whence comes it that big ears have any-
thing to do with the river called the " Big- Ear
River," or, as it undoubtedly w^as in the origi-
nal Spanish, " Rio de los Orejones," or Ore-
gones, the River of the Big- Ears ?

The Big-Ears are the Indians called by the
Spanish explorers and traders in the region
drained by the Columbia River the " Orejones,"
a word which would be more likely to be writ-
ten by English-speaking travellers with a g
than with a /, the first-named letter more
nearly representing the sound of the Spanish
/. The reason for the giving of this name
will be easily understood in reading the fol-
lowing extract from Car\^er's book : —

"The young Indians, who are desirous of
excelling their companions in finery, slit the

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 6 1

outward rim of both their ears ; at the same time
they take care not to separate them entirely,
but leave the flesh thus cut still untouched
at both extremities. Around this spongy sub-
stance from the upper to the lower part, they
twist brass wire, till the weight draws the am-
putated rim into a bow of five or six inches'
diameter, and drags it almost down to the
shoulder. This decoration is esteemed to be
excessively gay and becoming."

Carver, who was sufficiently near the region
inhabited by the people thus adorning them-
selves, to have heard of this custom, also heard
at the same time of the name which the Span-
iards had given to the river in the vicinity of
which these Big-Ears lived. To the river called
by the Spaniards the Rio de los Orejones or
Oregones, he would naturally give in English
the name "Oregon," although he perhaps did
not understand its meaning or connect it with
the method of aural decoration which he so
carefully describes. At all events, he makes no
mention in his book of any such connection.
If he had been acquainted with the Spanish
language, he could hardly have failed to rec-
ognize the origin of the name.

The name of " Oregons," "Orejones," or
"Oregones" is not one known among the nu-

62 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

merous appellations given to the Indian tribes
of North America; and this might possibly
lead to a doubt whether there were not some
mistake about the fitness of the name as applied
to a tribe or persons decorating themselves in
the way described by Carver. Fortunately for
the theory of the origin of the name "Oregon "
here advocated, we are able to find, in another
region colonized by the Spaniards, this very
name actually in use at the present time as
designating a tribe of Indians decorating them-
selves, if not in precisely the same way as that
described by Carver, at least in a manner so
nearly akin to it as to leave no doubt of the ap-
plicability of the name to the North American
as well as to the South American " Big-Ears."
The following is an extract from a paper en-
titled " Notice of Recent Journeys in the In-
terior of South America," * by Alfred Simson :
"The next tribe is that of the Oregones. . . .
As their name implies, they have large ears,
the lobes of which are bored and stretched
until a block of wood up to an inch and a half
diameter can be inserted. . . . The Oregon
language is very agreeable to the ear," etc.
Professor Raimondi, in 1869, visited this
tribe, whose present residence is at or near
* Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc, vol. xxi. pp. 556-580.

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 63

Pebas, on the banks of the Amazon, within
the limits of Brazil, but not far from the Peru-
vian boundary. This distinguished explorer
of Peru describes the " Orejones," as he calls
them, very much as does Mr. Simson, but says
that the lobe of the ear is sometimes enlarged
to such an extent as to touch the shoulder.*
He adds that this " barbarous custom," as he
calls it, is fast disappearing, since only the older
people were seen with these peculiar append-
ages. It appears, indeed, that the Big-Ears
were personages of importance in former times
in Peru, since we read in Velasco's " History of
the Kingdom of Quito," in regard to Huyana-
Capac, as follows : " [They were] his best troops
. . . the flower of the nobility and of the army.
Their distinctive mark was that they wore
large golden rings in their ears, which fact, on
account of the great size of these, caused them
to be generally designated as the Orejones."

The name of " Orejones " or " Oregones "
— the Oregons — as the appellative of a tribe
of North American Indians seems not to have
found its way into print ; as distinguishing cer-
tain South American tribes having a fancy for
this particular adornment of the aural append-
ages, it is, as has been seen above, still in use.

* Raimondi's El Peru, vol. i. p. 402.

64 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

The Big- Ears of North America seem first
to have been made known to the world under
the designation of " Ear bobs ; " at least, this
name is found on the Arrowsmith map of
North America, edition of 1795, with correc-
tions to 181 1, given to the lake now called
Arrow Lake, which is on that map designated
as " Chatth-noo-nick or Ear bobs Lake," and
the region adjacent to this lake has the name
" Ear bobs " upon it, as indicating it as the
residence of a tribe of Indians of that name.
On a later Arrowsmith map the name " Ear
bobs " has disappeared, Arrow Lake appearing
with the name which it at present bears, while
the lake which in the earlier Arrowsmith maps
bore the name of *' Kullespelm " appears as
" Pend d'Oreilles or KuUispelm Lake," the river
of which it is an enlargement being designated
as " Clark, Pend d'Oreille, Flat Head, Kallis-
pelm or Salish R." It is the central one of
the three great branches which unite to form
the Columbia River.

For many years the Big-Ears, or the Ear
bobs of Arrowsmith, have been chiefly known
by their French name, as indicated above;
but sometimes this has been supplemented
by a translation of the name into English ;
sometimes the Indian name of the tribe has

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

65

been added; and, in a few cases, French,
English, and Indian have been used by the
same author, either at the same time or in
different parts of his work. The number of
variations in the spelHng and translation from
one language to another of the name of the
lake in question, and of the tribe living adja-
cent to it, is large, as may be seen from an
inspection of the following table, which, how-
ever, does not pretend to completeness, al-
though it seems to include every possible
change which could be rung on the name
Pend' Oreilles. When the author has given
a translation of the name, or its equivalent,
either as applied to the lake or the tribe,
whether in English, Indian, or both, it is so
set down in the table.

Arrowsmith

Bonneville

Tardieu

Duflot de Mofras

Domenech

Grey

Simpson and

many others.
Parker
Brouillet
De Smet
Many later

writers.

Pends Oreilles

Pend' Oreilles

Pen d'Or'eill'e '

Pend' d'Oreilles

Pondera

Ponderay

Pends-d'Oreilles

Pend d'Oreilles

Ear bobs
Hanging ears
Ear Bobs

Ear-rings

Ear rings

Chatth-noo-nick

Cutsanim
Kallespem

Kullespelm
Kalispels

66 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

The name in French has been supposed,
as is seen above, to stand for either ear-rings
or hanging ears, both being appropriate des-
ignations, — the one for the ornament itself,
the other for the ear as thus adorned. The
French would therefore correctly be, if writ-
ten in full, in the former case, " Pendants
d'Oreilles ; " in the latter, " Pendantes
Oreilles." The abbreviated form of the first
of them should be, nearly as De Smet (a
Belgian) has written it, Pend's d'Oreilles ; or
possibly as Governor Simpson and others have
written it, Pend' d'Oreilles. It seems easier
to take the word, in agreement with the French
authors Bonneville and Duflot de Mofras,
as meaning " Hanging Ears — Pendantes
Oreilles " — and to abbreviate this into
" Pend' Oreilles." * Twiss, Duflot de Mofras,
and other educated men write it thus. The
form now most usually adopted by map-
makers — " Pend d'Oreilles " — is certainly
not correct, since there is no indication in
the name as thus written that the syllable
" Pend " is an abbreviation, as it must be,
either of " Pendantes " or of " Pendants."

Although Carver so minutely and accurately

* This is the way the name is pronounced, however

written.

OR EGO IV AND PEND' OREILLES. 67

describes the method of adorning the ear,
which has^ both in North and South America,
been the origin of the name " Oregon," yet he
does not locate the custom among any par-
ticular tribe or in any particular region. His
description is simply a part of an account of
the Indians in general. Neither does it appear
that this practice was Hmited to any one tribe,
although it is reasonable to infer that it was
especially common among the tribe designated
by the name of " Oregones," or " Pend'
Oreilles."

Among the 150 portraits of North American
Indians, mostly in full parade dress, included
in M'Kenney and Hall's great illustrated work,
quite a large proportion of the individuals
portrayed have their ears more or less orna-
mented. In the majority of cases this orna-
mentation is effected by rings of beads or
bugles which are inserted in perforations all
along the internal border of the helix, and
frequently hang down in festoons, so as al-
most or quite to conceal the ear. In several
cases the lobe of the ear exhibits a large per-
foration, as if it had once been occupied by a
block of wood, in the manner described by
Simson in speaking of the South American
Oregones, which block had been subsequently

68 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLE S.

removed. There are two individuals among
those depicted in M'Kenney and Hall's book
which have the ear ornamented exactly in the
manner described by Carver. In one of these
two cases the ear-ring is much larger than in
the other. The original picture from which
this lithograph was copied is of life size, and is
apparently very accurately painted ; and as
it is at present at the Peabody Museum in
Cambridge, it is easy to give very nearly the
exact dimensions of the elongated portion of
the ear, around two thirds of which a thin
plate of metal, or else a fine wire, apparently
of brass, is bent or wound. The extended
ear, as thus enclosed in its sheath or ring,
hangs down so as just to touch the shoulder.
The distance from the external auditory mea-
tus across the longest diameter of the ring is
five inches : a measurement at right angles to
this gives about three inches as the transverse
diameter of the oval. The name of this Big-
Ear is given as Payta Kootha, signifying
" Flying Clouds ; " and he is said to be " a
Shawanoe of the Chilicothe tribe, but born in
the country of the Creeks, and in 1833 living
west of the Mississippi." The other Indian
with a similar aural appendage, but of lesser
size, is also described as being a Shawanoe,

OREGON AND PEND OREILLES. 6g

or Shawnee — a migratory tribe which made
its way gradually from the extreme southeast
of the country into Virginia and Ohio, and
still farther to the northwest. Nothing what-
ever is said in the text of M'Kenney's
work as to the distribution of this peculiar
method of ornamentation, but it was evi-
dently not hmited to any one tribe, and
must certainly have been practised at about
the same time by tribes separated from
each other by a distance of at least 2,000
miles.

There have long been missions established
among the Pend' Oreilles. Father de Smet,
a Jesuit, has published two small volumes in
regard to these missions among the Pend'
Oreilles, the Coeurs d'Alenes (Pointed-Hearts),
and the adjacent tribes. He is enthusiastic
in his descriptions of the success of these
missions, and of the good effects which they
have had on the Indians, especially on that
tribe which he calls his " dear Pends-
d'Oreilles." De Smet's books date back
about forty years. The later travellers have
spoken well of these tribes, but of their precise
condition at the present time the writer has
no special knowledge. The Flat-Heads of
this region still keep that name, although their

70 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

heads are no longer flattened ; and of the Pend'
Oreilles a similar remark may be made, for it
would appear that this method of decoration
is no longer in vogue.

Since the above was written, the writer's
attention has been called to an article by
Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull on the origin and
meaning of the name " Oregon," pubhshed
in the " Magazine of American History," * in
wliich it is endeavored to be shown, — or,
rather, it is distinctly stated, — that " the name
is not Spanish." Every argument offered in
support of this view has, in the preceding
pages, been met, and, as the present writer
believes, fully and satisfactorily answered.
The name was recognized on the Columbia
as being of Spanish origin ; Spaniards did in-
habit the region ; there is a tribe of Indians
dwelling on one of the main branches of the
river to which the name is " peculiarly appro-
priate ; " the word " ore j on " would naturally
be written " Oregon" in Enghsh, as it has here
been shown to be at the present time by per-
sons writing about South America, because g
* Vol. iii. no. i. p. 36.

OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES. 71

much more nearly renders the sound of the
Spanish/ than does the EngHshy, and as proof
of this we find that, in the early days of Cali-
fornia, Spanish names having ay in them were
frequently written, by those not familiar with
that language, with a g, — as *' Vallego " for
"Vallejo," etc.*

Mr. Trumbull's theory of the origin of the
word " Oregon " is : that " it comes from an
Indian language, with which Carver had been
for many years somewhat familiar, and it is
the accurate ti-aiislation into that language of
the name by which, as Carver had reasons for
believing, '■ the Great River of the West ' was
designated by the tribes that lived near it. It
is the Mohegan waui'cgan, the Abnaki ouri-
ghen^ the Delaware wnlie^en, the Massachu-
setts wunnegan; signifying in all dialects
'good,' 'fair,' 'fine.'" How a river on the
western side of the continent came to be called
by a Mohegan, Abnaki, or Delaware name, is
thus explained by Mr. Trumbull. "The In-
dians through whose countries he [Carver]

* It is well known to those acquainted with the Spanish
language that ^ and/ were formerly interchangeable letters,
although not so much so as b and v. An examination of
works written in Spanish and published in America shows
that this interchangeability of g and j still prevails in this
country to a very considerable extent.

72 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

travelled all spoke either Sioux or Algonkin
dialects. Neither of his interpreters (one was
a Mohawk, the other a French Canadian)
understood the Sioux, but the Algonkin desig-
nation of a ' Fair River ' — wauregaii, ourigJieii^
or alleghajty, according to local dialect —
must have been well known to them and to
Carver himself." That is to say, — as near as
the present writer can make out, — Carver,
before starting on his journey, had gathered
information which led him to believe that the
river now known as the Columbia was called,
by the tribes residing upon it, by a name which
meant " Fair River." What he learned among
the Sioux convinced him that this was true,
and he therefore gives us that name, not in
the original, nor in the language of the Sioux
from whom he got the information, but in some
dialect of the Algonquin language ; the reader
can take his choice among these dialects, ac-
cording as bethinks "Wauregan," " Ourighen,"
''Wulie^en," "Wunnegan," or " Alleghany,"
to be most like Oregon.

This theory involves the following improba-
bilities : — First, that Carver was sufficiently
acquainted with recent English and French
literature to have heard of the mythical story
of Moncacht-ap^ and of his descent of what

OREGON AND PENH OREILLES. 73

he called " La Belle Riviere " to the Sea of
the West; Second, that Carver was so little
acquainted with the geography of the North-
west as to believe that his Oregon could be
reached in a few days of foot-travel from some-
where in the region inhabited by the Kansas
Indians ; Third, that the Sioux were sufficiently
well acquainted with the languages spoken on
the Columbia or Oregon to be able to give
the native name of that river, and to explain
its meaning ; and Fourth, that Carver did not
make known what that name was in the origi-
nal, but translated it into a dialect of the
Algonquin, because one of his interpreters (as
Mr. Trumbull designates them, servants as
Carver calls them) was a " Mohawk Cana-
dian."

In regard to the first of these improbabilities,
a few remarks may be added, since Mr. Trum-
bull has brought up the story of Moncacht-ap^,
and has seemed to think that it had something
to do with Carver's name " Oregon." The
individual in question, according to M. Le
Page du Pratz,* was a " sage vieillard " be-
longing to the Yazoo tribe, whom he met near
Natchez, at a time not specified. It is impos-
sible to go into minute details in regard to the

* Histoire de la Louisiane, Paris 1758, vol. iii. pp. 83-140.

74 OREGON AND PEND' OREILLES.

two journeys — one to the Atlantic and the
other to the Pacific — of which the Yazoo
Indian gave an account to the credulous
Frenchman. It is sufficient to say that the
narrative is a tissue of impossibilities from be-
ginning to end. One or two extracts will be
sufficient to show its character. Moncacht-
ap^ was on the Missouri, at a distance of a
month's travel on foot from its mouth, when
he found himself among the '' Nation des
Loutres." From here he was accompanied
by a native of that tribe and his wife, who
" se croyoit prete d'accoucher," and who,
for some unknown and mysterious reason,
wished to be confined on what, if the story
be true, would be the other side of the Rocky
Mountains. With these two companions the
Yazoo Indian travelled nine "petites journ^es "
up the Missouri, and then turned north and
travelled five days more, at the end of which
time — as he says — " Nous trouvames une
Riviere d'une eau belle et claire ; aussi la
nomment-ils la Belle Riviere." This river he
descended in a " pirogue," without difficulty,
to the "Grande Eau," over which bearded
people were in the habit of coming every
year (Japanese, Du Pratz calls them) in ships,
to get a yellow, ill-smelling wood, with which

OREGON AND PENH OREILLES. 75

they were able to dye a beautiful yellow. After
remaining some time here, and helping the
natives fight a battle with the bearded dye-
stuff collectors, Moncacht-ap^ returned home
*^par la meme route qu'il avoit tenue en
allant."

It does not appear that the Yazoo Indian's
name of " La Belle Riviere " ever obtained
a place upon any map, except on that of
Du Pratz himself, on which it is represented
as heading somewhere in the vicinity of the
present town of Bismarck ; and it is in the
highest degree improbable that the story of
Moncacht-ap^ should have been known to
Cancer while he was in America. He had no
maps with him during his journey, and his
cartographic work was limited to putting his
route, as nearly as he could guess at it, on such
maps as he found current in England when
he went there to prepare and publish an ac-
count of his journey.

TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

I. INTRODUCTORY.

It is proposed, in the present section of this
little work, to discuss the origin and meaning
of the names given in the United States to
prominent topographical features of the earth's
surface. In doing this, it will soon become
evident to the reader that it would be impos-
sible to limit our range to one country or one
language. It will be seen that, owing to the
vast extent of the territory embraced within
the limits of this country, and to the manner
in which portions of it have been occupied
from time to time by races speaking different
languages, names of natural objects or features
of the landscape are current, in some sections
of the country, which are not English — that
is, which are not current in England except
as they have been carried from the United
States back to the land of the mother-tongue.
We shall find also that there are words which

INTRODUCTORY.

77

are perfectly familiar to the people of one
portion of this country, but which are quite
unknown in other sections except through
books. Furthermore, we shall find that the
number of words used to designate the vari-
ous natural features of the earth's surface is
large — much larger, in fact, than would have
been expected previous to making a special
study of the subject. Indeed, so numerous
are these words, that it cannot possibly be
claimed that the list will be exhausted in the
present attempt to bring them together. A
beginning may, however, be made on the
present occasion, and the subject taken up
again for a fuller treatment at some future
time.

Of all the terms which are mentioned in
the following pages, there is not one which
comes to us from any of the aboriginal or
" Indian " tongues once spoken over the re-
gion now occupied by the United States. A
considerable number of Indian words form
all or part of various proper names, and have
thus become quite familiar to us — as, for in-
stance, "sipi," ''minne," " squam," " kitchi,"
and many others ; but no one of all these words
has been generalized so as to have become
applicable to any class or form of scenic

78 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

feature. We do, it is true, to a very limited
extent find it convenient to make a distant
approach to such a generalization of certain
names ; as, for instance, if we should say —
as has been said — that the Shoshone Falls
are a smaller " Niagara," or that the Hetch-
Hetchy Valley is almost a " Yosemite ; " but
this is not carried far enough to justify us in
putting either Niagara or Yosemite in any
dictionary other than one of proper names.

Setting aside, therefore, as seems necessary,
all consideration of the aboriginal tongues,
even a very elementary knowledge of the his-
torical development of our country will suffice
to make it clear that we shall have in the
main to deal with three languages — English,
French, and Spanish. Not that the United
States are not occupied, and very extensively
occupied, by people speaking other tongues
than these ; but with the exception of a few
words which have come down from the early
Dutch settlers, there is hardly a trace of na-
tionalities, other than those mentioned, in the
entire range of our topographical nomencla-
ture. Among words which we must call
English, because they are in familiar use in
England, there are many which belong to
the Celtic and Scandinavian families, some of

INTRODUCTORY. 79

which have found their way to this country,
although many of them are unknown to us
except through the reading of EngHsh books.

It is the features of the land surface of the
globe which here particularly demand our
attention ; but as a preparation for that which
is to follow, a few lines may be devoted to
the consideration of the nomenclature of the
water. The most important division of the
earth's surface is into land and water; and
the coast-line of a country is, for any region
wholly or in part bounded by the ocean, that
feature which first claims the attention of the
investigator of its geography. The first step
in geographical discovery was to establish
the shore-lines of the continents, or the great
land masses of the globe ; and the next was
to fix the position and determine the outlines
of those smaller areas of land which, not be-
ing large enough to be called continents,
receive the name of islands. Only in the
case of Australia, with its three million square
miles of land, is there doubt whether the
designation of continent or island would be
more appropriate.

The most general and most satisfactory
division of the land is into two parts — the
Old World and the New. Asia and Europe

8o TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

(Eurasia) belong together, the line of separa-
tion between the two being purely an artificial
one. Africa was not long since joined to
Eurasia, but has only within the past few years
been artificially separated from it. Hence
the Old World is essentially one land mass,
with very numerous islands attached to it,
especially on its southeastern side, one of
which, as before remarked, is almost or quite
large enough to rank as a separate continent.
The New World is, with the exception of its
extreme northwestern corner, entirely and
widely separated from the Old World. It is
naturally subdivided into two portions, which
are in connection with each other, and yet by
so narrow an isthmus as to have led many to
beheve that an artificial separation of the two
parts would be possible. Indeed, at the pres-
ent time a large expenditure of money is being
made for this purpose.

By the simple word ocean is meant the
whole body of water which envelops and
covers almost three quarters of the surface of
the globe ; but when the ocean is spoken of
in a general way, without reference to any
particular portion of it, it is often called the
sea, and its edge the " sea-shore," but never
*' ocean-shore," although it is allowable to say

IN TROD UCTOR Y. 8 1

^'shores of the ocean." Shakspeare uses "sea"
and "ocean" synonymously, but the former
much more frequently than the latter. With
the English poets in general the two words are
synonymous ; and both are used in close prox-
imity to each other, according to the require-
ments of rhyme and metre. By physical
geographers the ocean is subdivided into five
areas, each of which is considered a separate
ocean, although these divisions are largely arti-
ficial, the lines by which they are indicated
being in no small part parallels and meridians.
Seas, gulfs, bays, sounds, straits, coves, holes,
harbors, etc. are the names of the minor sub-
divisions of the ocean, or of such portions of
the water surface as are more or less com-
pletely "land-locked," or separated by capes,
headlands, or sinuosities in the coast-line.
The nomenclature of these subdivisions is in
general simple and easily understood, and it
is not proposed to enlarge on them in the
present connection. It is with the names
of the various portions of the land surface
of the globe that we here have to do : the
water will only be considered when its
presence is necessarily connected with the
land in the scope of the definitions under
consideration.

6

82 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

There is one all-important feature of the
earth's surface, from the point of view of to-
pographical nomenclature, and this is fornu
To this everything else is subordinate. The
landscape — and by " landscape " is meant
the total impression made on the artistic or
educated eye by such portion of the surface
as is embraced within the field of vision — is
a complex thing. Form is usually the prime
factor in the impression produced; but this
is not always the case. Besides form, there
are color, and light and shade ; and the re-
sulting effect may vary greatly according as
the landscape is seen under a more or less
favorable illumination or at different seasons
of the year. A region in the highest degree
monotonous when every object is wrapped
in a sombre rain-cloud may be transformed
into beauty by the glow of a rising or a setting
sun. Of all this, nomenclature takes but Httle
heed. In the names given to the more level
portions of the earth's surface, however, where
form is wanting, there the character and dis-
tribution of the vegetation become all impor-
tant, as will be seen farther on.

II. MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS.

The surface of the land, when looked at
from the most general point of view, consists
of mountains, valleys, and plains. These are
the most comprehensive terms which can be
used in English for regions conspicuously-
elevated above the adjacent land, for depres-
sions within such elevated regions, and for
areas which preserve a certain uniformity of
level, and over which absence of considerable
elevations and depressions is the important
topographical feature. This seems a very
easily comprehended statement of a very sim-
ple fact; and yet, when we come to look
more closely into the matter, we find great
complexity in the forms in which mountains,
valleys, and plains exhibit themselves in dif-
ferent regions, and a surprising — one might
almost say bewildering — variety of names
which are applied to these various forms.
This is often true for regions inhabited by
people speaking one and the same language ;

84 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

for local peculiarities of the landscape and
dialectic variations of the mother-tongue may
give rise to names, some of which are current
only within very circumscribed areas, but all
of which essentially form a part of the lan-
guage, and which for that reason must be
studied. But in investigating a subject of this
kind we are led, almost as a matter of neces-
sity, to take a wider range, and include more
than one language within the scope of our
inquiry, because there are few important divi-
sions of the earth's surface over which only
one tongue is spoken, and fewer still in which
there is not more or less mixture of various
languages, offering words which are relics of
former races of inhabitants, or which for va-
rious reasons have been borrowed from other
countries, and whose study may lead to in-
teresting historic results. For instance, no
one could investigate the orography of the
Alps in any detail without the aid of some
knowledge of Latin, Italian, French, and Ger-
man, as well as of various dialectic forms of
these languages. For the Pyrenees we need
both French and Spanish, since that chain is di-
vided between nations speaking those tongues ;
and in France we find the Celtic element
becoming of importance in the topographical

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 85

nomenclature, while in Great Britain it is still
more prominent, the composite character of
the English language showing itself in the
most marked degree in the wealth of names of
the features of the landscape which we there
find current.

