PLACE NAMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 171, 22 July 1933, Page 10

PLACE NAMES.

WORK IN CANTERBURY) CHARACTER OF MOUNTAINS, CITIZENS COMMEMORATED. Choosing a name for a place—a. mountain peak, a pass, or any other natural feature —is about as difiicult a task as naming a baby. The similarity of the two problems may be only partial, but Tor each of them many rival claims have to be considered, and what seems right now may appear to bes utterly unsuitable in 20 years' time. To make sure that no new place names are given without due thought, and to provide a central body to give official recognition to them, is the function of the Honorary Geographic Board. In Canterbury, states the "Frees," the board's work is mainly concerned with, the naming of hitherto unnamed mountains, for there is little likelihood of new settlements being established, or of new coastal features requiring a name, although even now there io some duplication with names in other parts of the Dominion. An incomplete list of such names in Canterbury includes Fernside, Flea Bay (Akaroa), Hillsborough, Hikurangi, Kaikoura Island, Kaituna, Karaka Bay, Magnet Bay, Mount Stewart, Waimate, Waihi, Saltwater Creek, Motunau Island, the Ninepins and Robin Hood Bay. Vivid and Poetic Names. General opinion favours as the best names those that combine vivid description, which may help recognition, with a touch of poetic vision. Such names as Aspiring, Silberhorn, the Minarets, Proud Peak, Isolation, the Lookers On, the Remarkables, and Acolyte (a subsidiary peak), coukl scarcely be bettered, and have each a strongly sidividual quality. Description alone is yery effective. Rotten Tommy is merely the end of the Mount Cook range opposite the Hermitage, but the name has a tang of its own, and fittingly describes the tumbledown mass with its loose scree slopes. Then there are the Thumbs, Jumbletop, Split Open (Mathias region), Bastion Ridge, Cornerpost, the Amazon's Breasts (two snowy domes, one smaller than the other, in the Rakaia region), and the White Pyramid.

Poetical names are pleasing, provided they arc not too far-fetched. Many of the best of these were given in Otago, and others by West Coast surveyors. They include Stargazer, Moonraker, the Sapphire and Radiant glaciers, Full Moon Pass, and Our Lady of the Snows (Milford region). Classical names have been used to cffect in Somnus, Nox, and Chaos, and in Hydra Creek for a manyheaded stream. Many names have been given in annoyance, the best example being the B'Limit Peak at Arthur's Pass. At tho Pass also, a party of climbers, having pone astray in their attempt to reach Mount Gizeh, as they had intended, ended up on April 1 on a very minor mountain, which they named April Fool's Peak. However, the Geographic Board rejected the name and the peak was called Mottram, after a pioneer surveyor. Another peak, in Otago, was called Headlong, commemorating a mishap to a mcmbcrc of a climbing party. Naming mountains after persons can easily result in something meaningless and inappropriate. Names like Cook or Tasman have universal and lasting meaning, but the same qualities do not adhere to many of the other personal names that have been given, especially when 1 the persons concerned have had no interI est in the mountains. The names of many New Xealandcrs who were prominent in former times arc preserved in the mountains—as, for example, Ballance, Bryee, and Stout, while explorers and scientists include Dobson, Haast, Jollie, and llutton. Samuel Butler's name is attached to a comparatively minor peak, so recent parties have given tho name Ercwhon to a col at the head of tho Ramsay glacier. Though the names of both the present political leaders of the country appear in the mountains, the name Forbes was really given long ago, not for the prevent Prime Minister, but for a scientist who did pioneering work in the study of glacial movement. The newly-named Mount Coates appears in hnppy juxtaposition with Mount Forbes, but this is llie result of,, an accident. Enthusiasm for the work of there leader has prompted many climbing parties with a desire to record his name on a new peak, but nine times out of ten the leader has exercised his authority to put a stop to any such proposals. Members of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club have followed the principle, in giving names, of commemorating the work of early climbers in any particular district, and, failing that, of describing the peaks.