FRANCISCOUNTWAY Pronunciation of the Names OF NEARLY ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PLACES. HML WITH THE MOST RECENT AND AUTHENTIC INFORMATION RESPECTING THE IN EVERY PORTION OF THE GLOBE. INCLUDING THE LATEST AND MOST RELIABLE STATISTICS OF POPULATION, COMMERCE, ETC. ALSO, A COMPLETE ETYMOLOGICAL VOCABULARY OF GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES, AND MANY 41213 Wene 20 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1855, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of PREFACE. THE recently increased facilities for travel, and the unexampled extension of commercial relations, which, within a few years, have been established between the remotest portions of the globe, give at the present time an extraordinary interest and importance to every thing relating to the science of Geography. Hence, a Geographical Dictionary-a work to which the reader may refer, not merely to ascertain the position of any place he may be in search of, but also, if occasion require, to inform himself of its advantages as a place of residence, or of its importance as a centre of commerce or manufactures-becomes a desideratum— almost a necessity-to every intelligent person. The value of a work of this class, it is obvious, must depend entirely-first, on the fulness and accuracy of the information which it contains, and secondly, upon the facility of reference, or, in other words, upon the convenience with which the information sought for may be obtained. In both of these respects the present Gazetteer will be found, it is believed, far superior to every other. In preparing this work, it has been the aim of the editors not merely to supply the more obvious deficiencies of previous gazetteers, but, if possible, to produce a geographical dictionary as comprehensive in its plan, as perfect in its arrangement, and as complete and accurate in its execution, as the best dictionary of the English language. With this object, they have used, as the basis of their work, the best and most recent of the English gazetteers, two of which are conspicuous for their superiority over all other works of this class that have yet appeared-JoHNSTON'S GEOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY, and the IMPERIAL GAZETTEER. The former has the merit of great completeness, as well as extraordinary general accuracy; and—what is no small praise-to almost every article is given a space and prominence very nearly proportioned to its real importance. On the other hand, the Imperial GazettEER possesses the great advantage of being not only far more extensive, but more recent by several years: we should hazard little in saying that since the publication of Malte Brun's great work, there has been no single contribution to geography of anything like equal importance, whether we regard the amount of valuable and original matter contained, or the eminent ability with which most of the important articles have been written. While freely and cordially acknowledging our great obligations to the above works, we may remark that the present gazetteer will be found to embody, it is believed, whatever is most valuable in both, and, at the same time, to comprise a vast amount of important matter not contained in either, but derived from a great variety of sources, including publications in all the principal European languages. In regard to the number of names, it may observed that our work contains about two and a half times as many as the IMPERIAL Gazetteer, and more than twice as many names and nearly three times as much matter as JOHNSTON'S GEOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. be In regard to every thing that relates to our own country, the GAZETTEER OF THE UNITED STATES, by the editors of the present volume, has been adopted as the principal authority. It is, however, important to observe, that, in the preparation of this work, the Gazetteer |