While the present inquiry has especially
to do with English words in use as topographi-
cal designations, we shall not hesitate to seek
for hght in the study of other languages, to
which indeed we are naturally led by those
circumstances connected with the former
occupation of large portions of our present
territory by people not having English for
their mother-tongue, as has already been
mentioned.

By the term '' orography " is meant the
investigation of the forms and structure of
mountains and mountain-chains, and it needs
but litde orographic study to find out that a
single entirely isolated mountain is something
of comparatively rare occurrence in Nature.
Almost without exception, every mountain
belongs to a "system of mountains" — to a
"group," "range," or "chain." Indeed,
most of the great mountains of the world
belong to great mountain-chains, and have
around them other summits of similar charac-

86 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

ter and of somewhat nearly the same eleva-
tion. This is due to the fact that mountains
are the result of general causes, which have
been active on a grand scale and through long
periods of time, and not of such as were con-
fined within narrow limits. The most striking
exception to this general statement will be
found in the fact that volcanic cones are
sometimes quite isolated, and rise, in such iso-
lation, high above the adjacent region. As
a remarkable instance of this, the grand cones
on the plateau south of the Colorado River
may be mentioned, as well as those which
extend in an east and west line across Mexico.
But the Colorado volcanoes are almost near
enough to each other to form a group ; and
those of Mexico, in spite of their isolation,
may well enough be taken as belonging to one
chain. Etna, however, rises in solitary gran-
deur ; and Vesuvius, with Somma as a portion
of the once united whole, towers high above
the minor cones in its vicinity.

Mountains, then, as a rule, occur extended
over elongated areas of the earth's surface,
occupying regions where elevations, foldings,
breaks, and protrusions of the stratified and
imstratified masses of which the earth's crust
is made up have taken place along lines which

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 87

are sometimes of extraordinary length, and
which are generally so grouped as to have
the element of length greatly predominating
over that of breadth. Hence we find that
most mountains are grouped in such a way
as to form what are called " chains " or " ran-
ges," the two words being nearly synonymous.
Several "ranges" make up a "system" of
mountains. There is a very general tendency
to designate by the term " chain " a succession
of high points connected by lower ones in
such a manner as to impress upon the mind
the fact that, in spite of these differences of
altitude, there is an essential unity in the mass
thus designated. In accordance with this, we
find the word " chain " (Lat. catena, Fr. chaine,
Sp. cadena, Ger. Kette, etc.) in common use
where mountains are written about scientifi-
cally. Quite analogous to this use of the
word " chain " is that of " cord " or " string,"
which, however, we do not have as topogra-
pliical terms in English ; but which, as such,
are of frequent occurrence in Spanish, in the
form of " cordon " and " cordillera," both de-
rived from " cordel " (Lat. chorda), a cord, or
rope — the one being defined in the diction-
ary of the Spanish Academy as " mountains
stretching over a long distance ; " the other

8S TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE,

as " a chain (cadena) of mountains." * This
word " Cordillera " is one of special interest to
us, and we may well go somewhat into detail
in regard to it, at the same time noticing another
Spanish word which has become very familiar
to the American ear — namely, " sierra."

" Cordillera " and " sierra " are nearly sy-
nonymous words in Spanish, the latter mean-
ing primarily a " saw " (Lat. serra), and hence
the jagged outline of a mountain-range, as
projected against the sky, which we can call
in English "serrated," although we cannot
call the range with a serrated outline a " saw,"
as the Spanish do. The subordinate ranges
which make up the system of the Pyrenees
are usually called " sierras," and the number of
these is large. The ''Sierra Nevada" (Snowy
Range) is an important and picturesque

* We saj', in English, a "chain," but not a "string,"
of mountains. These verbal distinctions are somewhat
delicate. We say a "string " of fish, and a " line " of trees,
and also, though rarely, a " line " of mountains. We say,
" his life hangs by a thread ; " but " his life hangs by a
string " would sound very queerly. So we say a " file " of
men, but not of mountains. (See farther on, in connection
with " defile.") And yet chorda, lima, zndjiliim all have
essentially the same meaning of "cord, string, or thread."
" Cord" in the form of " cordel " (Fr. cordelle) is a word
well known and formerly much used west of the Mississippi,
meaning " to pull a boat up-stream by means of a rope or
towing-line."

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 89

group of mountains in the south of Spain ;
and this name is familiar to us as that of what
may with truth be called the grandest and
most important single member of the Cordil-
leran system of North America. The Rocky
Mountains are made up of a considerable
number of more or less independent ranges,
and these together form the eastern division
of the Cordilleras. The Sierra Nevada and
Cascade Range, with the associated and more
or less closely connected Coast Ranges of
California and Oregon, constitute the western
border of the great complex of mountains,
table-lands, and valleys which occupies the
western third of that portion of the continent
which belongs to the United States. But this
nomenclature is not valid so far north as
Alaska, which is a part of our territory, although
separated from the main body of it by a wide
interval. North of the 49th parallel the ranges
— the system there beginning to be much
diminished in breadth — are generally known
collectively simply as the Rocky Mountains.
The name "Sierra Nevada" was the first to
appear on any map of North America, as
designating either the whole or any part of
the Cordilleran system.*

* See ante^ p. 21.

90 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE,

The word " Cordilleras " is of special inter-
est to us as being the most general designation
of the system of ranges which borders the
entire Pacific coast of both North and South
America, forming the longest connected sys-
tem of mountain chains in the world, its linear
development being fully eight thousand miles.
The South American division is called the
*' Cordilleras of South America," or the " Cor-
dilleras of the Andes," or more generally sim-
ply " the Andes ; " while the *' Cordilleras of
North America " are, for brevity and con-
venience, known as " the Cordilleras," that
part of the country which they occupy being
called the "Cordilleran Region." How this
has come about has been already explained
at length.*

Almost the entire mass of the South Ameri-
can Cordilleras is included in States having
Spanish as their official language, although
the aboriginal tongues are still current over
various portions of the region. Moreover,
nearly the whole of the North American Cor-
dilleras was, not many years ago, also under
Spanish control, that being the official lan-
guage not only of Central America and Mexico
(as it now is) but also of both Lower and

* See ante^ pp. 15-27.

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 91

Upper California, while the settlements of that
nation had spread themselves, to a considera-
ble extent, through the Rocky Mountains, and
over the great Central Plateau, to beyond the
Columbia River.* Thus it has come about
that Spanish names, derived from simple
and homely words meaning " string " and
" saw," have become familiar to us, English-
speaking people, and are permanently fixed
upon the grandest features of our topography.

Passing next to a consideration of the
names which individual mountains or parts
of mountain ranges have received, we find
that their number is very considerable, and
that the study of the sources from which
they are derived opens an interesting field
of investigation.

A mountain range is made up of a number
of more or less distinctly marked elevations,
and for each of these by far the most common
designation is the term mountain, which may
be applied to any high point or mass suffi-
ciently elevated above the surrounding country
or range of which it forms a part to be con-
sidered worthy of a distinctive appellation.
Mount is simply an abbreviated form of
" mountain ; " and it seems to be largely a ques-

* See ante, pp. 31, 58, 59.

92 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

tion of euphony whether the point in question
shall be called " mountain " or "mount," the
usage being that if the word moimfam is
employed it follows the proper name, and if
mou7it it precedes it. But there is a decided
tendency to use moiuitain when a range or
group of elevations is meant, and mowit when
a particular summit of this group is to be
designated. Thus we have "White Moun-
tains " and " Mount Washington ; " " Green
Mountains " and " Mount Mansfield ; " '- Adi-
rondack Mountains " and " Mount T^Iarcy,"
etc. In the term " Rocky Mountains " is
included a large number of ranges ; the entire
system, as it might properly be called, occu-
pying almost half a million of square miles.
The subordinate divisions of this grand sys-
tem are usually called ratigcs ; as the "Sa-
watch Range," " San Juan Range," etc. One
subdivision, the '' Park Range " of Colorado,
is — or was, a few years ago — frequently
called " the Snowy Range," the exact equiv-
alent of " Sierra Nevada " and nearly the
same as " Himalaya." The name " Rocky
Mountains" is frequently abbreviated in fa-
miliar language to " Rockies." Similarly, the
"Appalachian System" is often called the
"Appalachian Mountains/' and also, more

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 93

concisely, the " Appalachians." This latter
designation may properly be employed by
scientific writers ; but the term " Rockies "
would hardly be allowed in a geographical
work.

As soon as we look for more specialized
designations of single mountains, or for such
names as are indicative of peculiarities of form
or structure, we begin to find great variety in
the nomenclature. Perhaps the most com-
mon term, next to " mount," for an individu-
alized mountain is peak, which means simply
a "point " or '^pointed." But in the United
States this designation is often applied to
mountains which are not particularly remarka-
ble for having pointed summits. This usage
is rather common in the Rocky Mountains,
where Long's, Pike's, Gray's, and other
" peaks " might as well, or better, have been
called " mounts." In the Appalachians there
are a few summits designated as " peaks "
— as, for instance, the Peaks of Otter, in
Virginia — but, in general, this system of
mountains is remarkably free from conspicu-
ously pointed elevations.

The word " peak " is used both in French
{pic) and Spanish {pico') very much as it is in
English. As examples, may be mentioned :

94 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

" Pico de Urbion," in which heads the Duero
River ; "Picacho de la Valeta" — "picacho "
being the augmentative of "pico." T/ie pico,
however, is the well-known island of that
name in the Azores, on which is the " Pico
Alto," the highest point of the group. There
are several " picachos " in New Mexico and
Arizona, and one or more in California. To
the name " picacho " is occasionally added
the word " peak " — a kind of reduplication of
a name in two different languages, the origin
of which is easily understood. A large num-
ber of high and generally pointed summits on
the French side of the Pyrenees and in the "
French Alps bear the name of " pic ; " for
example, " Pic de Nethou," '' Pic du Midi,"
" Pic du Frene," " Pic du Pyramide," etc.
This word also appears in the Pyrenees in
the form of "pique," and its diminutive
" piquette."

The form in which " peak" occurs in the
Lake District of England is " pike," a name
there given to any summit of a hill, but more
generally to such as are peaked or pointed.
" Scawfell Pike " (3,160 feet) is the highest
point in England proper. It is the culminat-
ing summit of the group of elevations col-
lectively known as " Scawfell," standing at the

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 95

head of the Wastdale. Scawfell is an interest-
ing name, concerning which information will
be given farther on, under " scar," or '' scaur,"
and " fell." " Pike o' Stickle," one of the two
" Pikes " of Langdale, is another curious name.
" Stickle " (A. S. sticai, Ger. Stachel) means
" a sharp point " — a word which we have only
in the familiar name of a fish, the ^'' stickle-
back," so called from the stickles or prickles
on its back. In the name " Pike o' Stickle "
we have a reduplication similar to that to
which allusion has already been made.

The word " peak " appears, in the form of
*' pique," in a work published in London in
1679,* in which the summit of Mount Athos
is called ''the high Pique or Peer." The
" Peak " of England, however, is not a peak^
but a plateau — a picturesque region in Der-
byshire, near Castleton, about five miles in
length, from half a mile to two miles wide,
and having an elevation of about 2,000
feet. The mountainous part of Derbyshire
is frequently called the "Peak Country." It
is — to quote the language of the author of
" All about Derbyshire " — "a wide expanse
of alternating moor and mountain, green val-

* The Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches.
By Paul Ricaut, Esq. London, i6;9.

g6 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

ley and glancing stream, limestone tor and
forest ridge." This name, which may have
been given because portions of the edge of
this table-land present a " peaky " aspect when
seen from a distance, is a very old one.*
It appears in Heylyn's Cosmographia, the
first edition of which was published in 1664.

A word of which the English form is spit
is one of those most commonly used in the
Alps to designate a sharp or pointed mountain
summit. It appears in German as " Spitze,"
"Spitzli," and " Piz ; " in Italian, as "pizzo."
As " spit " it is familiar to us in English as
the name of the long, pointed utensil on which
meat is roasted. As a topographical word it
is Hmited to the sea-shore, with the meaning
of a sandy, projecting, not very elevated point.
Wedgwood says : " Root uncertain ; but it
would seem reasonable to connect spit with
spike J spine, and spire ; all of these words con-
tain the notion of a sharp point." " Piz " is
the form of this word most used in the Grisons
Alps, especially on the Engadine ; "pizzo," in
the Italian Alps : thus, Spitzliberg, in Uri ; Piz
Roseg and Piz Morteratsch, in the Engadine ;

* Skeat says of it : M. E. pek ; ' the hul of the pek ' =
the hill of the Peak, in Derbyshire ; Rob. of Glouc, p. 7.
In the A. S. Chron. an. 924, the same district is called
Pcac-land = Peak-land.

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS, 97

Pizzo di Verona, in the Italian Tyrol ; etc. The
Latin ''spica,"a point, spear of grass, spike
(Fr. espty epi), appears in the augmentative
form in Spanish as " espigon," with the
same topographical meaning as " Spitze " in
German.

Puy is a word in common use in Central
France to designate any kind of a hill or
mountain. In the volcanic region of Auvergne
all the elevations are " puys." Although this
word would seem to be allied to " pic," it is
thought by etymologists that this is not the
case. Jaubert, in his " Glossaire du Centre
de la France," derives it from the Latin po-
dium. The variety of forms in which this
word presents itself in various parts of France
is indeed bewildering. In the Eastern Pyr-
enees we find " pueche," "pech," "puch,"
" puig ; " in the Landes, " poy " and " pouy."
Another word, " peu," seemingly a variant of
*' puy," is in use in Southern France ; thus, le
Peu, a locality near Saint Severe (Indre), and
in various other places. " Pie " is still another
form ; thus. Pie Montaigu, in the Commune
de Palais (Cher), and Pie de Bourges, near
Clion (Indre).

From the Spanish " pena," a rock, a large
number of topographical words have been
7

98 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

formed, either as augmentatives or diminu-
tives, or with various other terminations, so
characteristic of the language, and sometimes
so difficult of definition. These names are ap-
plied to mountains and mountainous regions,
but evidently not with any particularly nice
discrimination as to the peculiarities of form of
the object to which they are given. Any rock
or rocky point may be called in Spanish a
" pena," which is perhaps itself a diminutive
of " pen," a word having a wide range over
Europe. " Penon," the regularly formed aug-
mentative of " pefia," is a word very com-
monly used in Spanish to designate a high,
rocky point. " Pefiol " is the equivalent of
"penon ; " and '* pefioleria " means a district
or region where such elevations are numerous.
*' Penasco " is another augmentative, and is
one very frequently met with in Spanish moun-
tain nomenclature ; " pefiascoso " is the corre-
sponding adjective form.* *' Pefia Blanca " is
the name by which a certain prominent mass
of quartz, on the summit of a hill, and form-
ing part of the outcrop of the " Mother Lode,"
is known in the Sierra Nevada ; it is also

* " Penasco " is defined by Barcia as a " peiia grande y
elevada ; " and " pefiascoso," as a " sitio, lugar <5 montana
donde hay muchos peiiascos."

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 99

called the " Penon Blanco " by some. " Pene,"
the French form of "pena," is also a word
in use in the Pyrenees. " Pico de la Pena-
lara " is the name of a high point in the Sierra
de la Guadarrama.

The following is a synoptical statement of
the more important Spanish names for moun-
tains and mountain ranges, with some remarks
on their meaning supplementary to what has
already been given : —

From the Latin mons. Monte, montana^
viontanuelo. " Monte " sometimes means rath-
er the forest than the mountain, because the
forests, in many regions, are so closely limited
to the mountains. In the Peruvian Andes
" montana " has a peculiar meaning. It is the
densely forested region on the eastern slope of
the range, the country being divided into three
longitudinal belts, — the " Coast," " Sierra,"
and "Montaiia," the "Sierra" being the
region of the Andes proper.

Latin chorda (Sp. cor del). Cordon^ Cordil-
lera. Already sufficiently explained.

Latin serra. Sierra^ serrata, serrania, ser-
ra?w. " Serrata " seems to be occasionally
used as the equivalent of " sierra." A " ser-
rania " is a region of " sierras," a mountainous
district. " Serrano "is an inhabitant of a

100 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

"serrania," a "mountaineer," with the mean-
ing of a resident of a mountainous region, not
an amateur climber of mountains. '' Serre,"
" serrat," and "serrere" are various French
forms of "sierra" used in the Pyrenees.

Latin psnna (O. 'L. J>ennus, sharp, pointed).
Fena, penon, pehol, penoleria^ penaranda,
pehalara, pehasco (adj. penascosd),

Celtic, related to Latin spica. Fico, picachOy
esplgon ; the latter is an augmentative, with
the meaning of " high, bold, sharply pointed
hill," — much less frequently used, however,
than "picacho," which is heard among the
mountains wherever Spanish is spoken.

Latin cirrus, a lock, curl, and hence a crest
of feathers or crest in general. Cerro, cerrito,
A very common designation of a hill, espe-
cially if not very high, but rough and rocky.*

Latin collum. Colina, collado. These two
words are, as generally used, synonymous, and
are nearly equivalent to the French "col-
line," English " hill." " Collado," also written
" collada," is sometimes used for pass.f

* Barcia says : " Cerro es la colina en que abundan riscos
y piedras y cuyo terreno es escabroso."

t Barcia says of " collado " : " Altura de tierra que no
llega i. ser monte." Caballero : " Sitio que va subiendo en
cuesta, formando garganta en la montaila, por donde facilita
su subida y bajada."

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. lOI

Latin lumbus. Lomay lomita^ lomeria. The
use of words derived from " lumbus," mean-
ing "loin," as a topographical designation, is
akin to our use of " flank " for mountain side.
A " loma " is an elongated gentle swell of the
ground, a rounded, inconspicuous hill. A
" lomeria," a region of low, rounded hills ;
the " foot-hills," as the comparatively low un-
dulating region along the western base of the
Sierra is called in Cahfornia.

Latin ventus, with '^re." Reventon^ reven-
tazon. A topographical designation of some-
what uncertain appHcation, which seems
peculiar to the Pyrenees. The idea con-
veyed is that of a cliff or precipice which
repels the v/ind, as the waves on the sea-
shore are thrown back by the rocks against
which they are dashed. Barcia defines " re-
venton " as " a mountain slope extremely steep,
and to be chmbed only with difficulty." But
*' el Reventon *' is also the name of the pass
which crosses the Sierra de Guadarrama (" the
glorious ridge," as Ford * calls it) to the north
of the route from Madrid to the Escorial.

Latin quadro, quadratum. Esqiierra, spelled
also ezquerra, A name given to mountains

* Ford's Handbook for Spain, 5th edition, London,
187S, p. 89.

102 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

terminating in square or tabular forms, or
squarely cut at one end. The modifications
of this word in French are numerous ; for
example, " queyre," " caire," " quairat," etc.
A part of the French Alps where this form
prevails is known by the name of " queyras,"
and the valley or gorge at the base of Monte
Viso is called '' Val de Queyras."

It would be hardly worth while to attempt
to enumerate all the names given to moun-
tains in the French Pyrenees. A number
have been already given, and it will be suffi-
cient to add what Ramond says in regard to
the mountain nomenclature of that region :
*' L'idiome des Pyr^n^es a bien d'autres ri-
chesses ; Pique et Piqiiette, Tuque et Tuquet,
Roque, Foey ou Fouy^ Cau qui se prononce
Caou, Serre et Sarrat^ Vigfte, Heche, Soum,
Coste, Pene, Mount, et vingt autres mots bar-
bares et mal sonnans, ^chapp^s du celte et du
latin, voila autant d'appellations sp^cifiques
qui modifient Tid^e g^n^rale de sommet, au
gr^ des circonstances accessoires de la forme
ou de la nature de chacun." *

Pen and ben are Celtic words, meaning
" mountain," " highland," or *' headland ; " and
these names are applied to a large number of

* Ramond, Voyages au Mont Perdu, Paris,T8oi,p. 255.

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 103

localities, — either mountains, headlands, or
something analogous in various parts of Great
Britain, especially in Wales, Northern Eng-
land, and Scotland. The word " pena " and
its derivatives, so frequently heard in Spain,
as already noticed, are evidently allied to the
Celtic " pen " and " ben." The word " pen "
is occasionally seen in poetry, as in the fol-
lowing quotation from W. Crowe : —

"... save only where the head
Of Pillesdon rises, Pillesdon's lofty Pen."

Band is another word of Celtic origin
(Welsh, ba?it; Gael, heaiin^ a hill). It is a
name quite commonly given to the summits
of not very conspicuous hills in the Lake
District : for example, Swirl Band, near Con-
iston; Taylor's Gill Band, and Randerson
Band, Borrowdale. This word appears to be
another form of " ben " and " pen."

There are certain words which are in cur-
rent use throughout the Western United States,
and which on that account are familiarly known
all over the country, either by personal ac-
quaintance with the objects to which they are
applied or through books, but which are not
much used as topographical designations in
the Eastern States. The most important of
these words are "bluff" and "butte."

104 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

The etymological relations of the word
bluff do not seem to have been clearly in-
dicated. Wedgwood connects it with the
Dutch blaf, which he defines as *' planus,
sequus et amplus, superficie plana, non ro-
tunda," and thinks the word derived, in the
first instance, from the sound of something
falling flat on the ground. Be this as it may,
" bluff" is the term applied everywhere in
the Mississippi Valley, and to a very consid-
erable extent as far west as the Pacific, to the
steeply inclined sides of the river valleys.
Throughout the prairie region the ascent is
made from the river bottom to the rolling prai-
rie by a sudden, sharp rise, the difference of
elevation between bottom and upland varying
in different regions from a few feet to several
hundred. These abrupt rises, which are some-
times rocky and precipitous, and which might
properly be designated as " chffs," are almost
universally known throughout the Mississippi
Valley as " bluffs." In a portion of Wisconsin,
however, there are several highly picturesque,
isolated masses of rock quite castellated in
form, which bear no other name than that of
"bluff" among the people living near them.

In Holderness, Yorkshire, some detached
hills are called barfs ; one in the Vale of

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 105

York is also thus denominated. There seems
to be a connection between "bluff" and
"barf/' and of both with "blaf;" but the
matter is not clear. " Bluff " as a topographical
designation is of comparatively modern origin.
Cook, in his Voyages, speaks of a " bluff
point," meaning thereby a " steep headland."
The French word butte is one often heard
throughout the Cordilleran Region and on
the Plains. As used in France, it is almost
exactly the equivalent of our word " knoll,"
meaning a gently swelling eminence, or incon-
spicuous rounded hill. It is a word of rather
uncertain etymological relations, but appears
to be allied to (French) but and botit It was
introduced into the United States by the
French trappers and employes of the Hudson's
Bay Company, and has gradually come to be
used as the designation of mountains of all
degrees of grandeur, up to Shasta itself, —
14,440 feet high, and second only to Rainier
among the great volcanic cones of the Sierra
Nevada and Cascade Range. This grand
mountain was " in the early days " of Califor-
nia most generally known as " Shasta Butte ; "
but this name is gradually giving way, and that
of *' Mount Shasta " taking its place. There
are a number of conspicuous, more or less

Io6 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

isolated mountains in the northern portion of
the Cordilleras which are still called '^ buttes,"
and which are likely to be so denominated
for a long time to come : for example, Medi-
cine Butte (called also *' Pill Hill"), Pilot Butte,
Church Buttes — all in Wyoming ; as well as
many in Colorado and the adjacent Territories.
A high, craggy mass of rock, forming the
crest of the Sierra in Yuba County, California,
is known as the "Downieville Buttes;" and
the remarkable, isolated, and lofty volcanic
range in the Sacramento Valley is called the
" Marysville Buttes."

