[Geysers] place names on historic maps

[Lee_Whittlesey at nps.gov]

I'll try to respond to Scott's question, and it is a relevant one. The 1872
map of Shoshone Geyser Basin by Bechler was and is certainly a key map for
Yellowstone researchers. I remember "discovering" it in 1973 and thinking
that I had found some kind of missing link. I hadn't, of course, because
many researchers had used it before me, but I remember being excited to
learn that it was the first map ever drawn of that area.

I (and other names researchers) have considered names on early maps "good"
when 1) they were the first use of a name for a given feature; or 2) no
other name has ever replaced that one, whether in historical usage or
official USBGN usage.

For years, Rocco and I argued about this, and we finally came to the
conclusion together that a merely descriptive term (i.e. "Old Geyser" or
"Large Hot Spring" or "Boiling Spring" or "Hot Spring") we did not consider
to be a formal name, especially when we saw that term used several times on
the same map for different features.

One must also consider all sources. For example, in Peale's 1878 report,
you must compare all the MAPS, with all of the TABLES, with all of the
WRITTEN TEXT, with all of PEALE'S ORIGINAL NOTES IN THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES.

In general, one of my key methodologies in the Yellowstone place names
project was to try to find what I called the "EPA" (earliest publication
appearance) of a name and the "EU" (earliest usage) of a name. In most
cases, the EU would predate the EPA and would often appear in unpublished
journals and diaries, where in many cases it had come out of local verbal
usage not too much earlier. Often I would find a sudden spate of usage of a
name in one given year, and I could then pretty readily conclude that the
name came into usage that year and that it thus may have been given that
very year. What I most hoped for was to be able to track to the name to an
actual name-giver, although this was not always possible in sifting through
the mists of history.

By the way, there is a new edition of YELLOWSTONE PLACE NAMES at the
publisher now. It is a bigger book than the 1988 one, and it contains all
new historic photographs.

Lee Whittlesey
Historian




                                                                                                                                 
                      TSBryan at aol.com                                                                                            
                                               To:       geysers at wwc.edu, Lee_Whittlesey at nps.gov                                 
                      02/25/2006 12:47         cc:                                                                               
                      PM EST                   Subject:  Bechler map names                                                       
                                                                                                                                 




Thoughts while passing a winter day (brrr -- 83 degrees here today), in
reference to the small portion of the 1872 Bechler map of the "Fourth
Group" of the Lower Geyser Basin. My query is (and the reason for sending
this directly to Whittlesey, too): Do capitalized "names" on a map like
this constitute real names, or are they taken as being merely descriptive?

Part of my reason for asking this is that there are many cases in
Whittlesey's _Nomenclature_ where something is listed as a name because of
its appearance on a map (such as by Peale or Weed or etc.).

On Bechler's map we have:
Old Geyser and Large Hot Spring. Large Hot Spring clearly is Old Bath Lake
(=Tank Spring = The Tank = Ranger Pool). Old Geyser would be one of those
spring on the slope beyond The Tank (the name that I, ahem, personally
prefer). If I'd been making the map and if these were _not_ intended as
names, then I would have written them smaller and lower case.

On the map also are:
4 Sulphur Springs and 5 Minute Spouter. Are these numerical designations or
are they names? Do those mean "four sulphur springs" (purely descriptive),
"four Sulphur Springs" (semi-name), or "4. Sulphur Springs" (map
designation number for a named cluster of springs)? similarly, does the "5"
of "5 Minute Spouter" translate as "Five Minute Spouter" or, again, is it a
map designation (though in this case even just "Minute Spouter" comes
across to me as a name outright).

Whatever. Since I don't have it, I wonder what other "names" are on
Bechler's map.

Scott Bryan

(I still like Great Sky Blue Hot Spring, too.)