The old Spanish explorers followed these rules largely in their geographic nomenclature, and although "Saint" and "Sierra" occur with alarming frequency, there is always some reason for the appellation; either they saw a line of peaks cut the horizon or the christening occurred on the natal day of the holy martyr. "Rio Dolores" and "Las Animas" are certainly better than "Sorrow Creek" or "Soul Wash," and even "Purgatoire"--though the Colorado cow-boy corrupts it into "Picket Wire"--is better than "Cottonwood Creek." Some Indian names are very expressive, characterizing topographic features. In northern Arizona is a steep volcanic neck or needle, its sharp sides rising in one step twelve hundred feet above the surrounding country. From the base of this pinnacle, two long lava dykes stretch on either hand in a gentle curve across the mesa. The resemblance to the spreading wings of a bird is striking, and the Navajo Indian calls the rock "A-ga-thla"--the "Flying Bird." A name well worthy, it seems to me, of being placed on the maps of that region, as it is on the one I hold in my hand. But on the same map, close along side, is "Te-ze-ba-a-kit Lake," a barbarous appellation--unspellable, unpronounceable and unlovely. Nor can I say less in denunciation of "Zilh-le-ji-ni Mesa"--a name that needs intimate acquaintance with wigwam smoke and Navajo gutturals to handle lingually. But what shall we say of "Boo-koo-dot-klish Cañon;" the Navajo name for what the white man calls with better propriety, it seems to me, for our maps, "Bluestone Wash." "To-go-hol-tas-e Spring" could hardly be worse in English. And here is "Sa-hot-soid-be-azh-e Cañon" (pronounce it as you please or can) sandwiched between "Gothic Wash" and "Gypsum Valley"--one hardly knows which to prefer, Indian or English. "Cañon del Muerto"--the Cañon of the Dead--so named from the discovery of mummified or rather dessicated Indian bodies in its cliffs--seems very appropriate, but its brother cañon--"Cañon de Chelly," pronounced Cañon de Shay, will be neither spoken nor written correctly. On this same map are shown two small mesas, crowned with forests and standing beautiful and symmetric in the landscape. They attract attention at once and the Indian, with a fine sense of appropriateness, names them "Son-sa-la"--the "Twin Stars"; another name well worthy of being retained. Some patriotic American has named the deep gorge separating the "Stars" "Washington Pass," a good example of the right name in a wrong place. The sense of broad humor that often characterizes the Indian leads him to sometimes give the inquirer a name expressive of contempt or bearing a meaning hardly translatable to ears polite--"Nic-doit-so-e Peak" is an example--and I confess, with considerable humiliation, that I was the victim in this case. I present these instances, Mr. Chairman, to emphasize the necessity of adopting some guiding principles to aid us in the selection of geographic names. APPENDIX.