Knob is the favorite — indeed, almost
exclusive — designation of any more or less
isolated hill or mountain throughout the
Southwest, and especially in Tennessee and
Kentucky. There are various " Pilot Knobs ; "
but the most famous one is that of Missouri,
which is so largely made up of iron ore, and
which is not far distant from the still more
celebrated ''Iron Mountain." There is an
occasional "knob'' in the Eastern United
States, both in the White Mountains and
in the Catskills ; but the topographical use
of this word is decidedly a Southwestern
pecuharity. " Knob " and " nab " seem to be
the same words, the latter form being in com-

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 107

mon use in Northern England, and especially
in the Lake District : for example, Nab Scar,
Rydal ; Nab Crag, Patterdale ; etc. In North-
eastern Yorkshire the abrupt hill edges are
called "nabs."

Knock is another word belonging with
" knob" and " nab." There are several
" knocks " in the Lake District of England
and in Scotland; as Knockmurton, Knock
Pike, Knock Craig, etc. This word has been
carried as far away from home as Australia
and the adjacent islands. " Knocklofty " is
the name of a " respectable eminence " near
Hobart, Tasmania.

The words just enumerated run, with many
variants, through the languages of Northern
Europe. Thus, Gael, cnap, to strike or beat,
and hence, as a substantive, that which is
produced by beating, namely, a lump, or boss ;
and, going a litUe farther in the same direc-
tion, a hillock, or hill, which is also the mean-
ing of c?tac and cnoc in the same language.
The Welsh is cnwpa, a knob or club, and
cn7vc, a lump or bunch, etc.*

Again, knoll and knot are closely allied to
the words just mentioned. The former is in
common use, both in this country and in

* See Wedgwood, under "Knob."

I08 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

England, as designating a low, rounded hill.
"It was a rocky knoll, that rose forty feet
above the surface of the water," Cooper says
in describing the locaHty which gave the
name to the story called " Wyandotte, or the
Hutted Knoll." " Knot " seems peculiar to
the Lake District of England, where some of
the hills of bare rock are called by this name ;
for example, Hard Knot, Farleton Knot,
Amside Knot, etc.

Dodd is another name for mountain, cur-
rent in the Lake District, but not heard in the
United States. This word is another of the
same class as "knob" and "nab." It is
defined in the glossary attached to Black's
Guide as being a " hill with a blunt summit
attached to another hill." In Frisian — a
language closely allied to English — " dodd "
means a "bunch." "To dod," in English,
is " to cut off an excrescence." " Toddi," in
Icelandic, is "a fragment or piece cut off."
" Todi," like " pen," has a wide range. The
word appears in the name of the grand peak
of Glarus, the "Todi," or "Todi;/' and per-
haps " dolde " in Doldenhorn, in the Bernese
Alps, may be the same word. The following
are examples of mountains in the Lake Dis-
trict bearing the name of " dodd : " Skiddaw

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 109

Dodd ; Hartsop Dodd, Kirkstone ; Dod Fell,
near Hawes.

Mound, which, as usually applied both in
England and America, means an artificial
eminence of no great altitude, is the name
given in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa to those
isolated flat-topped hills which occur in and
near the Lead Region, and which rise a few
hundred feet above the adjacent nearly level
country. The West Blue Mound is about
500 feet above its base; others, as Platte,
Sinsinnewa, Sherald's, Waddell's, etc., are
from 200 to 300 feet in height. They are
conspicuous objects in the vicinity of Galena
and Dubuque, and they are all capped with
the harder Niagara limestone, while their
lower, more gently sloping portions are made
up of the soft, shaly, and easily disintegrated
strata of the Hudson River group, which lie
between the Niagara and the lead-bearing
hmestones — or, more properly, dolomites,
the latter being, in general, throughout the
region the rock which occupies the surface
of the country.

The word cobble as the name of a hill of
moderate elevation is heard occasionally in
this country, but, so far as known to the pres-
ent writer, not in England. There are at least

no TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

two " cobbles " in the Adirondacks, and one
or more in Berkshire, Mass. ; and there is
also a Cobblekill (mountain rivulet) in the
Catskills. "To cob," in English, is "to beat
or strike " — a word in common use among
miners, the breaking of masses of ore into small
lumps being called " cobbing." " Cobble,"
as meaning a rounded fragment of rock, not
so small as a " pebble " and not so large as
a "bowlder," is also a word of every-day
occurrence, both in England and America.
" Cobble," as meaning a rounded stone, seems
to be a diminutive of " cob," a lump : " cob-
ble," as designating a mountain, is a word
not so simple in its etymological relations.
" Koble " is an old German word having the
meaning of " rock " and " mountain," and
" Kofel " has the same signification in the Bava-
rian Alps, Tyrol, and Carinthia. Many of the
more prominent peaks in Tyrol are thus desig-
nated, the word being frequently written " kofl."
Large stones are also called by the same name,
and "kofeln" is "to throw stones."

Again, "Kopf " (head) is a common Ger-
man designation of a prominent, rounded
mountain summit, especially in the Bavarian
and Austrian Alps — thus, Rosskopf, Ochsen-
kopf, Schwarzkopf, Adlerkopf, etc. ; and the

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 1 1 1

corresponding English word is by no means
a rare name for mountain in English-speaking
countries. Thus, we have a " Blackhead "
in the Catskills, a " Bullshead " in the South-
ern Appalachians, a *' Doublehead " in the
White Mountains, etc. " Cob," " cop," " kop,"
"kopf" are all one and the same word ori-
ginally, with the meaning of " rounded lump,
or head," the association or meaning being
evident and natural, as we see from the fact
that large cobbles are, in this country, fre-
quently called " nigger-heads."

The word kogel as a mountain name, fre-
quently heard in the Austrian Alps, either as
''kogel" or "kogl," — for example, Kreuz-
kogl, Ankogl, Graukogel, near Gastein, etc., —
is apparently related to *' kegel " (cone), a
name naturally given to conical summits, and
especially to those of volcanoes, which are
often as regular in form as they are graceful
in their proportions.

There are various names for mountains, the
origin of which is quite obvious. They are
given as indicating a resemblance to some
familiar object. Some of these designations
run through several languages ; others are
limited in their range. The following may be
mentioned : —

112 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

The crest of a mountain or of a mountain
range is a familiar expression. By it we
mean the culminating ridge or "backbone"
of the elevated mass. The same term is used
in French {crete), in Italian {crista) , etc.
" Crest " is from the Latin crista, a word which
is allied to crinis, hair; hence, something
which grows on the top of the head like the
" comb " or " crest " of the cock. The Ger-
man equivalent for mountain crest is "Kamm,"
an old word appearing in the different dia-
lectic divisions of the language as "Kam,"
*' Kamp," " Chamb," etc., and having originally
the meaning of " tooth " or " toothed imple-
ment." Thus we have, so to speak, got
back to "sierra," the use of this word
and of " Kamra " having exactly the same
underlying idea. We have not in the United
States the word " kam " or " kamm " as a
topographical designation, but it is current
in the Lake District of England : for exam-
ple, Catstycam, or Catchedecam, Helvellyn;
Rossthwaite Cam ; Cam Fell, near Hawes ;
etc. It is not a little curious that the word
" comb " also appears in that district as the
name of a mountain. "Black Comb," also
spelled " Combe," is a summit overlooking
the Vale of the Duddon, and commanding

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 113

a very extensive view, as thus poetically
indicated : —

" Far from the summit of Black Comb (dread name
Derived from clouds and storm !) "

Words-worth.
" Close by the sea, lone sentinel,
Black Comb his forward station keeps."

C. Parish.

Thus, " comb " and " combe " or " coom "
are seen to be two words quite different in
origin and meaning, although not unfrequently
the two are spelled alike. The latter is a
hollow in the mountain side ; the former, the
mountain crest.*

The spurs of a mountain are the subordi-
nate ridges which extend themselves from the
crest, " like ribs from the vertebral column "
(Bonney) . It is between the spurs that the
water derived from the rain or from melting
snow makes its way downward; and it is
chiefly by the erosive action of this water,
assisted by ice where the range is high enough
to be glaciated, that the gorges, ravines, and
valleys have been eaten out, leaving the spurs
on either hand, as witnesses of the power of
the erosive agencies.

The peculiar form of many mountain sum-
mits has led to a wide-spread use of the word

* See farther on, p. 167.
8

1 1 4 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLA TURE.

dome. Granitic masses frequently assume
this shape, and with such perfection of outh'ne
that the use of this designation seems entirely
natural. There are several mountains called
" domes " in the Appalachians ; but forms of
this kind are most abundantly and charac-
teristically displayed in the Sierra Nevada,
especially in the neighborhood of ]\Iount
Whitney, and near the Yosemite Valley, where
the concentric structure of the granite is de-
veloped on a grand scale, giving rise to dome-
shaped masses of great regularity of form and
of immense size. One in particular in the
caiion of the North Fork of the San Joaquin,
rising to a height of i,8oo feet above the river,
looks like the top of a gigantic balloon strug-
gling to get loose from the rock in which it
is imprisoned.* A similar use of the word
*^ dome" is not uncommon in the Alps, al-
though there are no mountain summits in that
range so perfect in their dome shape as are
many in the Sierra Nevada.

The rounded summits of the Vosges Moun-
tains are also called in French " ballons," and in
German "Belchen" or "Bblchen." "Ballon,"
of course, is the equivalent of " balloon," and
is etymologically connected with halle^ Eng.

* Geology of California, vol. i. p. 401.

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 115

ball. There are six summits in the Vosges
which are called " Belchen ; " and the most
famous of them is the Gebweiler Belchen
(Fr. Ballon de Soultr), the culminating point
of the range, commanding a magnificent view
of the Jura, a part of the Alps being also
visible in clear weather. "Boll" in German
means "rounded, swollen;" and " Bolle " is
"bud." A "bolliger Berg" is a mountain
with a swollen or rounded top ; hence the
name "Belchen" or "Bolchen," used not only
in Vosges, but to a limited extent in the Jura
and Black Forest.

Objects more prosaic and familiar than
domes give names to mountains — names
which are sometimes limited in their range,
but often occurring over wide areas and
running through various dialects or even lan-
guages. Thus, horn is the most common
designation of the highest peaks in the Ger-
man Alps, and more especially in the Ber-
nese Oberland ; for example, Finsteraarhorn,
Schreckhorn, Matterhorn, etc The French
use the equivalent word " corne " to a limited
extent ; and " corno " plays the same part in
mountain nomenclature in Southern Italy.
This use of the term " horn " seems quite
unknown to English-speaking people, nor

1 1 6 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLA TURE^

does it appear to have extended itself into
Spain.

Dent, or tooth, takes the place of " horn "
in the French Alps, and is one of the most
common designations of high, more or less
isolated peaks in that part of the chain ; for
example. Dent du Midi, Dent Blanche, Dents
de Bertol, etc. The similarity of a sharp
momitain peak to a tooth seems not to have
impressed itself on the English mind, and there
are few if any summits in England or in this
country which are thus designated. The first
name, however, given to any individual moun-
tain peak in the whole Cordilleran system,
within the limits of the United States, was
that of " Bear's Tooth," or the "Tooth," an
appellation bestowed by Mr. Fidler on some
point which cannot now be identified.*

Other objects which have given names to
mountains, on account of real or fancied re-
semblance of form, and which are of interest
because so extensively used, are : the saddle,
the sugar-loaf, the needle, the pap or nipple,
the hay-stack, and many others. There are
several " saddle-backs " in England, one near
Skiddaw (2,787 feet) being the most cele-
brated. Black's Guide says of it : " Blentha-

* See ante, p. 49.

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 117

cara is the ancient name, which now-a-days
is more usually termed Saddleback, an appel-
lation acquired from its shape when viewed
from the neighborhood of Penrith." In this
country we have reversed this style of nomen-
clature. " Saddle-back " was long considered
a good enough name for the highest mountain
in Massachusetts ; but of late years, the more
elegant one of " Gray lock " has been coined
for it. The most famous Saddle Mountain,
however, is " La Silla," near Caracas, the first
high point ascended by Humboldt on the
American continent.

There are many mountains which bear the
name of " sugar-loaf" in various parts of the
world. The conical peak on the west side of
the entrance to the harbor of Rio Janeiro —
the " Pao de Assucar " — is perhaps the best
known of these. There is one near Aberga-
venny in Wales, which as viewed from the east
is " a perfect cone tapering finely to a point
at a high angle " (Mackenzie). The best-
known sugar-loaf in this country is one of
diminutive size, an " eddy-peak " of Triassic
sandstone, near Deerfield, in the Connecticut
Valley.

The term needle as the designation of a
mountain is much more commonly used by

Il8 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

the French than by the English. It is espe-
cially in the vicinity of Chamonix that the clus-
ters of sharply pointed peaks bear the name
of ** aiguilles." The rocks there are of a pe-
culiar texture (slaty-crystalline), and have an
almost vertical position of the cleavage planes.
These conditions cause the elevated ridges
to weather away under the influence of the
erosive agencies, in such a manner as to leave
points projecting, either singly or in groups,
above the general level, most naturally sug-
gesting by their sharpness the idea of the
needle. The " needles " best known in Eng-
lish-speaking countries are the pinnacles of
chalk on the extreme western end of the
Isle of Wight, a famous landmark for vessels
bound to Southampton. They are sharply
pointed rocks " which have been produced
by the decomposition and wearing away of
the chalk in the direction of the joints or
fissures by which the strata are traversed "
(Mantell).

There are various mountains called the
Paps, both in England and the United States.
The " Paps of Jura " are well-known elevations
on the largest of the Hebrides group of isl-
ands, visible far at sea and from all the west-
ern coast of Argyllshire. The " Paps " on the

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 119

north shore of Lake Superior are fine rounded
summits, surrounded by noble scenery. " Te-
ton," the French equivalent of " pap," is also
used with the same topographical meaning
as the latter word. The " Teton Range," near
Snake River, in Wyoming Territory, is one
of the most impressive of all the Cordilleran
mountain groups; and the "Grand Teton,"
13,691 feet high, is its culminating point.
This may have been the mountain called the
"Tooth" by Mr. Fidler. It certainly has
much the appearance of a gigantic tooth, as
seen from one point of view.

There are Hay-stacks without number, both
in this country and in England. Rising high
above Buttermere Water are the " Hay-
stacks " of the Lake District. One point in
the Yellowstone National Park is thus des-
ignated; and there are various others with
the same name in the Appalachians.

Hog-back is not a particularly elegant word,
but it is one put to a variety of topographical
uses in this country. There is, among others,
a Great Hog-back in North Carolina, 4,790
feet high. Along the eastern base of the
Rocky Mountains the strata are broken off
and upturned in grand crests, producing a
most peculiar and picturesque type of scenery,

120 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

especially attractive to geologists from the
clear revelation there afforded of the nature of
the mighty forces by which that grand system
of mountains has been upHfted. These crests
are famiharly known to those living in that
region as " hog-backs ; " and the belt along
the base of the chain where these peculiar
forms occur, is called the " Hog-back Coun-
try." Furthermore, the remarkable ridges of
gravel occurring in Northern New England
and elsewhere in this country, known as
"kames " or "eskars," and which are such a
puzzle to geologists — although by most of
them ascribed to the action of ice — are
frequently called "hog-backs," as also " horse-
backs."

The Camel's hump is not as popular topo-
graphically as the hog's back ; but as occur-
ring not uncommonly, and especially as des-
ignating one of the highest of the mountains
of Vermont, it should not be omitted from
the list of imitative names — a list which
might easily be considerably extended beyond
that which has here been given.

Among words designating some pecuHarity
of form in the rocky outcrops which are so
often seen in mountainous regions, and espe-
cially near the summits of lofty peaks, the

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 121

following may be mentioned as being in
current use wherever English is spoken :
"precipice," "cliff," "crag."

Precipice (Lat. prcEceps, headlong, preci-
pitare, to fall headlong or head-first, from
p7'CB diwd capttf ; Yx. precip iter, precipice) is the
most general term in English for any very
steeply inclined wall or surface of rock. A
" defile " is bordered by " precipices ; " a
"gorge" has "precipitous sides."

Cliff is nearly akin to "' precipice ; " in fact,
there is hardly a perceptible difference in
meaning between the two words. "Cliff" is
etymologically the same as "cleft," "cleugh,"
and "clove," coming from the Anglo-Saxon
"clif," a shore, a rocky shore, and hence
rock, and connected with clifian, to cleave or
split asunder. A cleft in the rock has pre-
cipitous or cliffy sides ; hence a cliff is a nearly
perpendicular face of rock. Steep faces of
sand or gravel are more commonly called
"banks "than cliffs. The "bluffs" of the
Prairie Region might well be called " cliffs ; "
and, in fact, a certain limestone which fre-
quently is seen in the Lead Region cropping
out and forming bluffs along the streams has
been often called, by geologists as well as by
the people generally, the " Cliff limestone."

122 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

" Cliff" is a favorite word with the poets ;
and here follow some examples of the use of
*' precipice," " cliff," and " crag " by Scott,
Tennyson, and Lowell : —

" Seems that primeval earthquake's sway
Hath rent a strange and shattered way
Through the rude bosom of the hill,
And that each naked precipice,
Sable ravine, and dark abyss,
Tells of the outrage still."

Lord of the Isles.

" Adown the black and craggy boss
Of that high cliff, whose ample verge
Tradition calls the Hero's targe."

Lady of the Lake.
" As over rainy mist inclines
A gleaming crag with belts of pines."

The Two Voices.
" A heap of bare and splintery crags
Tumbled about by lightning and frost,
With rifts and chasms and storm-bleached jags
That wail and growl for a ship to be lost."

Pictures from Afpledore.

Crag is a word of Celtic origin (Gal. creag^
Welsh craig, a rock), much in use in Scot-
land, and very familiar to us from its occur-
rence in books, although rarely heard, in this
country at least, in actual use, as a designa-
tion of any part of the rocky landscape. There
are many names of places of which " cliff"
forms a part ; for example, Undercliff.

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 123

Scar is a word quite unknown to us, except
through books^ as a topographical designation,
however familiar it may be with the meaning
of a mark left by a wound which has healed
over. The word " scar " appears in a variety
of forms ; for example, " scaur," " scarth,"
" scaw," " carr." It is related to the Icelandic
skor, a crack or cut; Gothic skaer, a rock,
from skaera, to cut or shear, Welsh esgair,
the ridge of a mountain. Wedgwood says
of this word : *' Originally, a crack or breach ;
then especially applied to a cliff, precipice, or
broken rock, a fragment." This is a word
frequently heard in the North of England,
especially in Northwestern Yorkshire, where
the limestone cliffs are called " scars." Hence
the name " Scar limestone," the equivalent in
a topographical sense, but not geologically,
of our " CHff limestone." " Scaw " forms
a part of various names in the Lake Dis-
trict, and especially of the Scawfell Pike,
which has already been mentioned, and
which may come up again under " fell."
Any face of rock, cHff, or precipice may be
called, in the North of England, a " scar "
or "scaw." Although not in such frequent
use in Scotland, Scott has it occasionally, as
for example, —

124 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

" Is it the roar of Teviot's tide,
That chafes against the scaur's red side ? "

Lay of the Last Minstrel.

" ' She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur ;
They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' quoth young
Lochinvar."

Afarmion.

The word escarpment is one rather fre-
quently used in this country, with the meaning
of"diff" or "precipitous face of rock." It
is closely allied to " scar " or " scaur " in ori-
gin, both being referred back to the ancient
(Aryan) root "skar," to cut. The definition
of " escarpment " given in Skeat — " a smooth,
steep decline ; a military term " — would not
hold good in the United States.*

The loose stones and angular fragments of
rock which are so often seen accumulated at
the base of the cliffs or precipices from which
they have fallen, are known in the Lake Dis-
trict of England and in Scotland as screes.
This word is not in use in the United States,
although it is much to be wished that it were.
There are various localities called by this
name in the Lake District : for example, the

* "Scarp" (also written escarp) and "counterscarp"
are the military terms related to ' ' escarpment.' ' A " scarp ' *
is a slope so steep that it cannot be climbed, and " to scarp "
is "to cut down a slope so as to render it inaccessible."
(Wilhelm's Military Dictionary.)

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 125

Screes, Wastvvater ; Red Screes, Kirkstone ;
Yewdale Screes, Coniston; Cautley Screes,
Howgill. As generally used, the word
" screes " is the equivalent of our " talus " or
" talus-slope," and " debris " or "debris-pile."
Talus is the Latin for " heel," and hence a
slope, the word not being used in French as
the equivalent of " screes," as it is in English,
both in this country and in Great Britain.
Thus, Geikie speaks of " the long screes or
talus-slopes at the foot of every hill and
crag," and of " slopes strewn with screes and
debris." * " Scree " is used both as a singu-
lar and a plural, although generally the latter.
Debris is also used with the same uncertainty
of number, both in French and English, and
in the latter with or without the accent.

The debris-piles which stretch along the
lower slopes of the ranges in the Cordilleran
Region are locally known as crashes. These
accumulations, consisting chiefly of sand and
gravel, brought down from the mountains
above by currents of water, occur on a grand
scale in some places, especially on the east
side of the Sierra Nevada and on the west
slope of the Inyo Range, opposite Owen's
Valley. These "washes" start from high on

* A. Geikie, Scenery of Scotland, 2d ed., pp. 172, 165.

126 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

the mountain sides, and spread themselves
downward, often with a moderate and quite
uniform slope, along the entire length of the
ranges, furnishing ample evidence that the
precipitation was once much more copious
than it is at the present time.

The various forms which are the result of
t!ie weathering of the rocks under the influence
of atmospheric agencies, and which are some-
times quite remarkable, and interesting not
only from the geological but from the scenic
point of view, have received appropriate names
in the different regions where they are most
strikingly displayed.

There are numerous " Towers," " Monu-
ments," "Castles," and ''Pinnacles," in the
Cordilleran Region, as well as '"Tower" and
*•' Castle " Peaks. Sometimes these names are
rather fancifully given ; but often the resem-
blance of the rock-mass to the object from
which it is named is most striking. Thus
the " Pah-Ute Monument " on the summit of
the Inyo Range is an isolated columnar mass,
extremely regular in form and of grand di-
mensions (it is eighty-five feet high), so that
it is visible firom far and wide.

" Tower " in the form of tor (Lat. turris)
is quite a common word in England, altliough

MOUNTAINS, PEAKS, AND SIERRAS. 1 2 7

one not at all in use in this country. It means
sometimes simply a tower, the work of man's
hand, and has no other definition in Latham's
Johnson ; but, in fact, it is also frequently used
to designate certain curiously shaped masses
which have been left as the result of the
weathering of various rocks, but especially of
the granite in Devon and Cornwall.* Some
ot these weathered masses are so poised that
they can be moved or made to rock on their
foundations. They are then called '^ rocking
stones," or ^' logans," the latter name being
peculiar to England. The " logan " situated
in Cornwall, near Castle Treryn, St. Leven, is
seventeen feet in length, and has been estimated
to weigh about sixty-five tons. " Helmen
Tor, on Dartmoor, is a rugged hill composed
of blocks of granite, several of which ' rock '
with ease." t Rocking-stones in the United
States are of rather rare occurrence. One of
marble, near Pittsfield, Mass., is of very large
size, being twenty-six feet long, and estimated
(by the present writer) to weigh about 200
tons. It is called the " balanced-rock ; " but
is no longer to be moved by the hand, although

* See farther on, under " Moor."
t H. B. Woodward, The Geology of England and Wales,
London, 1S76, p. 411.

128 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

it is said, on good authority, that it could be
so moved a few years ago.

Certain blocks of sandstone and conglom-
erate which are strewn over the surface of the
ground in Dorsetshire and Wiltshire, England,
are familiarly known as gray-wethers. They
are supposed to be the remains of strata of
Tertiary age which once covered the region
where these gray-wethers occur. It is from
these blocks that Stonehenge and other Dru-
idical circles of a similar kind have been built ;
hence they have been called also " Druid-
stones" and "Saracen's stones" or ''Sarsens."
The name " gray- wether " is supposed to have
been derived from the resemblance of the
objects in question to a flock of sheep seen
in the distance.

