Abstract
WE did not intend our remarks on nomenclature to be strictural, and we certainly offered no suggestions, summary or otherwise. We only pointed out some of the inconsistencies inevitable when place-names are not transliterated upon a definite system. The fact that the Caucasian place-names are derived from various languages had not been overlooked; but the rules laid down by the R. G. S. Committee, to which Mr. Freshfield refers, admit the principle in such cases of accepting the spelling of a standard national gazetteer or of official survey maps. Such a method may be philogically defective, but it is geographically convenient. Would Mr. Freshfield recommend a foreign geographer, writing about England, to abandon the recognised names in favour of the forms which may be used locally? To ignore the official spelling in many parts of the Russian Asiatic dominions would be to render the revision of place-names, to use Mr. Freshfield's term, a “recurrent” difficulty, for the people are nomadic, and names come and go like fashions. There is probably no place for which a stronger case could be made out in favour of adopting the spelling of the official maps. We did not imply that the French method should be adopted in England; what we said was that, owing to the variations adopted by Mr. Freshfield, sometimes avowedly for the sake of appearances, it was difficult to find his names in Fournier's map. We did not quote Fournier as a geographical authority. In regard to the two Russian authors to whom we referred, we remarked the absence of reference to their technical papers, instead of to those of general Western compilers, for information respecting the Caucasian glaciers.
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G., J. The Caucasus. Nature 55, 535 (1897). https://doi.org/10.1038/055535b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/055535b0
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