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THE AI>AI KiloKll (iHOUP 145
man cluinges his name on taking a peerage late in life. Smaller
grievances seem to me hardly worth talking
aro-uinof over.
about, much less
Before I Usive this embarrassing and unsatisfactory subject I
ought, perhaps, to define further m}- own |iiisiti(in, and tlir principle
on which I have acted. It must not be assumed, because I have
acquiesced, except in a few instances, in the decisions of the Sur-
veyors, that I accept the place-names inserted on their new maj)s as
the most suitable or accurate that might have been chosen. No doubt,
as a rule, names travel upwards ;
a glacier is called after the valley
or pasture at its base, and hands on its name to the ridg(>s or peaks
above it. When Tyndall hrst wrote, Monte Rosa was kn(i\\n at
Zermatt as the (jornerhorn. But the Russians have carried this
practice much too far, esjjecially on the Upper Baksan. Again,
their names appear in many instances to be arbitrarily imposed, and
not to correspond with local usage. This discrepancy is not uncommon
when the language of a country is foreign to its officials.
It is con.spicuous in the Austrian maps of the Trentino. Tn that
district, geographers and the pt^ople of the country have agreed to
accept the majority of the mountain names imported by
travellers or
map-makers. Despite objections, the weight of which I recogni.se,
I believe that in the Caucasus a similar course will be found to be
attended with fewer practical incdiivenencics than any other, and
I have therefore o-enerallv adopted it.
VOL. I K