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    Thus , the Southern and Western territories are overrun with VUles . But in the Western part of the State of New York there is a great variety in the nomenclature . Some few of the remarkable and noble-sounding Indian names , indicative of localities , have been preserved , but for the most part they have been exterminated ., to make room for others , which in the opinion of

    gentlemen like Mr . Zerobbabel L . Hoskins , sounded more sweetly in the mouth , like volcano ; ' and which might moreover look well on the outside of a letter . On taking up the map of York State , we are somewhat surprised to find the names of classic cities and countries thickly planted . Troy , and Utica , and Rome , and Syracuse , and Skaneateles , and Schenectady , and Canajoharie ,

    and Peru , and Geneva , and Homer , and Ovid , are all to be found in strange contiguity with Rochester and a minor family of VUles . I once asked how the swarm of classic names happened to be collected , and was informed that the surveyor who laid out the lots for sale , understoood the science of land-measuring remarkably well , but , not being otherwise endowed , found himself at a loss for names for his localities . A classical

    dictionary happened to be at hand , and he christened them out of it . Had a Bible been at home they would all have been Christian or Hebrew names . A book of geography came in , towards the close , and helped out . The villes all indicate individual settlements , whose owners were anxious to immortalize their names , not always studying how ' sweet they might sound in the mouth . ' Troy is the most appropriately christened , for

    it is situated on a level spot of land , with a river in front , and a mount Ida at a short distance , on the top of which there is a kind of wind-mill looking building ,, for tea-drinking . The Spaniards , in Southern America , have rarely fallen into these absurdities . Almost all their names are indicative of localities , and they have

    mostly preserved the Indian names . There is to be sure a town of Asia , and a London ^ and a Bethlehem , and a Guadaloupe , and a Portugal , but such things are scarce . Even in the Pampas , where from the sameness of the locality there has been a difficulty of naming , they have given as few personal or accidental names as possible . The most absurd are , Tiger ' s Head , Three Crosses , Cane Cross , and Dead Friar- Most others indicate localities . Let it be not supposed that in the foregoing etymologies I profess any thing approaching to perfect accuracy . I am quite conscious that the process whereby I have arrived at such conclusions , requires to be verified in many ways , after a

    fashion , which profound learning only could accomplish . I am doubtless wrong in many derivations ; but my object is , to endeavour to make clear to the general reader , that there is high utility in etymology , a study which has been too commonly scofied at . Professing no learning , I can yet see the value of learning , and would wish , so far as possible , to awake in my readers the same

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    Proposal for a National College of Language . 389

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 389, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/29/