III. VALLEYS, GORGES, AND
CANONS.

Valleys connect the plains with the moun-
tains. We can speak of a plain without nec-
essarily thinking of a mountain as its boundary
or limit. But in general, when the word
" valley " is used, it is assumed that the region
spoken of lies within the mountains or has
mountains adjacent to it. There is, however,
one way in which we employ the word with-
out reference to any particular topographical
form, as when we speak of the valley of a
river, meaning its " basin," or the entire area
drained by it and its branches. In such a
case the usage varies very much according to
custom and the size of the stream itself. As
ordinarily used, we mean, when we speak of
the " valley " of any river, the lower and more
level belt adjacent to the stream. One who
lived in the North Park near the borders of
Colorado and Wyoming, at an elevation of
7,000 or 8,000 feet above the sea, and sur-
9

rounded by high mountains, could hardly be
said to be living in the Mississippi Valley, and
yet he would be within the drainage basin of
that river, since that branch of the Platte which
rises in the North Park is an affluent of the
Mississippi.

As the word " valley " is most generally
used, it means a depressed area between two
mountains or mountain ranges. Every system
of mountains is made up, in general, of high-
lands with inter\'ening low and comparatively
level areas in which the drainage from the
adjacent slopes is collected, and which widen
out as we recede from the higher regions, and
finally merge in the plain, or enter the ocean
when this is so closely adjacent that there is
no room for a plain between it and the sea.
*' Valley " is the most general tenn in English
for these areas, and it is applied without refer-
ence to size or altitude, or even the charac-
ter of the vegetation.

Valleys are, as a general rule, parallel with
the subordinate members of the system of
ranges within which they lie. Thus the Great
Appalachian Valley runs for hundreds of miles,
for long distances varying but little in width or
general character, parallel to the Blue Ridge,
a very persistent member of the Appalachian

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CAStONS. 13 1

System. Very wide and lofty ranges, like the
Alps, have two or more systems of valleys,
those of the first order being parallel with the
main range, and those of the second order
approximately at right angles to this, and
occupying depressions between the " spurs "
of the central range, these spurs being those
elevated portions of the uplifted mass which
have most successfully resisted the action of
those erosive agencies by which the moun-
tains are being slowly but surely worn away.
The word " valley " (Lat. va/Z/s, Ital. va//afa,
Fr. Tallh, Sp. valle, etc.) is used almost
exactly in the same way in which it is employed
in English by the people whose language is
directly descended from the Latin. In the
Germanic and Scandinavian tongues the
equivalent is "Thai" (German) and " dal"
(Swedish), which words are closely related to
our " dale." Vale is simply an abbreviation
of " valley." It is a poetical rather than an
every-day word ; and both " valley " and
" vale " are used in various phrases in which
the topographical meaning is nearly or quite
lost, as in "vale of years " (Shakspeare), and
the biblical phrase " valley of the shadow of
death," in both of which the gloom of a deep
valley seems to be indicated.

132 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

As long as we limit ourselves to those sim-
ple depressions between mountains to which
the words " valley " and " vale " are most
commonly applied, we find comparative sim-
plicity in the nomenclature ; but as soon as
we inquire into the names of those lower areas
which cut entirely across the range, or lie so
as to be within the elevated mass, or, as it
were, to form a portion of it, we find that
although these areas do to a certain extent
come within the definition of valleys, they are
extremely varied in form and character, and
that there is a corresponding variety and
complexity in the names by which they are
designated.

There are several Spanish words, resembling
in meaning those which have just been cited,
one of which is not only in common use in
the Cordilleran Region, but very familiar in
all parts of this country, and it has even been
carried from America to England, and to the
Continent of Europe. This word is cafiou ;
others resembling it in meaning are Canada
and cajon ; but the two latter are much less
familiarly known to us than is the former.
" Canon " is the augmentative of cana, a reed,
or tube. As used by the Spaniards of Spain,
it means a " cannon ; " and it is not found in

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 133

any SpaJiish dictionary with the signification
which it has in this country — namely, *' a val-
ley, and especially a somewhat narrow valley,
with steeply sloping sides ; a long, deep ravine
or gorge, or even a defile." A river which has
been flowing through an open valley suddenly
becomes hemmed in between lofty, precipitous,
or even perpendicular walls ; in the language
of the Cordilleran Region it is said "to caiion."
But even valleys which are rather broad and
open are sometimes called " canons." The
" canons par excellence are those of the Colo-
rado Region ; and the most stupendous of all
is the " Grand Canon," where the river flows
at a depth of 5,000 feet below the general
level of the country, and between almost
perpendicular walls.

Broad and open valleys are called in Spain
" valles ; " when they become narrower, and
their sides are more precipitous, they are
known as " canadas," and not as " canons,"
either in Spain or in any part of South Amer-
ica.* Even in Mexico the use of this word
with the topographical meaning so familiar to
us is almost entirely unknown. As if to keep
us in mind that there is such a word as " ca-

* Barcia defines " cafiada " as " el espacio que hay entre
dos mon tanas d alturas poco distantes entre sf."

134 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

fiada," one valley in California bears that name
— the "Canada de las Uvas ; " but, in general,
throughout California and the Cordilleran
Region, all valleys except the very broad ones,
and many gorges and defiles are called indis-
criraininately '^ caiions." The word " cajon "
means something intermediate between a
" canon " and a " defile " or " pass," and will
be noticed farther on.

Very few ranges of mountains preserve a
continuity of height for any great distance.
Their outlines, as seen from a distance, are
" serrated," * elevated crests, ridges, or peaks
alternating with depressions. Some ranges
are cut very deeply down by these depres-
sions ; in others the difference between the
most elevated and the most depressed portions
of the range is small. The " crest height " of
a chain of mountains is indicated by a line
connecting its highest peaks ; its " pass height "
by one drawn so as to touch its depressions ;
and ranges very generally maintain something
like the same ratio of crest height to pass
height for long distances.

* Not " serried," as some writers have it ; for exam-
ple, Hull (in Physical Geography and Geology of Ireland,
pp. 142 and 163), who speaks of " serried ridges " and of
*' rocky and serried aspect." "Serried" means " crowded
together," from Fr. server.

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 135

The depressions in a range are called — as
we see — passes, since by their aid we pass
over the mountains. " Peaks, Passes, and
Glaciers " is the title of the first series of vol-
umes published by the English Alpine Club.
The use of the word ''pass," however, gener-
ally implies something grand and elevated.
The Alps, Himalaya, and the Cordilleras have
their " passes ; " while this term is compara-
tively little used in the Appalachians, or in the
mountains of England and Scotland. In the
White Mountains of New England the passes
are occasionally called notches, a local use of
the word peculiar to this region and that adja-
cent to it ; for example, the " Crawford Notch,"
the "Dixville Notch." In the Catskills the
passes, as well as the valleys themselves, are
known as hollows. In Pennsylvania and far-
ther south they are called gaps. Those which
are cut down deep enough to allow the water
to pass through from one valley to another
are designated as " water gaps ; " those which
are but shallow notches on the edges of the
long straight ridges so characteristic of the
Appalachians are called ''wind-gaps." The
" Delaware water-gap " is a famous locality,
where the river of that name breaks through
the Kittatinny Range.

136 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE,

Passes in the French Alps are called " cols "
(Lat. colhwi, neck), and this word is fre-
quently used by English Alpinists. Thus,
Tyndall says : " Crossing the col, we descend
along the opposite slope of the chain. . . .
If the valleys on both sides of the col were
produced by fissures, what prevents the fissure
from prolonging itself across the col? . . .
The cols are simply depressions," etc., — all
within ten lines.* " Neck," in English, as a
topographical word, means a narrow isthmus
connecting two distinct areas of land, and is
a term but little used except near the sea-
shore.

"Passe" is occasionally used in French,
and " paso " in Spanish, as the equivalent of
" col " and " pass ; " but in the French Pyr-
enees the passes are much more generally
termed " ports " (Lat. po?'ta, Fr. porte, Sp.
Puerto, door), a word which is used in all
these languages for " harbor " and " mountain
pass," as well as for the ordinary door. In
the Andes " paso " means any depression in
the crest-line of the chain which permits a
passage across it. The diminutive of " puer-
to " — "portillo" — as generally used, indi-
cates a "pass" through a narrow gorge or

* Hours of Exercise in the Alps, London, 1871, p. 236.

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS, 137

canon traversing the range. In the Lake Dis-
trict of England a " pass " is also called a
door, generally spelled in this case dore (M.
E. dore, Sw. dorr, Ger. Thor, door). The
passes thus denominated are generally narrow
door-like openings between walls of rock, like
the Spanish "portillos : " thus, Lowdore, Der-
wentwater; Mickledore, Scawfell.

The word sty (Dan. stic, a ladder, O. E.
sty, a. path, Ger. Steige, a ladder, an ascent)
is also used in the Lake District for ** pass."
The pass from Borrowdale to Wastdale is
called " Sty Head." Catstycam, often written
" Catchedecam," Helvellyn (Wild-cats' ladder
hill) is a word the meaning of which will be
easily understood, on recalling what has been
said about the word " cam " or " kamm." *

Hause, or "haws," is another word used
in the Lake District for "pass," and also —
like some other words with a similar meaning
in other languages — as designating a ridge
connecting two higher points, even if not cut
sufficiently deep to serve as a " pass." Oc-
casionally a narrow gorge is also called a
'' hause " or "haws," as, for instance, in the
name Haws Bridge, Kendal. This word is
closely allied in meaning to the French "col"

* See ante, p. 112.

138 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

(Lat. collum), since it occurs in nearly all the
northern European languages in the form of
"hals," meaning " neck."

Another word used in the Lake District
with the meaning of " pass," or depression
in a mountain range, is s-wirl (spelled also
''swirrel"), as seen in the names "Swirl
Band," Helvellyn, and "Swirl Edge," near
Coniston. This word is spelled by the older
Scottish poets " swyre " and " swyr," as seen
in the following quotations : —

" The soft souch [sigh] of the swyr and soune [sound] of
the stremys."

William Dunbar (1450-1520).

" Out owre the swyre swymmis the sops of the mist."
Gawin Douglas (1474-1522).

Professor Veitch explains the last line
quoted in these words : " Over the col or
neck of the hill, where the summit dips and
rises again on the other side, swim high be-
fore the vision the wreaths of mist. . . .
* Swyre ' or ' sware ' is the characteristic word
of the Tweed and Yarrow district especially,
for the dip [depression] on the summit [ridge,
crest] of the hill." * Black's Guide defines
the word " swirl "as "a place on the hills

* The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry, Edin-
burgh, 1887, vol. i. p. 274.

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 139

where the wind or snow eddies : " such a
place a depression in the ridge would neces-
sarily be.

Still another name for " pass," used to some
extent in the Lake District and the Scottish
Highlands, is slack, which is defined in the
glossary to Black's " Guide to the Lakes " as
a place '^ where the tension of the surface is
slacke?ied, the consequence being a depres-
sion ; a hollow generally." Professor Veitch,
in endeavoring to explain why, among the
older Scottish poets, feelings of terror and
dread would naturally take precedence of the
poetical, and for long dominate over it, says :
*^ Moor, hope, and slack (hill-pass) were asso-
ciated with deeds of violence, feud, and hostile
inroad, and inspired corresponding feelings of
dread and repugnance."

In some parts of the French Pyrenees,
especially near Mont-Perdu, the deeply cut
passes or gorges traversing the range are called
" breches " (M. E. breche, A. S. brece, frag-
ment, Eng. breach, fracture). Thus, Ramond
says: "La breche ou conduit le vallon de
glace, et' qui est en face du Mont-Perdu, est
ce que j'appelle la breche de Touque-rouye."
The famous " Breche de Roland " is that
mountain summit in the Pyrenees which is

140 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

believed to have been split in two by a blow
from the sword of the mighty Roland.

Besides the words already given as meaning
a mountain pass, there are several others of
Spanish origin all of which are more or less in
use in Central and South America. Atra-
vieso (Lat. transversus^ Fr. travers, traver-
ser^ Sp. atravesar, to cross, to traverse) is one
of these, and is perhaps the most widely dis-
tributed of all the terms having this significa-
tion. Boquete (Sp. boca, mouth) is another
name for pass heard in the Chilian Andes,
and perhaps elsewhere. Plagemann defines
it as "a deeply cut gorge, leading directly
across a mountain chain." CoUado, often
used as a synonym of "colina," has also
sometimes, according to Caballero, a meaning
nearly equivalent to that of " pass." *

A " pass " in German is " Joch," yoke,
the equivalent of Lat. jugtim, which is used
for the summit or crest of a mountain as well
as for yoke. There is somewhat the same
confusion in English between "yoke" and
"mountain," since we find that in the Lake
District the former word is used for " a chain
or ridge of hills" (Black's Guide) : thus, "the

* He defines " coUado "as " sitio que va subiendo en
cuesta, por donde facilita su subida y bajada."

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 14 1

Yoke," Troutbeck. The Scottish poet, William
Drummond (i 585-1 649), has as follows : —

" Fair yokes of ermeline, whose colour pass
The whitest snows on aged Grampius face."

The summit of the pass is called the divide,
or water-shed. In this last word the " shed "
has not the present meaning, but an obsoles-
cent one of "part" or ''divide" (Ger. schei-
den) . Skeat says : " The old sense ' to part '
is nearly obsolete, except in water-shed^ the
ridge which parts river-systems." The former
meaning of this word is illustrated in the
following stanza : —

" O perfite light ! whilk sched away
The darkness from the light,
And set a ruler oure the day,
Ane other oure the night."

Alex. Hume (i 560-1 609).

The "water-shed " of any river basin limits its
"area of catchment," as the hydraulic engi-
neers call it. Portezuelo, also spelled " por-
tachuelo," is the Spanish for " divide ; " and
this word is — or was, a few years ago — in
current use among English-speaking people
in parts of the Californian Coast Ranges.

There are several words in common use
in various parts of Great Britain as designat-
ing valleys, of which we know little in this

142 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

country except through English books, and
especially English and Scottish poetry, where
these names are of very frequent occurrence.
Among these words are " dale," '' dell,"
" dean," " dene," and " den," differing Htde
from each other in meaning, and being very
nearly the equivalent of " valley " or "vale "
as generally used in this country.

Dale (A. S. dcel, M. E. dale^ Ice. dalr^ Dan.
and Sw. dal, Ger. Thai). Of this word Skeat
says : " The original sense was ^ cleft ' or
* separation ; ' and the word is closely con-
nected with the verb deal, and is a doublet
of the substantive deaL'^ There seems to be
no difference between " dale " and *' vale,"
so far as meaning is concerned, and both are
words much affected by the poets. The use
of " dale " for " valley " is very common in
the North of England. In Northern York-
shire the valleys are called both " dales " and
" gills."

Dell is only a variant of " dale," and like
that is a favorite word with the poets. Latham
rather prosaically defines it as "a cavity in
the earth, wider than a ditch, and narrower
than a valley." Here follow some examples
of the poetical use of both " dell " and
" dale : " —

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 143

" High over hills, and low adown the dale."

Spenser, Faerie Queene.

" Anon the shore
Recedes into a fane-like dell."

T. N. Talfourd.

" Not less the bee would range her cells,
The furzy prickle fire the dells,
The foxglove cluster dappled bells."

Tennyson^ The Two Voices.

" Would I again were with you, O ye dales
Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands ! "

Akenside.

" A rocky precipice, a waving wood.
Deep winding dell, and foaming mountain flood,
Each after each, with coy and sweet delay,
Broke on his sight."

7. A'. Paulding.

" Broad shadows o'er their passage fell ;
Deeper and narrower grew the dell."

W. Scoft, Rokeby.

"Dell" as used on the Wisconsin River is
a corruption of the French word " dalle."
Various localities in the Mississippi Valley,
and as far west as the Pacific, were long ago
called by the French explorers and fur-trappers
" dalles," the best known of the places thus
designated being the " Dalles of the Colum-
bia," where this river flows over broad sheets
of basaltic lava, in a series of cascades.
" Dalle " is the French for rock-surfaces of
this kind, and nearly the equivalent of our

144 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

word " flagging-stones," or " flags." The
localities in Wisconsin, designated as the
" dalles " of the Ste. Croix, Wisconsin, etc.,
are similar in character to the Dalles of the
Columbia, except that the rock is sandstone
and not basalt. Along the Wisconsin River,
however, near the Dalles proper, are many
little side-ravines, curiously worn out by water
which has found its way into the numerous
fissures or joint-planes by which the sand-
stone is traversed, and widened them out into
a variety of fantastic and picturesque forms.
It is to these clefts, ravines, or gorges that the
name " dalles " is supposed, by the English-
speaking residents of that region, to have been
originally applied ; and in accordance with this
idea the word " dalles " has been changed to
" dells."

" Dale " occurs frequently in the North of
England as the termination of a proper name ;
for example, Langdale, Grisdale, Borrowdale,
Yewdale, Kendal, etc.

"Dean," "dene," and "den" are names
given to valleys in various parts of England,
although by no means in as common use as
are " dale " and " dell." Dene and " dean "
(M. E. de?ie, A. S. deftu, a valley) are not to be
found, as topographical words, in the English

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 145

dictionaries ; and den is defined in Latham's
Johnson only as " a cave, cave of a wild
beast ; " but both " dean " and " den " are in
use in Northwestern Yorkshire as synonyms
of "valley" or "dale," and they also occur
forming a part of a large number of proper
names ; for instance, Mickleden, Tenterden,
Rottingdean. Wordsworth defines " dean " or
" den " as being " in many parts of England
a name for a valley."

" And sweet are the woods and the vales of Dene."

W. C. Beimett.

" Among thy groves, sweet Taunton Dene,"

Gerald Griffin.

The word " den "is of not infrequent oc-
currence in Scottish poetry ; for example —

" And long and deep shall be my sleep
In the dowie dens 0' Yarrow."

Henry S. RiddelL

« We '11 sing auld Coila's plains an' fells,
Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells,
Her banks and braes, her dens an' dells,

Where glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae Suthron billies."

Burns.

" Dingle " and " dimble " are words not
at all in use in this country, but we meet
with them occasionally in English books.
10

146 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

They are both variants of " dimple," which
latter word is perfectly familiar to us as mean-
ing a " hollow " or " depression," but not a
topographical one. Dingle is defined by
Latham as " a hollow between hills, a dale ; "
and by Stormonth as ''a narrow valley, a
glen." These words were formerly more in
use than they are at the present time, and
their meaning will be made apparent by the
following quotations : —

" Within a gloomie dimble shee doth dwell
Down in a pit oregrown with brakes and briars."
B. J on son, Sad Shepherd,

" In dingles deep and mountains hoar."

Drayton, Muse^s Elysium,

" I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood."

Milton, Comus,

" Yet live there still who can remember well
How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew,
Both field and forest, dingle, cliff, and dell,
And solitary heath the signal knew."

Scoit, Lady of the Lake.

Gill (spelled also " ghyll ") is a word limited
in use to the North of England. It is a word
of Scandinavian origin (Ice. gil, a deep, nar-
row glen, with a stream at the bottom ; geil,
a ravine). In Northern Yorkshire " dale "

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 147

and "gill" seem to be synonymous. In the
Lake District a " gill " is a narrow ravine with a
rapid stream running through it : as, Dungeon
Gill, Langdale ; Stock Gill, Ambleside ; etc.

Glen is a word of Celtic origin (Cor. glyn,
Gael. glean?t), and is defined as meaning
"valley," "vale," or "dale." It is a word
much in vogue with the poets, and especially
with Scott, on almost every page of whose
poems it may be found. Here follow some
examples of its use : —

" Rough glens and sudden waterfalls."

T. Warton.

"Can silent glens have charms for thee? "

Bishop Percy.

" The summery vapor floats athwart the glen."

TennysoTi.
" The buried river rose once more,
And foamed along the gravelly glen."

T. W. Parsons.

In this country the word "glen" is not
much used except by the poets. A locality
near Greenfield, Mass., which before it had
been spoiled by the hand of man was a charm-
ing little ravine, through which ran a stream
forming various little cascades, was formerly —
and perhaps still is — known as " Leyden
Glen." " Watkins Glen " at the head of Sen-
eca Lake, N. Y., is another well-known local-

148 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

ity, somewhat similar to Leyden Glen, but on
a larger scale, and more attractive,

" With its long chain of headlong cataracts,
And pools and windings ! "

A. B. Street.

The " Glen " of the White Mountains is a
broad valley, in no respect resembling either
Leyden or Watkins Glen, extending along
the lower slope of the Carter Range, and
having on its western side, in close proximity,
the group of five peaks of which Mount
Washington is the centre.

A natural transition leads us from such
words as "valley," "dale," and "glen," in
which — as these terms are chiefly used —
softness of outUne, beauty, and repose are
the characteristic features, to other designa-
tions which are associated with scenery having
a character of roughness and grandeur. The
words " ravine," " gorge," and " defile " are
those best known and in most common use
among English-speaking people, as names of
narrow valleys with precipitous sides.

Defile is derived from the Latin filunty a
thread or hne — as in " file of men," " single
file," etc. A " defile " is a narrow passage
through which one " threads " his way. This
name is most properly given to passes which

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 149

are of considerable length, and enclosed be-
tween high precipitous walls. Such defiles
sometimes form the approach to what is prop-
erly the " mountain pass," or depression in
the crest of the range. There are grand
" defiles " in the Afghanistan passes.

Ravine and gorge are terms very closely
resembling each other in meaning. Both are
from the Latin, and both are used by the
French very much as we use them. " Ravine "
is from the Latin rapio^ ruhia (Ital. rovina,
Eng. rapine, ruin, ravine) ; and it means ori-
ginally "rapidity," then "rapidity of a tor-
rent," then "damage or ruin thus caused,"
and now, more commonly, "the depression
scooped out by the ruinous (ravenous, de-
vouring) element." As used at the present
time, a " ravine " is something less precipitous
and important as a topographical feature than
a " defile," and not so grand as a " gorge."

Gorge is the French gorge, throat (Lat.
gtirges, an abyss, gulf, or whirlpool, and also
stream, or water in general, or even the sea).
In English the word is not in common use
with the meaning of " throat," although not
infrequently employed as a verb, " to be
gorged," said especially of animals who have
swallowed an inordinate amount of food, and

150 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

also used in combination, as in the word " dis-
gorge." Shakspeare has : —

" How abhorred in my imagination it is ! my gorge rises
at it." Hamlet, v. i.

" How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides."

Winter'' s Tale, ii. 4.

As most generally used in English, the word
"gorge" means a narrow passage, with preci-
pitous, rocky sides, enclosed among the moun-
tains. A " ravine " need not be enclosed by
rocks ; a "gorge " usually is so enclosed ; and
this word would hardly be applied to a mere
depression in the soil, as " ravine " might be.
The poets use the term " gorge " somewhat
less freely than they do " dale," " glen,"
" vale," and " valley." Talfourd has : -—

"... to which a gorge
Sinking within the valley's deepening green
Invites to grassy path."

And Tennyson : —

"... dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge."

The writer cannot recall a single well-known
locality, either in England or in the United
States, specially designated as " a gorge," either
with or without an addition in the way of a
geographical or qualifying epithet. The deep

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 15 1

ravine hollowed out by the Niagara River be-
low the falls is sometimes called the '' gorge."
Lyell, in describing the falls, speaks of it as a
"chasm," "ravine," and "gorge," using all
three words within the space of nine lines.*

The Spanish equivalents of " ravine,"
" gorge," and " caiion " — as the latter word
is used in this country — are " barranco,"
" quebrada," and " garganta." There is more
or less uncertainty in the use of these Spanish
words by various authors, as has been shown
to be the case with the corresponding terms
adopted by English-speaking people. This
is the case, to a certain extent, in Spain itself;
but the want of agreement in regard to these,
as well as other topographical designations of
a similar kind, between authors writing in
Spanish in the various Central and South
American States, is quite remarkable.

Barranco (written also " barranca ") seems
to be the most generally adopted word in Spain
itself for " ravine " or " gorge." j It is a word
of Basque origin {barruaiijo, to touch bottom,
or fall to the bottom) . A barrancal is a re-

* Principles of Geology, nth ed., London, 1872, vol. i.

