In our own country the territory of Alaska needs special attention in regard to settling the orthography of its geographic names of Russian origin. Russian names have always been more or less of a bugbear in geographic literature, since so great a number of them appear in different forms. The difficulties of transcribing Russian names so as to reproduce the correct pronunciation are well enough understood. In the first place the Russian alphabet contains 36 letters, of which 12 are vowels and diphthongs, 3 are semi-vowels, and the balance, consonants. In this alphabet, there are 12 elements which have no exact equivalents in the English alphabet, and, on the other hand, there are 4 English sounds (_j_, _w_, _x_ and _h_) not represented in the Russian alphabet. Hence, whatever system is employed, we can only hope to give the pronunciation approximately. Many of the Russian names found to-day in English and American maps and publications show, by the way in which they are rendered, an utter absence of knowledge of the grammatical construction of Russian on the part of those who originally transcribed them. There are few other languages in which case and gender play such an important part in the terminal inflections of proper names as in this great Slavonic idiom. Any one not conversant with the Russian declensions should not, therefore, attempt to transcribe Russian geographic names into English, as he will be sure to blunder. On Russian maps, for instance; Behring Strait reads, "Beringov Proliv;" Behring Sea, "Beringovo More;" Kamchatka Bay, "Zaliv Kamchatkii;" Herald Island, "Ostrova Gheralda;" etc. By the by, I cannot exactly understand why the spelling of the name of _Behring_ should, within the last few years, have been changed on American and English maps to _Bering_. The navigator of this name, _Veit Behring_, was a native of Germany, in the service of Russia, and it is safe to say that his name contained the letter _h_. Naturally, in transcribing his name into Russian, the _h_ had to drop out, as that letter is missing in the Russian alphabet. The excellent system of transcribing Russian names into English, published in a recent number of _Nature_[1] having already been accepted by English and American representatives of various scientific institutions, it is greatly to be desired that English and American geographic societies should express their views of it at an early day. The system is easily brought in harmony with the general principles adopted by the Royal Geographical Society, by a simple declaration in regard to the diacritical marks by which, mainly for the purpose of facilitating correct re-transliteration of Russian names, the vowels _i_, _i_ [with macron], _i_ [with breve], _e_ and _é_ and the silent semi-vowels are sought to be distinguished in the written names. For the benefit of those unacquainted with the system of transliterating Russian, published in _Nature_, it is reprinted at the close of this paper.