186                              ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA

legends, guided 'chiefly by accidental resemblances between words, grow
up to explain the origin of place-names whose real origin has been
forgotten. Europe is full of such {Antwerp, Mouse Tower on the
.Rhine, etc.). But every region even in a new country must supply
examples {Torme7itine, Midgic in New Brunswick), and they are com¬
mon among aboriginal peoples {Chignecto). Many of these stories, no
doubt, are manufactured originally with no more intention of deception
than fairytales or Santa Claus legends, while others probably have grown
by slight unconscious additions from different narrators. Such explana¬
tions alw^ays explain the name in its present form, and its history as
traced in documents often shows it to be very different. Sometimes,
however, tradition, and often would-be philologists, who can find no
explanation in the present language, and more or less conscious of the
great changes which names undergo; trace it back into another and fit
the explanation to it there {Shepody from Chapeau Dieu), or it is sup¬
posed to arise from some expression said to be often repeated (as
Ca7iada from the S]3anish Aca nada). Errors of these, of indeed of other
kinds, once introduced are repeated without investigation by one author
from another, especially in books of travel, etc., and often become
widely believed. There is probably no subject in which there is wilder
theorizing or more desire to upset received explanations than in this
division of philology. For later events, however, tradition has its value,
but always must be used with caution.

It will be possible, I think, in time, for philologists to work out for
the investigation of place-names a series not only of principles but of
laws, which would be of the widest applicability and greatest usefulness.

PART II.

The Historical Development of the Place-nomenclature op
New Brunswick.

While the place-nomenclature of New Brunswick, like that of other
new countries, lacks the charm and polish of antiquity, it has with them
the advantage that its history is largely preserved in documents, and over
many of them the advantage that the languages of its native tribes are
still spoken. The history of its development, therefore, falls into periods
answering exactly to the periods of its general history which for New
Brunswick are as follows :

1.   The Indian Period.

2.   The Period of Exploration, the Norsemen to Champlain, 1000-1604.

3.   The French Period, 1605-1760.

4.  The New England Period, 1760-1783.

5.  The Loyalist Period, 1783-1790.

6.  The Post-Loyalist Period, 1790-1896.

7.  Present and Future.