P-355-

t Barcia defines this word as " la quiebra profunda que
hacen en la tierra las corrientes de agua."

152 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

gion of " barrancos," an area deeply furrowed
by gorges, a very " broken " country.

Quebrada (Sp. quebrar^ to break) seems to
be the exact equivalent of " barranco." It
literally means a " break ; " and the adjective
form " quebrado " corresponds to our word
"broken" as applied topographically, except
that it seems to convey the idea of a still
rougher country than that simple word would
generally be intended to indicate. We should
describe a " quebrado " region as one " cut-up "
by deep ravines or canons. " Quiebra " is
simply a variant of " quebrada." Raimondi
uses the last-named word almost exclusively
to designate every possible form of ravine or
gorge occurring in the Peruvian Andes.

Garganta (the throat, the gorge) seems, as
a topographical designation, to be the exact
equivalent of "quebrada" and of the French
and English "gorge." Pissis employs it con-
stantly in the topographical description of
Chili, intended as an explanation of his great
map of that country. While "garganta" oc-
curs on almost every page of that description,
the words " barranco " and " quebrada " are
rarely, if ever, found in it.

C^cova is another Spanish name for
"gorge," and is apparently nearly the equiva-

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 153

lent of " barranco " or " garganta." It is de-
rived from the Latin coticavus. " Carcovo "
and " carcabucho " are other forms in which
this word appears in various works on the
geology of Spain ; the latter is a form pecu-
liar to a certain district in the Province of
Madrid.*

Cajon, as already mentioned, means " de-
file," "gorge," or "canon" (as the Americans
use this latter word), and especially a defile
leading up to a mountain pass; hence also
the pass itself. It is the augmentative of caja,
box. Rivers are sometimes said to be " enca-
jonados," or " boxed in," as we might say in
English, when they occupy a narrow valley
enclosed between high, precipitous walls ; or,
as is frequently said in the Cordilleran Region,
when they " canon." The idea of " boxing
in " a stream is one not unfamiliar to people
living along the eastern base of the Rocky
Mountains, since we there occasionally hear of
" box canons " — some narrow defiles with pre-
cipitous walls, between which a stream mean-
ders, being thus denominated. There is also a

* " Batres con sus carcabuchos (que asi llama en quella
comarca i. los cdrcavos 6 barrancos de que se halla ro-
deado)." (De Prado, Descripcion ffsica y geoldgica de la
Provincia de Madiid.)

154 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

well-known pass in Southern California called
the " Cajon/' or " Cajon Pass."

Gully is a word in general use in England
and in the United States, with essentially the
same meaning in both countries. A "gully"
is a very small ravine. A hollow or channel
worn in soft earth, gravel, or sand by a heavy
rain-fall would be called a "gully;" but a
similar one on a larger scale, worn by a per-
manent stream, would not — as this word is
now used — be thus designated. "Gully"
appears to be the same word as " gullet "
(Lat. gula, Fr. goiilct), meaning throat, neck
of a bottle or of any other long-necked arti-
cle of a similar kind, and hence water-course,
which was also formerly its meaning in Eng-
hsh. At present " gullet " is used exclusively
to designate the throat, and " gully " as a
topographical word, with the meaning given
above. In the first published attempt at
a description of the White Mountains, what
we now call "ravines" are spoken of as
"gullies."*

The word gulch is one in common use in
the Cordilleran Region, with almost exactly
the same meaning as " gully " in the Eastern
States. The smaller ravines worn by water

* Josselyn, New England's Rarities, London, 1672, p. 3.

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 155

running down the steep slopes of the river
canons, and dry during most of the year, are
familiarly known to the mmers as "gulches,"
and a large proportion of the gold obtained
in the early days of California was won by
washing the material scraped out of the bot-
toms of these " gulches " with the aid of the
knife or some other equally simple tool.
" Gulch " is a good English word, meaning,
according to Wedgwood, " a gully or swallow
in a river," and closely aUied to "gulp," to
swallow in a hurry, especially a liquid, and
nearly the same as "bolt," a word only used,
however, with reference to solid food.

Chasm has come down to us from the
Greek, little altered in sound or meaning.
It is the Greek xao-/^a (from x'^^^^y to gape,
yawn, or open widely), a yawning fissure, or
deep precipitous cavity in the rocks or in the
earth in general, and used with this meaning
by various classic authors, or just as we use
it in English. So rare is its occurrence in
French that it is only found in the supple-
ment to Littre, where it is called a "neolo-
gisme," and the first use of it in that lan-
guage credited to Chateaubriand, who in his
" M^moires d'Outretombe " calls the gorge
below the Falls of Niagara a " chasme." The

156 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

word is not found in Grimm's Dictionary in
any form. It is occasionally used in England,
especially in poetry. Thus Wordsworth, in
writing of the " Devil's Bridge," North Wales,
says : —

" There I seem to stand
As in life's mom ; permitted to behold,
From the dread chasm, woods above woods,
In pomp that fades not ; everlasting snows ;
And skies that ne'er relinquish their repose."

The word " chasm " has obtained a firm
hold as the name of the deep gorge of the
Au Sable River, near Keeseville, N. Y., which
is now almost exclusively known as the " Au
Sable Chasm." Some of the more prominent
fissures or ravines worn by the waves in the
rocky cliffs of the New England coast are
called "chasms;" others are designated as
"purgatories" (see that word, farther on).
" Rafe's Chasm " near Gloucester, Mass., is
a much visited locality, not differing essentially
from the Newport "Purgatory."

Gulf is a word which is variously applied
in topography, and comes from the Greek
Kokiro^i^ Kok^o%, the exact equivalent of the
Latin sinus, meaning the bosom, or a bosom-
like fold in a garment, any bosom-like hollow
or indentation in the sea-coast, and also (but
more rarely) a depression or hollow in the

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 157

land, a valley or vale. The Latin word sinus
is also used widi all these meanings, excepting
perhaps the last. KoAttos has taken two forms
in French — " golfe," and "gouffre." The
former is almost exclusively used as in English
to designate a deep indentation in the sea-
coast. "Gouffre " is more like our "abyss "
(Gr. alSva-a-os, bottomless, unfathomable), and,
like that, a favorite with poets, orators, and
others who delight in the use of resounding
words of rather vague meaning. Any locality
in regard to which little or nothing is known,
but which is believed to be a place of horror,
filled with fire or water, deep, dark, and
awful, may be called in French a "gouffre,"
or in English an "abyss," or "abysm," as
Shakspeare has it ; thus, from various French
authors, " gouffres eternels," "gouffre infini
du neant," " gouffres du trepas," etc. — local-
ities the precise situation or topographical
character of which it would be hard to define.
Quite similar to this is the use, in English, of
the words "gulf" and "abyss;" thus, "gulf
of torments," "abysm of time," "abysm of
hell," etc. As a topographical designation,
on land, the word "gulf" is occasionally used
in this country. The long, narrow, but deep
excavations worn by the streams in Northern

158 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

New York, west of the Adirondacks, are lo-
cally known as " gulfs ; " thus, the " Gulf of
Loram," the " Gulf of Rodman," etc. In the
White Mountains this word is also in use,
to a limited extent, as the equivalent of a
deep, precipitous ravine ; for example, Oakes's
Gulf, on the east side of Mount Monroe. The
" purgatory " at Great Barrington, Mass., is
now sometimes called the " ice-gulf." A
similar topographical use of this word, as
designating a feature of the land, is seen in
the following quotation from James Beattie :

" Fancy a thousand wondrous forms descries.
More wildly great than ever pencil drew —
Rocks, torrents, gulfs, and shapes of giant size,
And glittering cliffs on cliffs, and fiery ramparts rise."

Flume, a word which was once in use in
England as the equivalent of " river " (Lat.
fiume?i, Jlitere^ to flow), dropped out of the
language, as spoken in that country, and is
not to be found in any edition of Johnson.
It is, however, a well-known word in the
United States, where it means, as ordinarily
used, an artificial channel of boards in which
water is carried for any purpose, but especially
for turning a water-wheel; in English, a
" mill-race." A " flume " in California, and
on the Pacific Coast generally, is a structure

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 159

of boards by the aid of which the water of
any stream is diverted from its channel for the
purpose of washing the sand and gravel in
the bed thus left dry.* The wooden aque-
ducts in which the water of the "ditches"
(small canals built to convey water from the
mountains for mining purposes) is conveyed
across valleys or ravines, are called " flumes.'*
They were found very useful in the " early
days " of California for hanging up criminals
convicted in Judge Lynch's court. Hence
the phrase " gone up the flume," a euphuism
extended so as to designate one who has
come to grief in any way — hanging included.
" Flume " with a topographical meaning is
also a familiar word in this country. It is
chiefly used in the White Mountain region,
where it is the name of several deep, narrow
ravines or gorges, with nearly perpendicular
walls, through which runs a stream of water
forming a series of cascades. By far the best-
known locality bearing this name is that situ-
ated on a branch of the Pemigewasset River,
in the Franconia Notch, in which a huge
bowlder formerly hung suspended high above
the stream ; but which was swept away by the
rush of water through the gorge resulting from
* This operation is called "fluming" the river.

l6o TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

a "cloud-burst" which took place on the
mountains above, June 20, 1883. The " New-
Flume," near Franconia, is another locality
of very similar character.

A word which has been curiously diverted
from its original theological meaning into a
topographical one is purgatory. Along the
coast of New England, and in the interior,
narrow ravines with nearly perpendicular walls
are called '' purgatories." The origin of the
name is easily understood. Purgatory (Lat.
puf'gare, purgatio) is supposed to be a place
not easily gotten through, and not traversed
with comfort by those who do succeed in
doing this. The topographical " purgatories "
are more or less blocked up by huge angular
rocks which have fallen from above, and hence
a passage through them is no easy matter.
The best-known localities bearing the name
of " purgatories " are those at Sutton and
Great Barrington, Mass., and there is one on
the sea-shore at Newport, R. I. The Sutton
Purgatory is three or four hundred feet
long, about fifty feet wide, and from fifty to
seventy high, with nearly vertical walls of
gneiss, the bottom being without running
water, and covered with large, angular masses
of rock. The Great Barrington Purgatory is

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. i6l

almost a fac-simile of that at Sutton, except
that there are more trees and undergrowth in
the latter than in the former. There is also
a " purgatory " in the Rocky Mountains, this
name being given to a gorge, defile, or canon,
traversed by one of the branches of the Ar-
kansas (Purgatory River). This "purgatory"
is on a grand scale, it being more than fifty
miles long, and its walls from eight hundred to
a thousand feet high.* There are also at least

* Colonel Dodge thinks that this river was called
Purgatory River because it had been previously named
" Rio de las Animas Perdidas " by the Spaniards, " purga-
tory" being, as he thinks, the translation of "animas per-
didas " (lost souls). This name is said to have been given
in consequence of the loss (in what manner is not stated)
of an entire Spanish regiment in the caiion. Evidence of
the truth of this supposed calamity the present writer has
not been able to find. WT^en we consider how completely
this locality agrees (topographically) with those which have
been thus designated in various other parts of the country —
except that it is on a grander scale than the others — the
explanation of the origin of the name given by Colonel
Dodge seems hardly admissible. Emory and Abert, U. S.
officers, the earliest scientific explorers of this region, call
this river and caiion "Purgatory River " and " Rio Purga-
torio." Colonel Emory adds that the river is also called
"the Picatoire, a corruption of Purgatoire." Mr. W. A.
Bell, who also explored this region m connection with one
of the Pacific Railroad sur\''eys, says, after describing the
wonderful effects of color in the cafion of the Purgatory :
"There cannot be a doubt that, coming unexpectedly upon
this marvellous spectacle, Purgatory was the constant and
II

1 62 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

two localities on the Scottish coast which are
designated as "purgatories" — one on the
Orkneys, and one on the Shetland Islands.*
Of the topographical character of these
localities nothing is known to the present
writer.

Close to the Orkney purgatory is a place
called " Hell ; " and this naturally leads to the
mention of the fact that " hell " and " devil "
play "quite a conspicuous part in the topograph-
ical nomenclature of this country. There is
on the State Geological map of Kentucky
a locality called "■ Hell for Certain," which
closely corresponds with a Californian name
" Hell Itself," near which latter place is one
designated as "Nearly Hell." The two latter
names are not on the map, and the present
writer supposes them to have been given for
moral reasons ; the Kentucky name was proba-
bly connected with the undesirable physical
character of the locality, as is certainly the
case with various other places called " hells "

unvarying idea impressed upon the imagination of the
French explorers from Louisiana who first visited this
spot; for it seemed only just out of some mighty furnace,"
etc. (New Tracks in North America, London, 1870,
p. 88.)

* J. R. Tudor, The Orkneys and Shetland : their Past
and Present State, London, 1883, pp. 361, 473.

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 163

in the Cordilleran Region. The " devil " is
also largely mixed up with topography all over
the United States, as well as in Europe. There
is hardly any kind of topographical feature
which has not somewhere the devil's name
attached to it. But his Satanic Majesty is
especially well provided with " pulpits " and
" slides : " to the former his name is given
apparently on theological principles ; to the
latter as a practical illustration of the familiar
phrase " Facilis descensus Averni."

There are several words used to designate
a certain peculiar topographical feature seen
in various mountain regions. The most easily
defined of these is cove (Lat. cavus, hollow).
This word is applied topographically both
to the sea-coast and to the mountains. A
"cove," as a marine term, is a recess, small
bay, or hole in the coast-line, as the " Cove
of Cork." Small indentations in the coasts of
lakes are frequently designated as " coves : "
there are many such, especially on our Great
Lakes. A " cove " is also a recess, hollow, or
nook among the mountains. This use of the
word is common among the foot-hills of the
Blue Ridge, in Virginia : it is not at all infre-
quent in the Lake District of England ;
for example. Red Cove, Keppel Cove, etc.

1 64 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

" Cove " is occasionally used by the poets, as
in Wordsworth's " Excursion " —

" The coves, and mountain steeps and summits."

Another word of Celtic origin, familiar in
England, but rarely, if at all, employed in
this country, is coom, a term spelled in a
variety of ways. The original Welsh is
" cwm " (pronounced " coom "), and it is thus
frequently written by the English. Other
spellings are " coomb," " combe," and
"comb."* A "coom" is thus defined by
Mackintosh, in writing of the escarpments of
the North and South Downs : " In most
places they [the escarpments] are indented
by bays and coves. The latter, in many, if
not in most instances, are not valleys, but
curvilinear recesses, bounded all round by
steep slopes — the innermost part of the
slope being often the steepest. The coves
are sometimes so geometrically curvilinear as
to suggest the idea of having been literally
whirled out by the eddy of a powerful current.
. . . The coves or cwms (as I shall hence-

* "Coom" is preferred by the present writer as the
spelling of this word, because it seems best to spell as prO'
nounced when there is no special reason to the contrary.
"Cwm "is an unpronounceable combination of letters to
those not acquainted with Welsh.

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CA.^ONS. 165

forth call them) are not confined to the es-
carpments." * These cooms form one of the
most characteristic features of the scenery of
a great part of North Wales, and are more or
less common in other parts of Great Britain.
In Northern England " coom " has very much
the same meaning that it has farther south.
Black's " Picturesque Guide to the English
Lakes " defines this word as '' a hollow in the
side of a hill." As an example, Gillercoom,
Borrowdale, may be mentioned. As the
terms are used in the Lake District, there
seems to be Httle, if any, difference between
a " coom " and a " cove."

Corry is another Celtic word, equivalent in
meaning to " coom." It is the Gaelic coire^
meaning a "caldron" or "large kettle," a
name applied, as Ramsay says, "to those
great cliffy semicircular hollows or cirques in
the mountains in which tarns so often He." f
Kinahan says : "In connection with the hills
are the cooms or corries, which are more or
less rounded, bowl-shaped hollows or valleys
enclosed, on all sides but one, by steep and

* Mackintosh, Scenery of England and Wales, London,
1869, p. 98.

t Physical Geography and Geology of Great Britain, 3d
ed,, London, 1872, p. 285.

1 66 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

in some cases perpendicuLir cliffs. In SW.
Kerry tlie cooms are very numerous, and of
great dimensions, some of their bounding
cliffs being over i,ooo and 2,000 feet high."*
In Wales there is a lake on Cader Idris called
Llyn C}Ti ^^ronounced cur?-}), a name unin-
telligible to the Welsh, but a remnant of the
Gaelic (Ramsay). Sir Walter Scott has it : —

" Fleet foot on the correi,
Sage counsel in cumber,
Reel hand hi the foray,
How sound is thy slumber ! " t

Lady of the Lake.

Wordsworth thus describes a '' corry " in
the Cumbrian Chain : —

" A little lowly vale,
A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high,
Among the mountains ;
Urn-like it was in shape, deep as an urn,
With rocks encompassed, save that to tlie south
Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge
Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close.'"

The Excursion.

" The word " coom," in the form of
" combe " and " come," is widely spread
over France and Switzerland. In Burgundy
and some parts of the IMorvan, "combe"

* Kinahan, Manual of the Geology of Ireland, Lon-
don, 187S, p. 309.

t In the note to the above it is added : " or corri, the
hollow side of the hill, where game usually lies."'

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 167

means a "valley," "gorge," "depression," or
" cove " in the mountains ; hence, " level
land," especially such as is used for pastur-
age. We find in the environs of Autun the
name " Comberland " as the designation of
a small estate of pasture-land, the origin
being evidently analogous to that of the Eng-
lish " Cumberland." In the Nivemais and
in Burgundy a large number of places bear
the name of " come " in various forms ; for
example, Comeau, Comaille, Comagne.*

In the Jura the longitudinal valleys are
called "combes." They are depressions
which have been formed, sometimes by ac-
tual longitudinal disruption of the rocks, but
more generally by denudation, which has
acted unequally on rocks of different geolog-
ical character. Many of the great valleys
of the Alps are of this t)^e ; they occur
usually along the line of junction of a hard,
crj'stalline rock with one which is soft and
stratified.

The early appearance of the word "combe"
in Latin (as early as the seventh century) and
its wide-spread distribution over Europe have
led to considerable discussion as to its etymo-
logical relations. Du Cange thinks that it is

* Chambure, Glossaire du Morvan.

1 68 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

from cymba (boat), in allusion to the boat-
shape of some valleys ; Diez inclines to de-
rive it from Lat. concava ; Littr^ prefers a
Celtic origin for the word. Skeat says : " The
original sense was probably * hollow ; ' cf.
Gr. Kua/o, a cavity." The Aryan root sug-
gested is ku, to contain, to be hollow.

While the longitudinal depressions in the
Jura are known as " combes," the deep,
transverse gorges are called cluses. These
often cut the ranges vertically, and are con-
sidered to have resulted from the occurrence
of great fissures or " faults " (as geologists
call them) by which the rocks have been
actually " rent in twain." Hence the word
" cluse " has been rendered into English as
"valley of disruption."* "Cluse," as a to-
pographical designation, is not in use in Eng-
land, although we have many words derived
from the Latin claudo, cludo^ from which
come daiistim and clusum, an enclosed
space. The Germans have this word in the
form of " Clause," defined in Grimm as
"fauces montium," jaws of the mountains,
and most commonly used to designate a
mountain pass capable of being defended
against military attack.

* See Ball's Alpine Guide.

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS, 169

"Cleugh," "dough," and "clove " are all
variants of the same word, which is also spelled
in various other ways, — for example, "clew,"
and " cleuch," in some older works. It is re-
lated to the very frequently used word " cliff."
Skeat says of "clough" : "An English form
with a final guttural, corresponding to Icel.
klojt, a rift in a hill-side, derived from Icel.
kliufa^ to cleave. Similarly clough is connected
with A. S. deofan, to cleave ; and is a doublet
of Cleft." The word " cleugh " is frequently
heard in Southwestern Yorkshire, where the
rugged glens are called " cleughs." Professor
Phillips says : " These branches [of the Cal-
der] frequently descend through rude and
craggy fissures, to which the name of * clough,'
replacing Male,' is appHed." * Geikie defines
a " cleugh " as " a still narrower [than a " dale "
or " glen "] and steeper-sided valley, chiefly to
be found in the higher parts of the uplands."
He further adds : " A ' hope ' is the upper
end of such a narrow valley, encircled with
smooth green slopes." f This word hope,
nearly the equivalent of "coom" and "corry,"

* The Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-Coast of Yorkshire,
London, 1855, p. 96.

t The Scenery of Scotland, 2d ed., London, 18S7, p.
303-

lyo TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

seems limited in use to the Southern (Scot-
tish) Uplands. Clove is the Dutch word
"kloof" (cleft), and is frequently heard in the
Catskills, where the deep and wild gorges are
called by that name, one of several relics of
the topographical nomenclature of the early
Dutch settlers of that region.

The " combes " of the Jura sometimes ter-
minate in amphitheatral forms, like the Welsh
*' cooms," but on a still grander scale. One
of the finest of these is the famous " Creux
du Vent/' or Hollow of the Winds, " creux "
(cavity) being one of the names given by
French-speaking people to these peculiar
topographical forms.

I'he Pyrenees exhibit tHis remarkable scenic
feature on a grand scale, the so-called "Cirque
de Gavarnie " being probably the most strik-
ing of these "cirques," or " amphitheatres "
as they are also called in French. This is an
" amphitheatre " of which the steps are of
gigantic size, snow-covered, and overshadowed
by stupendous mountain summits. Another
local name for an amphitheatre of this kind
is " oule," from the Spanish " olla," a pot or
kettle.

For the same reason that these " cirques "
are sometimes called " oules," the Geological

VALLEYS, GORGES, AND CANONS. 171

Survey of California, while exploring the South-
ern High Sierra, gave the name of " Kettle "
to one of these grand amphitheatral depres-
sions, which so strikingly resembled a ketUe
in form that it was impossible to refrain from
applying that name to it. A gigantic kettle it
is, however, for its edges are from 1,100 to
1,600 feet above its bottom, which latter is
smooth and rounded in the most perfect kettle
fashion.

The so-called " creux " of the Channel
Islands are quite different in character and
origin from those of the Jura Mountains. They
are related to caverns, blow-holes, and pur-
gatories. For instance, the so-called Creux
Mahie, the largest cavern in Guernsey, is en-
tered from the sea-shore, near Corbiere, by a
narrow opening, nearly closed by blocks of
rock ; but when once the visitor is fairly inside
he finds himself in a cave 200 feet long, from
forty to fifty feet wide and about the same in
height. These *^ creux " are due to the com-
bined action of the ocean and of atmospheric
agencies. The soft and easily decomposed ma-
terial, forming veins by which the rock is tra-
versed, is worn away above, at the general level
of the region, by the action of the rain, and
lower down by that of the waves. Hence there

172 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

results a great variety of more or less opened
fissures, clefts, and caverns. When the fis-
sure is entirely open from the general level of
the surface to the edge of the sea, we have a
"purgatory" — although not so called in the
Channel Islands ; when there is communica-
tion through from top to bottom, but cov-
ered for a portion of the distance, the result
is a " blow-hole ; " if there is an extensive
widening of the fissure, as is the case in the
Creux Mahie, a cave is the result ; but these
various forms are all locally designated as
" creux."

" Blow-hole " is the name given to these
partly covered fissures on the west coast of
Ireland and Scotland, as well as on the north
side of Cornwall. Sometimes, in heavy gales
of wind, the sea is driven into these holes and
forced out at the top in grand masses of foam
and spray. Hence these "blow-holes" are
also called "puffing-holes," and " bullers " or
"boilers."

IV. PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS.

The nomenclature of mountains and parts
of mountains depends — as will have been
seen from what has been already stated —
chiefly on for77i. As soon as we begin to
consider the level, or approximately level,
portions of the earth, and to study the vari-
ous names by which these are known, we per-
ceive that the character of the vegetation plays
an important part in the nomenclature. A
few words in regard to this may therefore
appropriately precede the more detailed
enumeration and explanation of the names
belonging to this division of our general
subject.

