Los Angeles herald., 1891-01-11
GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.
A Commission to Reform the Spelling
Thereof,

A Commission to Reform the Spelling
Thereof
The United States government has ap-
pointed commission to revise and re-
form the spelling of geographical names.
The secretary Of the board is Lieutenant
Richardson Clover, who will be remem-
bered in Los Angeles as having visited
this city with the senatorial committee
that came to the state some years ago
to bury Senator Miller Clover married
General Miller's daughter.
The board has already issued its
first bulletin, giving long list of
names whose spelling has been
revised. Many of these will be
of interest here; none more so than the
spelling of the sea over which there is
so much dispute about the seal fisheries.
This committee decides that the word
is to be spelled "Bering." Here is the
article referring to the matter:
The great arm of the North Pacific
ocean lying between Alaska and Siberia
is called on very old. map the Mer
d'Ormante, and on another the Sleepy
sea, but otherwise has borne in general
two names, viz: Sea of Kamshatka and
Bering sea. The spelling of each of
these names has been various. The
older name, Sea of Kamshatka, dates
from the latter part of the seventeenth
century, and is derived from the PEN
insula Of the same name. This penin-
sula, first made known to the Russians
through COSsack reports, received
from the. Russians the name Kau-
mamka, q supposed Russian rendering
of the native name of the coun-
try. The meaning OF this word is not
known. The fourth letter in this Rus
sian word, m, is usually rendered in
English by the combination tsch. In
transliterating it, the practice has not
been uniform. In consequence, the
name will be found spelled Kamchatka,
Kamshatka, Kamschatka, Kamtschatka,
Kamshatska, etc.
This old name, Sea of Kamshatka,
under some one of its variant forms, is
nearly or quite obsolete, having been
supplanted by the term Bering sea.
This in its turn has been variously writ
ten Behring sea, Bhering sea, Beering
sea, Bering sea, as we'll as Behring's sea,
Behring'S sea, etc.
This name was given to the sea in
honor OF its first explorer. Similarly
the strait which connects it with the
Arctic ocean, an island in the sea, and
a bay on the northwest coast of America
have received the name Bering.
When the czar, Peter the Great, de-
termined to send out an exploring ex-
pedition to ascertain whether Asia and
America were united by land, he selected
to lead this expedition Captain Com
mander Ivan Ivanovich Bering. Bering
was the son of Jonas Svendsen by his
second wife, Anne Pedersdatter Bering,
and was born at HOrsens, in Jutland, in
the summer of 1881. On his mothers
side he was descended from the distin-
guished Bering family, which during
the seventeenth and eighteenth CEN
turies hourished in various parts of
Denmark, and included a number of
ministers and judicial officers. Bap-
tized on the 18th OF August, 1881, he
received the baptismal name, Vitus
Russian navy, however, he took, as was
the custom Of the Danish and Norwegian
officers serving in Russia, new or Rus
sianized form of name. This form ia
Ivan 1vanovich Bering. The name
Ivanovich is an exact translation of
Jonassen in English, Johnson or Johns
son. All the Russian and. Danish rec
ords agree as to the spelling of the fam
lily name; both in Danish and in Rus
sian it is Bering. His autograph is al
ways written Bering.
The insertion ofan h in the name,
giving the form Behring, appears to
have been made in Germany.
In 1748 was published Harris's Collec-
tion Of Voyages, in two folio volumes.
In the second volume, pages 1016-lO41,
is contained "a distinct account of part
of the northeast frontier of the Russian
empire, commonly called the country of
Kamschatka or kamschatska, including
the voyages of Captain Behring for dis
covering toward the east, ETC., collected
from the best authorities, both printed
and manuscript" This account was
prepared by Dr. Campbell, who made
use of the form Behring.s From this it
may be inferred, as pointed out by Mr..
VIM. HI. Dali, that DR.. Campbell did not
have access to original documents, but
got his material from German sources
or from German translations of the
original. As Harris's Voyages is an
elaborate work, long accepted as
a standard, the use of the form
Behrings gained wide adoption among
English speaking people. That the
form Bering should be adopted, how
ever, appears, l, because it is the form
alwags used by Bering himself, by his
ancestors for Eve generations ut least,
and by his descendants 2. because it is
the form almost, though not quite, uni
versally adopted in all nom English
works, and 5, because even in English
works it is gradually superseding the
form Of Behring.
On this subject see note by DR.. T. N.
Gill in report upon the condition Of
af7ai.s IN : Alaska, by H. w.