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"Once the land stretched away without names. Nameless headlands split the surf ; nameless lakes reflected nameless mountains ; and nameless rivers flowed through nameless valleys into nameless bays. Men came at last, tribe following tribe, speaking different languages and thinking different thoughts. According to their ways of speech and thought they gave names, and in their generations laid their bones by the streams and hills they had named. But even when tribes and languages had vanished, some of those old names, reshaped, still lived in the speech of those who followed." G. R. Stewart, Names on the Land. 'New York', 1945. These are the words which open a general survey of place-names in the United States of America. Although they are used of the New World, they are, as they stand, also applicable to Europe. |
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