The surface of the earth is very unequally
covered with vegetation, and this vegetation
is of a very different character in different
climates, latitudes, and elevations. In gen-
eral, warmth and moisture are favorable to
vegetable growth, and for this reason the

174 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

tropical regions are those where we expect
to find the greatest luxuriance of plant life.
The extreme northern and southern land
areas are, on the other hand, almost or quite
destitute of vegetation, because, although
moisture may abound, the mean temperature
is too low. For the same reason we find
that as we ascend high mountains the forests
disappear; then the grasses and herbaceous
plants; and finally, if the elevation be suffi-
cient, we come to rock, either bare or sparsely
covered with the lowest forms of vegetable
life, while still higher these give place to
eternal snow and ice. The portions of the
earth's surface which are nearly or quite des-
titute of vegetation form but a very small part
of the entire land area, and are of little im-
portance from the present point of view. It
is the presence or absence of forests, and
their peculiar distribution, which is the most
important element in the nomenclature of the
level portions of the earth ; but where trees
are wanting, then the character of the shrubby
or grassy vegetation may be more or less
clearly indicated in the name applied to the
region in question. Thus nomenclature be-
comes, when we have to do with the more
level portions of the earth's surface, largely a

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS, i 75

matter of botanical geography and climatic
peculiarities, rather than of form.

An examination of various regions, either
by personal inspection or by the study of
botanico-geographical maps, shows us that a
very considerable portion of the land is des-
titute of forests, and that this is often the case
where there is no lack of warmth, and also —
although to a much more limited extent —
where the conditions of both temperature and
moisture appear to be favorable to the growth
of an arboreal vegetation. Further examina-
tion shows us that these non-forested regions
are, in very large part, the more level areas —
the plains, prairies, steppes, llanos, pampas,
campos ; in every one of these words the
idea of the absence or scarcity of trees is
connected with that of a level or slightly un-
dulating surface.

Without going into minute detail as to why
this is so, a few hints may be given throwing
light on the question, and which will be of
service in a further examination of the mean-
ing of the words which have just been men-
tioned, as well as of others of somewhat
similar character.

Absence of sufficient moisture is by far the
most important agent in checking the devel-

176 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

opment of forests. A comparison of maps
showing the position of the isohyetal curves
throughout the world, with those indicating
the character and distribution of the arboreal
vegetation, furnishes the most convincing evi-
dence of this. In the United States, for in-
stance, we find the region of the " Plains " to
be that where the annual precipitation falls
below twenty or twenty-five inches. Hence
the interiors of the great land masses are most
likely to be treeless regions, because the bor-
ders of the continents, as a general rule, re-
ceive more rain than their interiors. When
these borders are mountainous, and especially
when the mountains lie athwart the direction
of the prevailing winds, they cut off the pre-
cipitation almost entirely, so that, in going but
a very short distance, we may pass from a
region of excessive rain-fall to one of extreme
aridity.

But there are other causes besides cold and
dryness which are unfavorable to the develop-
ment of forests. The physical character of
the soil is one of the most important of these
causes ; and the present \vriter has elsewhere
shown the truth of this statement, and furnished
abundant evidence that extreme fineness of
the soil is the chief cause why extensive

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SA V ANN AS. 1 7 7

regions, otherwise favorably situated for the
growth of trees, are destitute of them.* With
these facts in view, it is easy to see why plains
are more likely than mountain slopes to be
treeless. It is toward the plains that the finer
material abraded from the higher regions is
constantly being carried. The farther from
the mountains — that is, the broader and more
extensive the plain — the finer will be the
material deposited upon it ; and this is true
whether the detritus thus conveyed be laid
down as a subaerial or submarine deposit. In
a mountain and plateau region, like much of
that between the Rocky Mountains and the
Sierra Nevada, we find the more level portions
almost entirely destitute of forests, while the
mountain ranges which extend across that part
of the country are to a certain extent timbered,
partly because they are high enough to con-
dense some of that moisture which does not
fall on the lower regions, and partly because
the finer material, inimical to the growth of
trees, has been swept down the steep slopes
into and over the broad valleys which lie at
the bases of the mountain ranges.

* See Geology of Iowa (1858), vol. i. p. 23; The
American Naturalist for October and November, 1S76;
Science for All, vol. v. p. 124; Encyclopaedia Britannica,
9th ed., vol. xxiii., art. "United States."

12

178 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

These preliminary remarks will enable the
reader to understand why, in the nomenclature
we have here to investigate, we find so gener-
ally that the topographical designations in-
clude with the idea of flatness and absence of
mountains that of a corresponding absence of
forest vegetation. We shall also see how it is
that a number of foreign words have become
very familiar to us as appellations of regions
in other parts of the world exhibiting certain
peculiarities of surface and of vegetation, and
why these same words are so frequently used
by travellers and writers on physical geography
in their descriptions of our soil, cHmate, and
scenic features.

The most general and commonly used word
in English for a level area is plain (Lat. planus;
It. piaTio, pia?iura ; Fr. plaine). A " plain "
may be either large or small, forested or bare
of trees, or covered with a shrubby vegetation ;
it may also be low or elevated. It is the anti-
thesis of " mountain." The land surface of the
earth consists of mountains and plains. Be-
sides this use of the word "plain " in a general
way as the opposite of" mountain," we find that
there are interesting specializations of it both in
England and in the United States. The most
important is in this country j the vast, nearly

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS, i 79

level area extending west from a little way be-
yond the Mississippi to the base of the Rocky
Mountains being now generally known as the
"Plains." "The Plains of the Great West"
is the title of Colonel Dodge's work giving
his experience in that region. " Life on the
Plains " is to us a familiar phrase. No Ameri-
can would have any difficulty in understanding
what is meant by "the Plains." The term
has come gradually into use since the days of
Lewis and Clarke, who at the beginning of
their journey hesitated whether to call the
treeless portions of the region over which they
were travelling " prairies " or " plains," but
who soon dropped the former term. Since
their day the " Prairies " and the " Plains "
have been distinctly separated from each other,
and among travellers in the West there is no
confusion of the two terms. The plains of
England are on a small scale as compared
with those in this country. The broad, undu-
lating, treeless areas underlain by the chalk,
and forming a sort of table-land to the west
and north of the London Basin, are generally
called "downs" (see farther on) ; but there is
one well-known locaHty designated as a "plain "
— Salisbury Plain — a name familiar to many
as the home of the " Shepherd of Salisbury

l8o TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

Plain/' a pious tract once (and perhaps still)
extensively circulated in this country.

Plateau and table-land are nearly synony-
mous terms — the one French, but now thor-
oughly Anglicized, the other English. These
words carry with them the idea of elevation
and extent. They are scientific geographical
designations rather than such as are used
in every-day life. The elevated compara-
tively level regions on which great chains of
mountains, like the Himalaya and Cordil-
leras, are built up, are called " plateaux." By
" Plateau Region," in this country, we mean
the vast area extending from the Rocky
Mountains west to the Sierra Nevada and
Cascade Range — a region having an eleva-
tion of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet above the
sea-level, and on which are built up numerous
ranges of mountains, some of which lack little
or nothing of being as grand as the Pyrenees.
The great uplifted flat areas of land, sepa-
rated by the canons of the Colorado and its
branches, are called " plateaux," as the type
of which the Kaibab may be taken, 7,500 to
9,300 feet high, quite fiat on the top, and
isolated almost entirely by gorges thousands
of feet deep. The word ''plateau" is of
rather recent introduction into the English

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. i8l

language ; it is not found in the earlier edi-
tions of Johnson's Dictionary, down to and
including that of Todd (1827). In Latham's
edition (1876) it is defined simply as "table-
land." Central Asia is pecuHarly a region
of plateaux. The stupendous mountains of
that portion of the Continent rise from equally
stupendous plateaux. The Pyrenees, Alps,
and the Caucasus, on the other hand, are
mountain regions almost wanting in these
broad elevated plains or plateaux.

The flat summits of mountains are some-
times called "tables," and especially in Cal-
ifornia, where there are several " Table
Mountains," all fragments of great lava-flows,
capped usually with horizontal or table-hke
masses of basalt. The "Table Mountain " of
South Africa is, however, the best known of
the eminences thus designated, and is the only
one furnished with a table-doth.^ There are
two tabular hills forming conspicuous land-
marks on the northwest side of Skye (one of
the Outer Hebrides) which are known as
"Macleod's Tables." Like the Californian
" Table Mountains," they are capped with
horizontal beds of lava.

* The cloud of vapor borne in from the sea and
condensed on the summit of Table Mountain.

1 82 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

Highland and table-land are by no means
sjoionymous terms. Flat regions are, as a
general rule, not called *' highlands." Certain
mountainous districts have almost a monop-
oly of that name, as the " Scottish Highlands,"
and the "Highlands of New York," which
latter is the designation of the precipitous
ranges through which the Hudson River finds
its way in the vicinity of West Point, and
which is thought to be one of the most pic-
turesque spots in the Atlantic States. The
whole Cordilleran Region has sometimes been
called the *' Western Highlands;" but this
name has not been received with favor.

The Spanish use the word mesa (table),
and its diminutive meseta, not exactly as
we do its English equivalent, but rather to
designate broad terraces, as we call them —
a river being said to be " terraced " when we
rise from it on either side, not by a gradually
ascending slope, but by a succession of steps
or steep inclines, between which are com-
paratively level areas. This is a topograph-
ical condition of very common occurrence
throughout the world, and it is one of the
many existing evidences of the much greater
volume of the rivers in former times. Each
steep rise, with its corresponding level area

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 183

above, is called a " terrace," or, in Spanish, a
" mesa." In the Colorado Region these ter-
races occur on a grand scale ; and that part
of the Southwest is frequently called the Mesa
Country, or Region, many Spanish names
being still current there. While "mesa," as
often used, is nearly the equivalent of " ter-
race," " meseta " has more frequently the
meaning of " plain " or " table." A flat area
of moderate dimensions, occurring in a moun-
tainous region, and not forming a part of a
river bottom, would, by many writers, be
called a " meseta."

While the use of the word "plain" does
not necessarily imply that the region thus
designated is destitute of trees, yet it would
generally be understood that this was the
case, unless the contrary were especially stated.
There are words, however, which while con-
veying the idea of flatness of surface, also
distinctly include that of entire absence or
decided scarcity of forests. The word of
most importance in this connection, because
most widely and extensively used by writers
in English, is savanna, spelled frequently,
especially in older books, " savannah." This
word has come to us from the Spanish, and
yet with its present signification it is decidedly

184 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

American. It is the Spanish sabana (sheet),
which originally had the accent on the first
syllable, and is believed to be derived from the
Greek a-d/Savov, which again is thought to be
connected with the Arabic sabaniya, fi-om
Saban, a place near Bagdad, where linen is,
or was formerly, made. The Latin form of
this word was originally sabamuii, and later
sabana^ in which form it appears as early as
781 (Littr6). Its first use in Spain as a
topographical designation seems to have been
exclusively with reference to snow or ice, just
as we say in English "a sheet of ice." It ap-
pears with this definition in the first edition
of the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy,
(1739), and with the accent on the first syl-
lable.* It then disappears from subsequent
editions, down to as late, at least, as that of
1822, but is found in all the later Spanish
dictionaries, including those of Caballero
(1865), Salva (1865), Dominguez (1882),
Barcia (1882), with the accent always on the
second syllable, and is defined as meaning
"an extensive, treeless plain {llaiiura)^'' and
generally with the additional remark, either
that this is a word much used in America, or

* " Por semejanza se llama el piano grande nevado que
esta mui bianco e i.Efual."

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 185

that the plains called " sabanas " lie west of
the Mississippi.* With this topographical
meaning the word in question seems to
have been first used by Oviedo, who in his
"Historia de las Indias " (1535) speaks of
a certain region in the West Indies as being
a " tierra de muy grandes savanas ^ arroyos
muchos."

This word also appears at an early date in
French (savane)^ in works describing the
geography of portions of the American conti-
nent where this language was spoken. It is
defined as being the equivalent of "prairie "
(meadow) in Pelleprat's dictionary (1655).
Curiously enough, the same word {savane)
appears also early in the history of this coun-
try as meaning, in Canada, not a dry, treeless
plain, but a low swampy region covered with
a tangled and dwarfed forest growth. This is

* Barcia (1882) says: " Sabana — P^amo, llanura sin
arboles, extensa y arenosa. Es voz de mucho uso en
America." In quite recent official works on the geology
of Spain, written and published in that country, the word
"sabana " is occasionally used just as it has so long been in
America. Thus the great central, treeless plain of Spain
is called the '* gran sabana central " (not sdbana), and other
treeless areas are designated as " sabanas." The same
word is also, although rarely, applied to the water, it being
used exactly as we do the word " sheet " when we speak
of a " sheet of water."

1 86 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

the definition of savane given by Charlevoix ; *
and the same still holds good in that part of
the country, for the writer, while surveying
the Lake Superior region, always heard his
French voyageurs\ call what we designated
as " cedar-swamps " — horrible, tangled,
swampy thickets of arbor-vitae — by the name
savane. Charlevoix adds that the dwellers in
the savanes are known as savanois.

The word " savanna " (or " savannah") oc-
curs in English books of an early date. Wafer
(1699) uses it repeatedly in describing the
Isthmus of Panama, and in such a way as to
leave no doubt that he meant to indicate by
it a region destitute of forests. J Shelvocke
(1726) has no other term for a treeless region
than " savanna." In later years this word
has become less prominent, although still not
unfrequently used by geographers especially
in describing American localities. Humboldt
does not use it in his " Ansichten der Natur,"
in his famous chapter " Ueber die Steppen und
Wiisten," although it occurs in the notes

* Histoire de la Nouvelle France (1744), vol. iii. p. iSi.

t Boatmen and packers, old servants of the Hudson's
Bay Company.

X " An open savannah." " Savannah on the Westside ;
though the Eastside is woodland." (Wafer, Voyages,
etc., pp. 190, 72.)

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 187

thereto, with the definition ^' Grasfluren "
(grassy plains or meadows) appended. Hum-
boldt was not acquainted with the distinction
made in this country between " plains " and
'•prairies," and it is not surprising that the
English translator (Mrs. Sabine) should have
rendered " Grasfluren " by the word " prai-
ries," when the author himself would have
put " plains " had he been as familiar with
the physical geography of North America as
he was with that of the southern division of
this continent. At the present time the word
''savanna" is — so far as the writer has
noticed, in many years of travel — never used
in familiar conversation as designating any
portion of the treeless area of the Western or
Cordilleran Region. It seems, however, to be
to a certain extent current in the extreme
South, especially in Florida, where the rich
alluvial flats along the streams are known as
"savannas." Thus Mr. Barbour says, in
speaking of the land adjacent to the St. John's
River, above Lake Monroe, " it is a flat, level
region of savannas, much resembling the
vast prairies of Illinois. . . . These savannas
are everywhere covered with luxuriant growths
of marshy grasses and maiden cane, with
occasional clumps of timber, consisting some-

1 88 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE,

times of but three or four trees, and some-
times being several acres in extent." *

An interesting and important word, espe-
cially throughout the Mississippi Valley, is
prairie (Lat. pratiim^ L. Lat. prataria, Ital.
prater ia, Fr. prairie, and formerly praerie and
prerie, meadow, pasture-land). This French
word is one perfectly familiar to us, and yet
not to be found in English dictionaries pub-
lished in England, t It came into use in the
Mississippi Valley through the French mis-
sionaries and the employes of the Hudson's
Bay Company. Father Hennepin (1697)
describes the prairies of Illinois so minutely
and correctly that a better description could
hardly be made at the present time. Lewis
and Clarke use the word frequently in the
earlier portions of their adventurous journey ;
farther on, however, they are more inclined
to speak of the treeless regions through which
they passed as " plains." The distinction be-
tween '' prairie " and " plain " is one which
has come gradually into existence as the routes
of explorers and settlers have extended them-
selves farther and farther west. Every one

* Florida for Tourists, Invalids, and Settlers, p. 31.
t It is not in Todd's Johnson (1827), nor in Latham's
edition of the same (1876).

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SA V ANN AS. 189

knows that the " Prairie States " are those
lying contiguous to the Mississippi, and every
one understands what '^ the Plains " are, and
no Western man would ever think of con-
founding the two designations. Those who
have studied the prairies and the plains know
very well that the causes which have brought
about the treeless condition of portions of
the region of large precipitation in the States
bordering on the Mississippi cannot be the
same as those to which is due the scarcity of
forests in the arid belt lying still farther west.
Besides the words "prairie" and "plain"
there are two others in use in the Cordilleran
Region, with meanings quite Hmited to certain
districts. Very early in the history of the
exploration of the Rocky Mountains certain
comparatively level, grassy areas were desig-
nated as holes. Pierre's Hole, " a valley
about thirty miles in length and fifteen in
width, bounded to the east and south by low
and broken ridges, and overlooked to the east
by three lofty mountains, called the Three Te-
tons, which domineer as landmarks over a
vast extent of country," * was a noted rendez-

* W. Irving, The Rocky Mountains, vol. i. p. 76. The
name given to the "eventful valley of Pierre's Hole" — as
Irving calls it — was that of a brave chieftain who there fell
by the hands of the Blackfeet.

IpO TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

vous for the fur-hunters and trappers in the
early days of western exploration. Some of
these " holes " still retain that designation ;
others are now known as *^ prairies " or " val-
leys," the name "hole " having been adjudged
not sufficiently elegant. Most of the small
grassy areas shut in by the mountains in that
portion of the range which is embraced within
the Territories of Idaho and Montana are
known as " prairies." Farther south, in Col-
orado and Wyoming, the high plateau-like
valleys, which resemble the " holes " and
" prairies " of the more northern region, ex-
cept that they are on a much larger scale, are
known as parks, and were thus designated
many years ago.

The word "park" properly means an en-
closure, as does also "paddock" (A. S.pear-
7'uc, pearroc, a small enclosure) — a word very
little used in this country. Skeat says : " It
is tolerably certain ihaX paddock is a corruption
of parrock, another form of parky * By

* Littre says, of the French word " pare," " mot
d'origine obscure," and adds that it is not certain that it
comes from the Celtic. It is a word which, in some form,
is widely distributed through the languages of Europe. Diez
thinks that it is from the Latin farcere, to spare or reserve,
with the idea that a " park " is a *' reservation." This latter
word is chiefly used in this country to designate a tract of

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SA VANNAS. 191

"park," in this country, is generally under-
stood an enclosure, laid out as a pleasure-
ground, planted with a variety of ornamental
trees, distributed in picturesque grouping, and
rendered accessible by roads and paths. Such
a park may be private propert)^ forming a part
of a gentleman's estate, but more often a pub-
lic pleasure-ground, in or near a town or city.
When the " parks " of the Rocky Mountains
are spoken of, it is usually the more conspicu-
ous ones — the North, Middle, and South
Parks — which are intended to be designated.
Of these, the North Park is in Wyoming, the
others in Colorado. They are areas of various
dimensions, walled in by mountains, and lying
at a high altitude. The North and Middle
Parks are comparatively small, and include
but little level land. The South Park is about
forty miles long by fifteen or twenty broad, and
is more like a plateau or plain than the others.
Its northern end lies at an elevation of about
10,000 feet, and it declines toward the south
to about 8,000. The San Luis Valley (or Park,
as it is sometimes called) lies still farther south,
is much larger than the others, and less '-park-
land set apart by the Government for some special purpose,
as for occupation by the Indian tribes, or for a light-house,
or for military defence.

192 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

like," being, in fact, in large part a sandy des-
ert where nothing of value can be grown with-
out irrigation. For the other "parks," that
name is not entirely fanciful, since they are en-
closed by mountains, and in places, especially
along the edges of the mountains, ornamented
by clumps of trees, which are sometimes very
gracefully and picturesquely grouped.

There are several words nearly equivalent
in meaning to *' plain" and "prairie " which
are more or less in use among those writing
in English on the physical geography of this
and other countries, although they cannot be
said to have been adopted into the language,
so as to have become " household words," as
is the case with " prairie." Steppe, llano,
and pampa are sufficiently familiar, even to
school-children, who are early taught that the
grassy, treeless plains of Northern Asia and
of South America, north and south of the
Amazon, are respectively thus designated.
Following the example of Humboldt, writers
on the physical geography of North or South
America not unfrequently speak of the
" steppes " of the New World. " Ansichten
der Natur" (Aspects, or Views, of Nature) is
the title of the well-known and extensively
circulated book which has made us so familiar

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 193

with the word " steppe." In the section of
this work entitled "Ueber die Steppen und
Wiisten," Humboldt frequently calls the tree-
less plains of both North and South America
'' Steppen," the German plural of " Steppe,"
which is the form the word has in the singular in
English, French, and German. It is the Russian
cxenB, a word frequently used in that country in
the singular, but by those writing in other lan-
guages more commonly put in the plural — the
" steppes " (Ger. Steppen). The word is defined
by Dal as a " treeless, and frequently waterless,
uncultivated region of large extent ; a desert." *
Some additional remarks in regard to the
limits and character of the " steppes " will be
found farther on, under the word heath.

Llano has the same origin and meaning as
our '^ plain," and is used by the Spanish just
as we use that word. " Llano " as a noun,
and its derivative "llanura" (a llano region),
are commonly employed wherever this lan-

* Th2 word here translated " desert " (nycTbiHa) means
literally an ^;«/j'j region — that is, uninhabited, or thinly
inhabited. It is the exact equivalent of the Hungarian
fuszta, which means an empty or uninhabited region. The
Hungarian " pusztas " occupy a large portion of the cen-
tral part of that country, and are given over to cattle-
raising, In the " puszta region " there are fertile areas,
like oases, where are large estates on which ordinary farm-
ing is carried on.

13

194 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

guage is spoken; but the "llanos" proper
are the vast treeless plains extending " from
the Caracas coast chain to the forest of
Guiana, and from the snowy mountains of
Merida to the great delta formed by the Ori-
noco at its mouth" (Humboldt). ''This
steppe," the author goes on to say, " occupies
an area of over a quarter of a million square
miles."

The treeless region to the south of the
Amazon forest-belt is known as the pampa —
a name as familiar to us as is that of "llano."
" Pampa " is certainly an aboriginal Peruvian
(Quichuan) word, although some have sought
for its etym.ological relations in the Latin
^ampinus, from which comes the French
pamj>re (the leafy branch or shoot of the
grape-vine). But, aside from the fact that
there seems to be no connection between a
leafy vine and a treeless area, it appears that
the word " pampa " — also written " bamba "
— is one of frequent occurrence in Peru,
where it forms a part of many aboriginal
proper names, with the meaning of " level
spot," or " field." * The word " pampa " is

* " La falta de llanuras en esta provincia [Pomabamba]
es lo que ha dado lugar i. que se aplicase la terminacion
de bamba i. todos los lugares donde se encuentra la mas
pequena meseta." (Raimondi, El Peru, vol. i. p. 312.)

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 195

not — nor has it ever been — in use in Spain,
except as imported (if this expression may be
allowed) from South America.

Pdramo is another Spanish word much in
use in the Andes, but with which we are
less familiar than we are with " llano " and
"pampa." By " paramo " is generally under-
stood, according to Barcia, "a desert plain,
bare of trees, at a high elevation, open to
the winds, uncultivated and uninhabited."
Humboldt says that the term " paramo " in-
cludes all those mountainous regions in the
Andes which are from 11,500 to 14,000 feet
above the sea-level, and which have disagree-
ably raw and foggy climate. The vegetation
of the Andean paramos is decidedly Alpine,
and shrubby or grassy; but this word, as
used by some later Spanish writers — Barcia
to the contrary, notwithstanding — includes
high level tracts covered by dense forests.*

Puna, a word current in the Peruvian An-
des, and perhaps in other parts of the chain,
seems to be nearly the equivalent of "pa-
ramo." Tschudi says that by the name of
*' puna " is designated the high table-land in

* See Memorias de la Comision del Mapa Geologico
de Espana, Provincia de Ciienca, p. 16, where the author
speaks of " altos paramos en donde se desarolla una potente
vegetacion forestal," etc.

1 9 6 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLA TURE.

Peru and Bolivia lying between the two great
ranges of the Cordillera, beginning at an ele-
vation of about 10,500 feet above the sea-
level, and extending to the region of eternal
snow. The highest, wildest, and most deso-
late portion of the "puna" is called the
"puna brava " (wild puna).* Squier, in de-
scribing the main chain of the Andes in Peru,
says : "Its summit often spreads out in broad
undulating plains, or punas^ varying from
fourteen to eighteen thousand feet above the
sea, frigid, barren, desolate, and where life is
only represented by the hardy vicuna and the
condor. This inhospitable region is the great
Despoplado, or unpeopled region of Peru." f
In the Chilian Andes, on the other hand, ac-
cording to Darwin, it is " the short breathing
from the rarefied atmosphere which is called
* puna.' " The same author says, further,
that the " puna " is considered a kind of
disease, and that he was shown crosses
erected over the graves of some who had
died " punado." %

* Tschudi, Reisen durch SUd-Amerika, Leipsig, 1869,
vol. V. p. 197.

t Squier, Peni, Incidents of Travel and Exploration
in the Land of the Incas, New York, 1877, p. 9.

% Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of the " Adven-
ture " and " Beagle," London, 1839, vol. iii. p. 393.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SA V ANN AS. 197

In some parts of the Chilian Andes the
elevated pasture-lands, on which is a scanty
growth of grass, but no trees, are designated
by the name "talaje." *

The word campo (Lat. campus, field) is in
use, both in Spain and in Brazil, to designate
certain tracts resembling our prairies in origin
and character. Thus the "Tierra de Cam-
pos," near Valladolid, is an old lake-bottom,
with an extremely fertile soil, but entirely
destitute of forests. The " campos " of Bra-
zil are level or gently undulating tracts in the
midst of the dense forest, but themselves
nearly or quite treeless. Mr. Bates says of
the country around Santarem that it is a
"campo region," which he defines as a
" slightly elevated and undulating tract of
land, wooded only in patches, or with single
scattered trees." f Mr. H. H. Smith describes
a "campo region" as one having "trees scat-
tered over the surface, not close enough for
shade, nor thickly leaved enough to be called
luxuriant." \

* A. Plagemann, in Peterniann's Mittheilungen, Band
xxxiii. (1877), p. 74.

t H. W. Bates, The Naturalist on the Amazons, 3d ed.,
London, p. 176.

J H. H. Smith, Brazils, the Amazons, and the Coast,
New York, p. 137.

198 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

Mr. Bigg- Wither has studied the "campos"
more in detail than either of the authors
named. He says, among other things : " These
httle bare patches or campos seem altogether
out of harmony with the surroundings, not
only in their comparative sterility, but also in
the configuration of the ground. For where-
as, in the forest land surrounding them, it
would be difficult to find a level spot of five
square yards together, here you may have
many square miles of an almost perfect plain ;
and so flat is it, indeed, in these campos that a
large proportion of their extent is permanently
covered by swamps." * Although Mr. Bigg-
Wither does not say so, it would seem almost
certain that these level treeless areas are the
beds of more or less completely desiccated
lakes, and that they are destitute of trees for
the same reason that the "campos" of Spain,
and many similar tracts in the midst of the
dense forests of North America, are ; namely,
because the material with which these old
lake-beds have become filled up is of ex-
ceeding fineness — as it must be in conse-
quence of the surrounding conditions — and
hence unfitted for the growth of an arboreal
vegetation.

* Pioneering in South Brazil, London, 1878, vol. ii. p. 320.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SA V ANN AS. 199

The word barren, as an adjective, is in
general use wherever English is spoken, as the
antithesis of " fertile." A " barren region,"
a "barren soil," are familiar phrases. The
" Barren Grounds " form a well-known feature
in the geography of North America, and
under this designation are included all the
lands in high nortliern latitudes from the
north end of Labrador west to near the base
of the Rocky Mountains. As Sir John Rich-
ardson remarks : " It is the absence of trees
which has given name and character to the
* barren grounds ' of North America. The
region is low, nearly level and full of lakes,
its surface being varied by occasional rocky
hills of moderate altitude." *

These " barren grounds " are the exact coun-
terpart of the tundras of Northern Europe
and Asia, and this term is one well known to
students of physical geography. The "tun-
dras" begin in Northern Lapland, although
there not designated by this name,t and stretch
through Siberia to the base of the chains
of mountains bordering the Asiatic continent
on the eastern side. Seebohm describes the
" tundras " as " naked tracts of slightly un-

* The Polar Regions, Edinburgh, 1861, p. 263.
t Linnaeus calls them " terrse damnatae."

200 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

dulating land, rolling prairie or moor, swamp,
and bog, full of lakes, and abounding with
reindeer moss, on which the reindeer feed." *

The word " barren " is used in various por-
tions of the United States as a substantive,
and generally in the plural, and with some-
what different meanings in different regions,
but always as including the idea of absence
or sparseness of forests. The extensive belt
of country running parallel with, but at some
distance from, the Atlantic coast, through the
Southern States, and covered with a sparse
growth of the long-leaved pine {Piniis palus-
iris), is known as the " pine-barrens." In
some parts of the Mississippi Valley, tracts
of country thinly clad with a growth of small
or shrubby oaks are sometimes called " oak-
barrens," or simply "barrens." This is es-
pecially the case in Kentucky. In Wisconsin
and some of the other Mississippi Valley States
such tracts are known as " oak-openings."

The soil of the Kentucky " barrens " is fer-
tile. Dr. Owen says of this region : " In the
early settlement of Kentucky the belt of coun-
try over which it [the Subcarboniferous lime-
stone] extended was shunned, and stamped
with the appellation of ' Barrens ; ' this arose,

* Siberia in Europe, London, 1880, p. 55.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 20i

in part, from the numerous cherty masses
which locally encumbered the ground, in part
from the absence of timber from large tracts,
and in consequence of the few trees which
have here and there sprung up, being alto-
gether a stunted growth of black-jack oak,
qicercus ferruginea, red oak, querciis rubra, and
white oak, qiiercus albaP As soon as we pass
from the limestone on to the conglomerate, a
rock furnishing by its disaggregation a coarser
material than that which is left by the decom-
position of the limestone, we come upon a
densely forested region.*

The " barrens " of Newfoundland are de-
scribed by Jukes as being *^ those districts
which occupy the summits of the hills and
ridges and other elevated and exposed tracts.
They are covered with a thin and scrubby
vegetation, consisting of berry-bearing plants
and dwarf bushes of various species, and are
somewhat similar in appearance to the moor-
lands of the North of England, differing only
in the kind of vegetation, and in there being
less of it." t I^^ other portions of Northeastern

* See Kentucky Geological Survey Reports, New Series,
vol. i. p. 32, where this fact is admitted, but its theoretical
importance overlooked, and elsewhere in the Report denied.

t J. B. Jukes, Report of the Geological Survey of New-
foundland, London, 1843, P- 22.

202 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

Canada treeless areas, from whatever cause
originating, are called " barrens." Some of
these, as described by various observers, are
unquestionably the result of the desiccation
and gradual filling up of lakes, and treeless
areas of this kind are found all through the
region of the Great Lakes, surrounded by the
densest forests ; but the use of the word " bar-
ren " as designating them is — so far as the
present writer has observed — limited to the
extreme northeastern portion of the great
Atlantic forest-belt.

In the densely wooded portion of the
United States, the first thing the settler has
to do is to cut down the trees over an area of
sufficient size for cultivation and for the nec-
essary buildings. The piece of ground thus
prepared is called a clearing, a household
word in the newly settled forested regions.*
An opening, on the other hand, is a natu-
ral deficiency of the forests over a certain
area, the trees not being entirely wanting,
but thinly scattered over the surface as com-

* The word " clearing " is universally used by the Ger-
man immigrants, instead of " Lichtung," to designate the
locality thus prepared for a "settlement," The present
writer has often heard the occupied land on the frontier
spoken of by Germans as being already " gecleared and
gesettled."

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 203

pared with their abundance in the adjacent
region.

A glade is also an " opening " or "clearing "
in the forest, and this word may be applied
either to a space naturally destitute of trees,
or to one where they have been removed by
the hand of man.* "Glade," however, is a
word not much in use in this country, although
there are regions — as, for instance, in Ken-
tucky— where it is current. In that State
the phrase " glady ground " is sometimes
heard, and by it is meant a district where the
surface is diversified by alternate forests and
openings. In parts of Virginia and the adja-
cent States, localities in the "timber" which
are too wet for a forest growth, but which
are more or less overgrown by bushes, are
designated as slashes. This word is said to
be applied also in the Northern States to the
tracts covered with fallen timber left by the
passage of a tornado through the forests, and
also to land " on which the underbrush has
been cut and left lying." f " Slash," as a

* "Glade" is defined by Skeat as *'an open space in a
wood." Wedgwood says : "a light passage made through a
wood, also a beam or breaking in of the light." It is a word
of Scandinavian origin ; the original sense being an opening
for light, a bright track, hence an open track in a wood.

t Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms.

204 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

topographical designation, seems to be de-
cidedly an Americanism. " To slash," " to
cut with a violent sweep, to cut at random "
(Skeat), is a word in common use both in
England and in America.

" Glade " is a favorite word with the poets,
especially with Scott, who seems to delight
in its use. In the works of American authors
it is much less frequently found. There is a
certain vagueness of meaning in the word
"glade " which makes it very convenient for
poetical use, as may be seen in the following
examples : —

" A forest glade, which varying still,
Here gave a view of dale and hill,
There narrower closed, till overhead
A vaulted screen the branches made."

Scott, Marmion.

" Here rise no cliffs the vale to shade;
But skirting every sunny glade.
In fair variety of green
The woodland lends its sylvan screen."

Rokeby.

" Lovely between the moonbeams fell,
On lawn and hillock, glade and dell."

Lord of the Isles.

" Thy bounteous forehead was not fann'd
With breezes from our oaken glades."

Tennyson, Eleanore,

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS, 205

" The mossy bank, dim glade, and dizzy height."

W. S. Landor.

" Here, say old men, the Indian magi made
Their spells by moonlight ; or beneath the shade
That shrouds sequestered rock, or darkening glade,
Or tangled dell."

y. G. C. Brainard.

The grassy summits of various high moun-
tains in the extreme southern extension of the
Appalachians are known as balds. Mr. J. W.
Chickering thus describes one of them : " The
top [of Roan Mountain], instead of being, as
in the higher of our New England peaks, a
mass of barren rock, or weather-worn boulders
for the upper 1,000 feet, is a smooth grassy
slope of 1,000 acres, called a 'bald' (the soil
a foot or more deep and as rich and black as a
western prairie) , with rocky precipices at either
end, rising 80 to 100 feet higher, but plenti-
fully covered with [forest?] vegetation." *

The words " fell," " wold," " moor,"
"down," and " heath " are familiar to all who
read about the geography and history of the
British Islands ; but, as actual designations of
the features of the landscape, they are almost
entirely unknown in the United States. It is
not easy to draw a sharp line of distinction
between these words, and no one of them is

* Appalachia, vol. ii. p. 277.

206 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

Strictly limited to any particular part of Great
Britain, although there are certain regions
where each is, in a measure, localized. Thus,
fell is a topographical designation but little
known outside of the Lake District and its
immediate vicinity. It is the Sw. fj'dll, Ice.
fj all, fell, ^^ox.fjeld, M. E./^/, and essentially
the same (etymologically) as the Eng. Jield.
In Norway the word " fjeld " (pi. fjelden) is
one in general use to designate the high,
table-topped mountains which are so con-
spicuous a feature in the physical geography
of that country. Professor Forbes calls them
" those wonderful expansions of mountains,
often so level, that upon what might almost be
called their summits a coach and four might
be driven along or across them for many miles,
did roads exist, and across which the eye
wanders for immense distances, overlooking
entirely the valleys, which are concealed by
their narrowness, or by small mountains
which rise here and there with comparati\^ely
little picturesque effect above the general
level." *

In the Lake District the word "fell" is
used with essentially the same meaning as

* J. D. Forbes, Norway and its Glaciers, London, 1853,
p. T91.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 20 7

that given above, except, of course, that the
mountains of that region are not so grand and
high, and not so distinctly " table-topped," as
they are in Norway. Black's Guide to the
Lakes gives the word "fell" as meaning "bare,
elevated land, and answering in some respects
to the wolds, moors, and downs of other parts
of the island." It is a term in common use
in every part of the Lake District, where, how-
ever, this designation is by no means exclu-
sively limited to high table-lands or flat-topped
hills, but is occasionally used for any rocky
eminence. Skeat, indeed, defines the word
" fell " simply as " hill." Black's Guide gives
the following quotation from an old manu-
script : —

" Moyses went up on that felle,
Fourty dayes there you dwell."

The word " fell " seems never to have ob-
tained a foothold in this country. An attempt
has been made to localize it here, however,
by giving the name of " Middlesex Fells " to
a rough, rocky district a few miles north of
Boston, in which lies a pretty lake known as
" Spot Pond." It is not easy to see any par-
ticular appropriateness in the name " fell " as
applied to this locaUty, which does not differ

2o8 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

essentially from the ordinary type of New
England landscape.

The word moor (Ice., Dan., A. S. mor ;
M. E. more; Ger. Moor) is less easy to define
than " fell," as it is used with a variety of sig-
nifications in different parts of Great Britain.
It is curious to see how the dictionaries differ
in attempting to indicate its meaning. It is
decidedly most familiar to us as designating
those tracts in Scotland on which game is
preserved, and to which fashionable people
resort in the autumnal season to while away
the time and enjoy the high privilege of kill-
ing something. The Scotch " moors " are
the elevated, undulating, treeless, flat or gen-
tly sloping tracts, from which rise the ranges
of precipitous hills and mountains which char-
acterize the grand but at the same time
rather gloomy and monotonous scenery of the
Scottish Highlands. They are "fells," but
fells crowned with still higher and more pre-
cipitous summits, which themselves are some-
times fell-like in character. Thus, Geikie
describes the mountains at the head of Glen
Esk and Glen Isla as sweeping upward into
a broad " moor " some 3,000 feet above the
sea; in regard to which he remarks that it
would hardly be an exaggeration to say that

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 209

there is more level ground on the tops of
these mountains than in areas of correspond-
ing size in the valleys below.*

In the more southern portions of Great
Britain " moor " seems to be used nearly as
the equivalent of morass, which latter word is
said by Skeat to be plainly an adjectival form
of " moor," and is defined by him as " swamp,
bog;" while Latham defines "moor" as
" marsh, fen, bog, tract of low and watery
ground."

The famous " moor " — " the great central
waste of Devon" — named from the river
Dart (Dartmoor), is, however, far from being
a "morass." Mr. A. N. Worth thus indicates
its peculiar topographical and geological feat-
ures : "In the main it is a great granitic
plateau, broken by numerous valleys, and
dotted with the rocky peaks of the ' tors.'
The granite is jointed, often with considerable
regularity, and weathers into masses and piles
irresistibly suggestive of Cyclopean masonry ;
while the hillsides are bestrewn for miles with
huge boulders and blocks." f All Devon, ac-
cording to Mr. Worth, was formerly charac-

* A. Geikie, The Scenery of Scotland, 2d ed., London,
1887, p. 195.

t A History of Devonshire, London, 1886, p. 330.
14

2IO TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

terized by woods and heaths, broken only in
their gloomy monotony by strips of water-
made meadow skirting the wider river-courses,
and the scanty population was scattered in-
differently through its wilds. " Dartmoor is
simply the last refuge of the traces of these
ancient days — a prehistoric island, girdled
and wasted by the encroaching waves of an
aggressive civilization." *

The present writer never heard the word
" moor " used in this country as designating
any feature of our landscape ; but " morass "
is occasionally used, although this latter term
is rather the elegant designation of what is
popularly known as a swamp — a word cur-
rent all over the United States with the mean-
ing of low, marshy ground, whether thickly
or thinly forested, entirely bare of trees, or
covered with a shrubby vegetation. Thus a
low, flat piece of ground, on which the water
stands during a portion of the year, and over
which is a sparsely scattered growth of tama-
rack or hackmatack {Larix Americana)^ is
famiUarly known as a "tamarack swamp."
To the "cedar swamps," so characteristic of
the Upper Lake Region, allusion has already
been made.t A peculiar swampy region

* A History of Devonshire, London, i8S6, p. 326.
t See ante^ p. 186.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 211

extends along the Atlantic coast, from Virginia
through North and South Carolma, of which
the " Great Dismal Swamp " on the borders
of Virginia and North Carolina may be taken
as the type. These swamps have certain pe-
culiar features, the most important of these
being that they are considerably elevated above
the adjacent streams, and their forest vege-
tation is abundant and varied, the most char-
acteristic tree being the cypress {Taxodhwt
distichu7}i). These swamps are locally known
as "dismals " and also as "pocosins," the lat-
ter being apparently an aboriginal name, and,
if so, one of the very few instances (if not the
only one) in which a word of this kind has
become — to a hmited extent, it is true —
generalized as a topographical designation.

Skeat defines the word " swamp " as " wet,
spongy land, boggy ground," and adds "not
found in old books."* He considers it as
being of Scandinavian origin (Dan. and Sw.
svamp, a sponge, fungus ; Ger. Schwanun,
a sponge), and remarks that " swamp,"
" sponge," and " fungus " are all related
words, and all from the root of "swim."
" Swamp " seems pecuharly an American

* Wafer uses the words " swamp " and " swampy "
frequently in his " New Voyage and Description of the
Isthmus of America," London, 1699.

212 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

word ; and the so-called " swamp lands " form-
ing a portion of the national domain have been
freely bestowed on the various States in which
they occur, and have been the source of end-
less fraud and deceit, since large areas of the
most valuable agricultural land in the country
have been claimed and held as " swamp land."
Swale is a word not to be found with a
topographical meaning in English dictionaries,
but frequently heard in the United States,
especially in the Prairie States, where it is
used to designate the depressions, or lower,
moister areas, in the " rolling prairie." The
definition of " swale " given in Webster — " an
interval or vale ; a tract of low land " — does
not agree with the present writer's experience
of the use of the words " swale " and ^* inter-
val." A '• swale " is always a lower area of
moderate dimensions, in the midst of higher
ground, and it would never be used as the
equivalent of " interval " or " intervale." *
*' Swale" is a word current in East Anglia,
meaning there, according to Nail, just what it
does in this country, " a low place, a hollow."
It comes from the Scandinavian (Dan. svczlg,
a hollow, an abyss).

* See pp. 228, 229, for definition of " interval " and
" intervale."

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 213

The word " dun " (Gael, dun, Welsh, dht,
A. S. dtin, a hill) appears in England and
elsewhere in several rather peculiar and in-
teresting forms. In the Lake District dun
means an inconspicuous hill; and with this
signification it forms a. part of certain proper
names, — for example, Dunmallet, Dunfell, etc.
Farther south, this word has the form of
down, and is used to designate various ele-
vated, flat or gently undulating, treeless areas,
underlain by the chalk, and mostly given over
to sheep-raising. The " Downs " are a peculiar
feature of English scenery, and " South Down
mutton " is a term which needs no explana-
tion. The Downs proper are in Kent and
Sussex, those in the first-named county being
called the North, and the other the South
Downs. They lie on each side of the curi-
ous depression known as the " Valley of the
Weald," or "Wealden," or simply as "the
Weald." Other areas of similar geological
and topographical character are also called
" downs." The word is a favorite with the
poets, and especially with Tennyson, who by
no means limits it to England, but, on the
contrary, puts downs and palms together, as
may be seen in the following extract from the
" Lotos Eaters : " —

214 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

" And the yellow down
Border' d with palm, and many a winding vale."

The use of the word " down," as a topo-
graphical designation, is ahnost, if not quite,
unknown in the United States. The present
writer has been able to find but one poem by
an American writer, on American scenery,
where it is introduced : —

" With music that rises and falls and swells,
Over the village and past the down,
Past Katama and Roaring-Brook,
Out by Gay Head, where, at set of sun,
The light-house gleams over hill and nook."

E. N. Gioutison, The Bells of Edgartown.

That part of the English coast adjacent to
the region where the North Downs meet the
sea is also known as " the Downs."

The word *' down " has found its way to
Australia, where " the Darling Downs " is the
name of a district lying west of Brisbane, in
Queensland, and the seat of the most im-
portant agricultural interests of that colony.
As described by Australian authors, this re-
gion is " mainly a huge plain, where the sur-
face, which sometimes rises into rolling downs
and sometimes spreads out in apparently lim-
itless flats, is only broken by a few ranges
of low hills." *

* C. A. Feilberg, in "Australian Pictures," p. 117.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 215

There is still another form of the word
" dun," by which certain hills are desig-
nated, but only those of a peculiar origin and
character. Hills of loose sand, heaped up
and blown about by the wind, especially along
the sea-coast, are called dunes, a word which
has the same form and meaning in French,
and nearly the same in German {Dune).
Dunes occur chiefly along the sea-shore, but
are also seen on the borders of large lakes,
for instance Lake Superior, along portions of
whose southern shore they rise to the very
respectable height of fifty feet or more. Mov-
ing sands in the interior, as in various desert
regions, are also sometimes designated as
''dunes" — more frequently, however, as
" sand-hills." On the East Anglian coast the
sand-dunes are called meals, a relic of the
Norsemen (Ice. 7?tdl, strand sands) (Nail).

Wold is another word quite peculiar to
England, and of some obscurity, both as
to meaning and origin. As used in parts
of Yorkshire, it seems to be the exact equiv-
alent of the " downs " of Southern Eng-
land. The "Wolds " of that county form a
crescentic range of elevations, sloping from a
curved summit, whose extremities touch the
sea at Flamborough Head and the Huraber

2l6 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE,

at Ferriby, and this crescent is cut through
by one continuous hollow — the Great Wold
Valley — from Settrington to Bridglington.
As is the case with the " downs," so here the
underlying formation is the chalk. The same
word appears in the form of " weald," a term
especially familiar to geologists, as having
given the name to the " Wealden formation,"
which occupies the basin-like depression be-
tween the chalk escarpments of the North
and South Downs, and to which reference
has already been made.

The term "wold" would seem from its
general application in England to be intended
to designate an open, unforested region. It
is, in fact, defined by Latham as a " plain,
open country ; " and by Skeat as a " down,
open country." It is a favorite word with
the English poets, who sometimes, use it
rather vaguely, but more generally with the
meaning given above, as the following quota-
tions seem to indicate : —

" Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold, and meet the sky."

Tennyson^ The Lady of Shalott.

" Arise and let us wander forth,
To yon old mill across the wolds."

Te7t7iyson, The Miller'' s Daitghter.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 217

The following is the only instance (so far
as known to the present writer) in which
" wold " has been used by an American
poet : —

" Never errant knight of old,
Lost in woodland or on wold,
Such a winding path pursued
Through the sylvan solitude."

Longfellow, The Songo River.

The word " wold " is considered by some
etymologists as being the German Wald^
(M. E. also wald); which, however, as Skeat
remarks, was more commonly used in the
sense of "waste ground, wide open country,"
as in Norse, and this statement is substan-
tiated by authorities cited by him. He adds
as follows : " The connection in form with
A. S. geweald, Ice. vaid, dominion, is so ob-
vious that it is difficult to assign any other
origin than Teut. wald^ to rule, possess, for
which see wield. The original sense may
have been Miunting-ground,' considered as
the possession of a tribe." Some writers
have argued that because certain regions are
known as "wolds," they must originally have
been forested ; but this seems decidedly im-
probable, in view of the fact that the areas
thus designated have precisely that geological

2l8 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

character which is unfavorable to the growth
of trees, as is the case both with the *' wolds"
and the "downs," which — so far as historical
evidence goes — have always been what they
now are, namely, open treeless regions, and
for which condition there is abundant rea-
son to be found in the peculiar fineness of
the soil, resulting from the decomposition
and decay of the chalk, as well as of a large
portion of the various strata, of which the
Wealden group of the geologists is made
up.*

Closely allied to '• down," " wold," and
" moor," is the word heath, which is much
used in England and Scodand, but quite un-
familiar to us except through books. " Heath ' '
is defined by Skeat as " a wild, open country ; "
by Latham, as "a place overgrown with heath,"
or " a place covered by shrubs of any kind."
Absence of forests seems the essential feature
of a heath ; nor is it easy to see, either from
dictionaries or from other books or from its
poetical use, in what a " heath " differs from a
" moor." Indeed, Skeat defines a *' moor " as

* The whole of the Wealden area is not treeless, but the
larger portion of it is so ; and the soil of this portion has
been described by competent authority as being, when dry,
" an impalpable silicious dust."

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 219

a " heath." It is etymologically the same as
the German " Heide " (M. E. heth and hethe,
Swed. hed.) Dan. hede^ Du. heide) . * The " Hei-
den" of North Germany are an important
topographical feature of that country, and
they pass gradually into the *' steppes " of
European and Asiatic Russia; for the great
" steppe region " begins on the very borders
of Holland, and extends in unbroken continu-
ance, save where interrupted in part by the
chain of the Ural, almost to the farthest east-
ern limits of Siberia. The vegetation of the
" heaths " is somewhat varied ; but by far
the most characteristic heath plant is that
called " heather " (heath-er, inhabitant of the
heath), or also frequently simply *' heath."
Humboldt, in the chapter of the Aspects of
Nature entided " Physiognomy of Plants,"
says : " The Heath form belongs more es-
pecially to the Old World, and particularly
to the African continent and islands. ... In
the countries adjoining the Baltic, and farther
to the north, the aspect of this form of plants
is unwelcome, as announcing sterility. Our
heaths, Erica (Calluna) vulgaris, Erica tetralix,
E. carnea, and E. cinerea, are social plants,

* " All from an Ar>'an base Kaita, signifying a pasture,
heath, and perhaps clear space." (Skeat.)

220 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

and for centuries agricultural nations have
combated their advance with little success.
It is remarkable this extensive genus which
is the leading representative of this form
appears to be almost Hmited to one side of
our planet. Of the 300 known species of
Erica, only one has been discovered across
the whole extent of the New Continent, from
Pennsylvania and Labrador to Nootka and
Alashka." * The common heather {Calluna
vulgaris) has been found in various localities
along the Atlantic coast, from Massachusetts
to Newfoundland ; but the word " heath " as
a topographical designation appears to be
quite unknown in this country. Near Lon-
don there are various tracts denominated
" heaths," the names of which are very
familiar to readers of English plays and
novels. Most of these " heaths " are outliers
of the Bagshot Sands ; and where these attain

* Aspects of Nature (Mrs. Sabine's translation), vol. ii.
pp. 23, 24, In a note to this the author adds : " In these
physiognomic considerations we by no means comprise
under the name of Heaths the whole of the natural family
of Ericaceae, which, on account of the similarity and analogy
of the floral parts, includes Rhododendron, Befaria, Gaul-
theria, Escallonia, etc. We confine ourselves to the highly
accordant and characteristic form of the species of Erica,
including Calluna (Erica) Vulgaris, L., the common
heather."

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SA V ANN AS. 2 2 1

their full development — that is, where the
formation retains its entire thickness of 300
to 400 feet — the depth to the water-level
becomes so great that the upper porous beds
are left high and dry, and form uncultivated
wastes, such as Bagshot Heath, Frimley Heath,
and others. These are still for the most part
bare " heaths," which, being sandy, dry, and
healthy, have been frequently used for military
camps and exercise-grounds.

With the English, and still more with the
Scottish poets, " heath," " heather," " heath-
bells," are favorite words ; not much less so
are "bracken," " gorse," and "broom" —
other characteristic shrubs which help adorn
the heaths. A few quotations may be added
as illustrations of the poetical use of these
words : —

" But most, wiili mantles folded round,
Were couch'd to rest upon the ground,
Scarce to be known by curious eye,
From the deep heather where they lie,
So well was matched the tartan screen
With heath-bell dark, and brackens green."

Scott, Lady of the Lake.

" The great fires are luntin' — how fragrant the smells,
The bab 0' the heather, and bonnie bluebells,
This twig o' green birk — oh, I canna weel tell
Hoo the sicht and the scent gars my fu' bosom swell."

Janet Hamilton.

222 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

There is in France a region adjacent to the
ocean, north of the Pyrenees, which in some
respects resembles the " heaths " of Northern
Germany. It was once the bed of the ocean,
and is covered with sands of Pliocene age.
The natural growth of these landes, as they are
called, consists of heather, broom, and ferns,
much resembling that of the more northern
" heaths." Over some portion of these
" landes " the introduction of a forest growth
has been successfully attempted ; in other
districts the presence near the surface of a
soHdly compacted bed of sand has proved an
insurmountable obstacle to tree-culture.

Marsh is a word in common use in both
England and the United States, with a mean-
ing not essentially different from that of
"swamp." Skeat defines it as "morass,
swamp, fen," and says that it has the form in
Middle English of " mersche," and in Anglo-
Saxon of "mersc," which latter is a con-
traction of "mer-isc," originally an adjective
signifying "full of meres or pools." As used
in the United States, the word " marsh," often
pronounced "ma'sh," is heard much more
frequently along the sea-coast in New England
than it is in the interior and farther south.
The low lands along the New England coast

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SA VAN N AS. 223

liable to overflow by the tide are always
called " salt-marshes." The same word
" marsh " is one commonly used in Northern
Germany in almost exactly the same way in
which it is used in this country. The " Marsch-
lander" (called also simply the ^'Marsch")
form an important topographical feature along
the coasts of the Baltic and North Seas, and
especially in the vicinity of the Elbe. They
are uniformly level, the monotony of the sur-
face being hardly broken by the dikes by
which they are traversed at regular intervals,
and the ditches which accompany them. On
the dikes grow magnificent trees, the soil is
very fertile, the cattle superb, and farming
highly successful. The contrast between these
marsh lands and the region of sand and gravel

— the " heath " and " moorland " — which
lies adjacent to them on the south is most
striking.*

Moss is a word very familiar to us as the
name of an order of the class of Cryptogams

— the Musci, or Mosses. In Northern Eng-
land and Scotland it is also much used to
designate various localities which are swampy
or boggy in character, and especially those

* See E. H. Wichmann in Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft
fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, vol. xx. (1885) pp. 257-279.

224 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

where peat is found in some quantity. In
Southwestern Yorkshire the peaty mountains
are called "mosses." In Scotland we hear
of '*' moss-troopers " — a name formerly given
to those horsemen who rode over the high,
peaty moorlands. Thus, Scott says : —

" A stark moss-trooping Scott was he,
As e'er couched Border lance by knee ;
Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss,
Blindfold he knew the path to cross."

Lay of the Last Minstrel,

"He journey'd like errant knight th'e while,
And sweetly the summer sun did smile
On mountain, moss, and moor."

The Bridal of Triermain .

What are called in New England "peat-
swamps " or " peat-bogs," are known in
Northern England and Scotland as "peat-
mosses." They may be, as in Yorkshire, at
a high elevation. In Lancashire low, boggy
places are called "mosses;" for instance,
Carrington Moss, and Chat Moss ; the latter
the locality famous for having presented such
extraordinary engineering difficulties in the
course of the construction of the first surface
railroad. In this part of England, where the
low, swampy grounds are called "mosses,"
the highlands are designated "fells" and

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 225

'' moors." Bog, a word of Irish origin
{bogach, a morass), is often heard in this
country, and seems to be the exact equiva-
lent of ^' morass." " Mire " (Dan. viyr, myre,
Swed. myra, M. E. myre^ O. H. G. Mios, M.
H. G. Mies, moss, morass, swamp), is etymo-
logically related to "moss" and "morass,"
but is hardly to be considered a topographical
word. Like " mud," it means the material
which helps fill up miry, boggy, or muddy
localities — not only those on a large scale,
like morasses and swamps, but smaller ones,
such as roads, ditches, and hollows generally.
The word fen (A. S. fen, Du. veen, Goth,
fani, Ger. Fehii) is defined in the EngHsh
dictionaries as the equivalent of " morass " or
" bog." It seems, however, as actually used,
to mean ground wet enough to be more or
less thickly overgrown with reeds and other
aquatic vegetation. The " Fen District " of
England is a wide stretch of level, monotonous
marsh, traversed by a multitude of sluggish
streams, situated within the counties of Lin-
coln, Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hunting-
don, and Northampton, and extending about
fifty miles from north to south, and thirty from
east to west. It was in former times a swampy,
unhealthy wilderness ; but it has been drained
15

226 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

at immense cost of money and labor, and made
one of the most fertile portions of the kingdom.
A portion of this fenny district is known as the
broads, a term peculiar to Norfolk ; and the
relation of the " broads " to the " fens " is easily
understood. Where the rivers broaden out and
are more or less separated into distinct chan-
nels by belts of reedy growth (reed-beds), there
" we find as the result a region where water
and land strive for the mastery and come
to a delightful compromise." * The author
from whom this is quoted adds further :
" The character of the Fens has been so much
changed since their drainage, that it is to
Norfolk only that one can now look for the
wildness and solitude of marsh and mere so
dear to the naturalist and sportsman."

" Fen " is a word little known in this coun-
try except through books and in poetry. The
low, swampy tracts of country in Florida known
as " the Everglades " are something nearly
akin to " fens." Mr. Barbour thus describes
this region : " Perhaps the most remarkably
geographical feature of the State [of Florida]
is the immense tract of marsh or lake, called
the Everglades (by the Indians "grass-water").

* G, Christopher Davies, Norfolk Broads and Rivers,

Edinburgh, 1883, p. 2.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SA V ANN AS. 227

It is about sixty miles long by sixty broad,
covering most of the territory south of Lake
Okechobee, and is impassable during the rainy
season, from July to October. The islands
with which its surface are studded vary from
one-fourth of an acre to hundreds of acres in
extent, and are usually entangled in dense
thickets of shrubbery or vines. The water of
the lake is from one to six feet deep, and the
bottom is covered with a growth of rank
grass which, rising above the surface, gives it
the deceptive appearance of a boundless
prairie." *

Scrub and scrogg are closely aUied to each
other, both in origin and meaning ; and both
are botanico-topographical designations in vari-
ous regions where English is spoken. They
signify land covered with a stunted, scraggly,
or shrubby undergrowth. " Shrub " is a word
in common use with us, as in England, mean-
ing something midway between a tree and an
herbaceous plant. It is nearly the equiva-
lent of " bush ; " and a " shrubbery " is a place
covered or planted with shrubs, although the
use of this word is pretty closely limited to an
artificial plantation or garden of shrubs. The
natural growth of a region covered with bushes

* Florida for Tourists, Invalids, and Settlers, p. 20.

2 28 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

would hardly be called — in this country, at
least — " shrubbery," but rather " under-
growth," "underbrush," or simply "brush,"
"brushwood," or (more rarely) "bush."

Bush, as a topographical designation, is a
word more used in the English colonies than
with us. Thus, Mrs. Hoodie's pleasant nar-
rative of her experience in Canada is entitled
" Roughing it in the Bush." The lawless
vagabonds who roamed over the uncultivated
districts of Australia (the " scrub ") were, in
former times, generally designated as " bush-
rangers," while the natives of South Africa
are known as "Bushmen."*

" Shrub " and " scrub " are referred back
to the Anglo-Saxon " scrob " (M. E. shrob,
schriib^, and " scrog " is a provincial form of
"scrub." The verb "to scrub," a word in
familiar use, means " to clean or scour with a
bunch of twigs or shrubs," just as we say " to
brush," which originally meant " to clean with
an implement made of brushwood (twigs or

* The word *' bushman " is also used in Australia with
the same meaning which " woodsman " has in the United
States — namely, as designating a man familiar with the
forest, and well able to take care of himself in a "wild
country." A " backwoodsman," on the other hand, is rather
one who has taken up his abode on the frontier, or far from
the settlements.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 229

small branches). The use of " scrub " as a
topographical designation is hardly more
known in England than it is with us, but
some names of localities — for example,
Wormwood Scrubbs — show that this word
is not altogether strange in that country. In
Australia it seems to be a very familiar term,
the forest undergrowth being generally de-
nominated " the scrub," while in some parts
of that country " scrub " and " bush " seem
to be almost equivalent words, although the
latter is more often used as meaning both forest
and scrub, or any kind of uncultivated or un-
cleared land, as distinguished from that which
has been brought under cultivation.*

The word scrogg seems to be limited in use
to the North of England. Thus, Gawin
Douglas, the Scotch poet (1474-^522), in
describing a morning in June, says : —

" And schortlie, everything that dois repare
In firth or feyld, flude, forest, earth, or ayr,
Or in the scroggis, or the buskis [bushes] ronk,
Lakis, marrasis [morasses], or their pulis [pools] donk,
Astabillit [enstabied] liggis still to slepe, and restis."

* Thus the author of "Australian Pictures "( Howard
Willoughby) says : " There is something very solemn m
the quietude of a scrub untouched by the axe of the lum-
berer or settler. There is no undergrowth, properly speak-
ing, though delicate little ferns and fairy-like mosses nestle
close to the feet of the trees."

230 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

In parts of North Germany the shrubby
meadow-land is called a '' Briil " or " Briihl,"
a word defined in Grimm as "pratum pa-
lustre," or "buschigte Wiese" (bushy mead-
ow). " Breuil" and " broussailles " in French
("brosse" in Old French), and "Brul" or
"Briihl" in German, have the same original
meaning as our " brush " (or " brushwood "),
a word with which they are etymologically
connected. " Egerde," or ^' Egert," is also
a name given in various parts of Germany
to barren, uncultivated fields, more or less
covered with heath and shrubby vegetation.
The proper meaning is said by Grimm to be
" fallow " or " fallow-land " (Ger. Brachland),
but the origin of the word is obscure.*

Coppice, copse, and coppy are words
frequently heard in England, and with which
we are very familiar through English books.
They can, however, hardly be said to form
a part of our vocabulary. " Copse " and
" coppy " (the latter not nearly as often met
with in print as the former) are variants of
" coppice," which is from the Low Latin
copecia, undergrowth, and is allied to the

* Grimm says "denkbar ware agartia, agertia, agerta,
ungesaumtes, ungehegtes, der weide preis gegebenes acker-
land."

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 231

French couper, to cut. Any area covered
with a shrubby undergrowth may be called a
" coppice ; " but, as the word is generally
used, it means a plot of ground where such
an undergrowth is maintained and kept down
by being frequently cut for fuel. The twigs
thus obtained are made up into bundles
called "faggots" — a word also very famil-
iar to us through English books, but rarely,
if ever, heard in actual use.

" Interval " and " bottom," as topographical
designations, appear to be peculiarly Ameri-
can words. An interval (Lat. infervalhwi) is
the space between a river and the hills or
mountains by which the lower, level portion
of the river-valley is bounded. Hence "in-
terval " has nearly the same meaning as
" meadow," and the two words are more or
less interchangeable ; the level, cultivated, and
frequently grassed areas bordering the Con-
necticut River, for instance, being generally
called " meadows " or collectively " the
meadows." Intervale is a variant of " inter-
val," less frequently used than the latter word.
Some villages on or near tracts of interval
land are called by the name " Intervale," as,
for instance, the summer resort thus designated
in the valley of the Saco River, near North

232 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

Conway, in which region the word *^ inter-
vale " seems to be much more frequently used
than " interval.'"' Thus, Whittier says : —

"From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that
never fails,
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's intervales."

And an anonymous author, describing the
Kennebec, has as follows : —

" You look upon a range of intervales
Where the abundant harvest never fails."

Bottom is a word frequently heard in the
Mississippi Valley and farther west, and used
to designate the alluvial tracts along the river-
courses, which are sometimes called " bottom-
lands" and sometimes simply "bottoms."
Josselyn (1675) uses the word thus : " swamps,
which are low grounds and bottoms infinitely
thick set with Trees and Bushes of all sorts."
Lewis and Clarke also frequently employ the
word " bottom " in their report, and speak of
the " American Bottom," an extensive tract of
level and highly fertile land stretching along
the Mississippi River southward from the
Kaskaskia River for many miles.

There are some words locally used in various
parts of Great Britain, to designate the allu-
vial lands, or meadows, bordering the rivers.

PLAINS, PRAIRIES, AND SAVANNAS. 233

Thus, at Bath on the Avon, there are the
"Dolly Meadows," "dolly" being the Welsh
dolaUj a meadow, this being one of those re-
duplications in names which so frequently
occur, and various instances of which have
already come under our notice. In Scodand
the meadows along the streams are called
" haughs," a word allied to " haw " and
"hedge," having the original meaning of
" enclosure." The level tracts of alluvial
lands bordering the estuaries along the coast
of Scotland are known as " carses." They
are marine terraces, or old beaches which
have been raised to varying elevations above
their former position. One of these " raised
beaches " is thus described by Geikie : " The
twenty-five feet beach must be more or less
familiar to every one who has visited almost
any part of the coast-hne of Scotland. It runs
as a terrace along the margin of the Firth of
Forth ; it forms the broad Carse of Gowrie ;
it is visible in sheltered bays along the storm-
swept coasts ot Forfar, Kincardine, and Aber-
deen. In the less exposed parts of the Moray
Firth it may be traced, and westwards around
most of the northern firths it runs as a con-
spicuous feature. On the Atlantic side of the
island, its low green platform borders both

234 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

sides of the Firth of Clyde, fringes the islands,
runs up the river beyond Glasgow, and winds
southwards along the coast of Ayrshire and
Wigton into the Irish Channel." *
* Scenery of Scotland, pp. 382, 3S3.

INDEX

OF TOPOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

Abysm, 157.

Abyss, 157.
Aiguille, 118.
Amphitheatre, 170.
Atravieso, 140.

Balanced-rock, 127.
Bald, 205.
Ballon, 114.
Band, 103.
Barf, 104.
Barrancal, 151.
Barranco, 151.
Barren, 199-201.
Barren Grounds, 199.
Bay, 81.
Belchen, 114.
Ben, 102.
Blow-hole, 172.
Bluff, 104.
Bog, 225.
Boiler, 172.
Bolchen, 114.
Boquete, 140.

Bottom, 232.

Box-canon, 153.
Breche, 139.
Broad, 226.
Broussailles, 230.
Briihl, 230.
Briil, 230.
Buller, 172.
Bush, 228.
Butte, 105.

Cadena, S7.
Caire, 102.
Cajon, 132, 153.
Camel's Hump, 120.
Campo, 197, 198.
Canada, 132, 133.
Caiion, 132, 133.
Carcabucho, 153.
Circova, 152.
Carcovo, 153.
Carse, 233.
Catena, 87.
Cau, 102.

236

INDEX.

Cerrito, 100.

Cerro, 100.

Chain, 85, 'i'j,

Chaine, 87.

Chasm, 155, 156.

Cirque, 170.

Clearing, 202.

Cleugh, 169.

Cliff, 121.

Clough, 169.

Clove, 169, 170.

Cluse, 168.

Cobble, 109.

Col, 136.

Colina, 100.

Collado, 100, 140.

Combe, 112, 164-168.

Coom, 164, 165.
Coppice, 230, 231.
Coppy, 230.
Copse, 230.
Cordillera, 87-90, 99.
Cordon, %-]^ 99.
Corry, 165, 166.
Coste, 102.
Cove, 8t, 163.
Crag, 122.
Crest, 112.
Crest-height, 134.
Creux, 170, 171.
Cwm, 164.

Dale, 142.
Dalle, 143, 144.
Dean, 144.
Debris-pile, 125.
Defile, 148.

Dell, 142, 143.
Den, 144, 145.
Dene, 144.
Dent, 116.
Devil, 163.
Dingle, 145, 146.
Dimble, 145, 146.
Divide, 141.
Dodd, 108.
Dolde, 108.
Dome, 114.
Door, 137.
Dore, 137.
Down, 213, 214.
Druid-stone, 128.
Dun, 213.
Dune, 215.

Egerde, 230.
Egert, 230.
Escarpment, 124.
Espigon, 97, 100.
Esquerra, loi.
Everglade, 226.
Ezquerra, loi.

Fell, 205-207.
Fen, 225.
Fjeld, 206.
Flume, 158, 159.

Gap, 135.
Garganta, 152.
Ghyll, 145, 146.
Gill, 145, 146.
Glade, 203, 204.
Glen, 147, 148.

INDEX.

237

Gorge, 149, 150.
Gouffre, 157.
Gray-wether, 128.
Group, 85.
Gulch, 154, 155.
Gulf, 81, 156-158.
Gully, 154.

Harbor, 81.
Hause, 137.
Haws, 137.
Hay-stack, 119.
Head, iii.
Heath, 218-221.
Heche, 102.
Hell, 162.
Highland, 182.
Hog-back, 119.
Hole, 81, 189.
Hollow, 135.
Hope, 169.
Horn, 115.
Horse-back, 120.

Ice-gulf, 158.
Interval, 231.
Intervale, 231.

JoCH, 140.

Kamm, 112.

Kette, 87.
Kettle, 171.
Knob, 106.
Knock, 107.
Knoll, 107.
Knot, 107.

Kofel, no.
Kogel, III.
Kopf, no.

Lande, 222.
Llano, 192, 193.
Logan, 127.
Loma, loi.
Lomeria, loi.
Lomita, loi.

Marsh, 222, 223.
Meal, 215.
Mesa, 182.
Meseta, 182.
Montana, 99.
Montafiuelo, 99.
Monte, 99.
Monument, 126.
Moor, 208-210.
Morass, 209.
Moss, 222, 223.
Mound, 109.
Mount, 91, 102.
Mountain, 91.

Neck, 136.
Needle, 117.
Notch, 135.

Oak Barren, 200.
Ocean, 80.
011a, 170.
Opening, 202.

Pampa, 192, 194.
Pap, 118.

238

INDEX.

Piramo, 195.
Park, 190, 191.
Parks, The, 191.
Paso, 136.
Pass, 135.
Passe, 136.
Pass-height, 134.
Peak, 93-95.
Pech, 97.
Pen, 102.
Pena, 97, 98, 100.
Penalara, 100.
Penaranda, 100.
Peiiasco, 98, 100.
Pene, 102.
Penol, 98, 100.
Penoleria, 98, 100.
Pefion, 98.
Peu, 97.
Piano, 178.
Pic, 93, 94.
Picacho, 100.
Pico, 93, 94, 100.
Pie, 97.
Pike, 94, 95.
Pine Barren, 200.
Pique, 94, 102.
Piquette, 94, 102.
Piz, 96.
Pizzo, 96.
Plain, 178.
Plaine, 178.
Plains, 176, 179, 189
Plateau, 180, i8t.
Plateau Region, 180.
Pocosin, 211.
Poey, 102.

Port, 136.
Portezuelo, 141.
Portillo, 136.
Pouy, 97, 102.
Poy, 97.

Prairie, 188, 189, 190.
Prairie States, 189.
Precipice, 121.
Puch, 97.
Pueche, 97.
Puffing-hole, 172.
Puig, 97.
Puna, 195, 196.
Purgatory, 160-162.
Puy, 97.

QUAIRAT, 102.

Quebrada, 152.
Queyras, 102.
Queyre, 102.
Quiebra, 152.

Range, Z^j^ 92.
Ravine, 149.
Reventazon, loi.
Reventon, loi.
Rocking-stone, 127.
Roque, 102.

Saddle-back, 117.
Saracen's-stone, 128.
Sarrat, 102.
Sarsen, 128.
Savane, 185, 186.
Savanna, 183-188.
Scar, 123.
Scaur, 123.

INDEX.

239

Scaw, 123.
Scree, 124.
Scrogg, 227, 229.
Scrub, 227-229.
Sea, 80, 81.
Sea-shore, 80.
Serra, 88.
Serrania, 99.
Serrano, 99.
Serrata, 99.
Serrated, 134.
Serre, 102.
Shrub, 227.
Sierra, 88, 99.
Slack, 139.
Slashes, 203.
Soum, 102.
Spit, 96.
Spitze, 96.
Spitzli, 96.
Spur, 113.

Steppe, 192, 193, 219.
Stickle, 95.
Strait, 81.
Sty, 137.
Sugar-loaf, 117.
Swale, 212.
Swamp, 210, 211.
Swirl, 138.
Swirrel, 138.

Swyre, 138.
System, 92.

Table, 181.
Table-land, 180.
Table-mountain, i{
Talus, 125.
Terrace, 182, 183.
Teton, 119.
Todi, 108.
Tooth, 116.
Tor, 126, 127.
Tower, 126.
Tundra, 199.
Tuque, 102.
Tuquet, 102.

Vale, 131.
Valle, 133.
Valley, 129-131.
Vigne, 102.

Wash, 125.
Water-gap, 135.
Water-shed, 141.
Weald, 213.
Wealden, 213.
Wind-gap, 135.
Wold, 216-218.

Yoke, 140.

University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.

C 12 88