CONTENTS.
Korea and the Koreans: Ensign J. B. Bernadou, U. S. N.
(Illustrated with three maps.)
The Ordnance Survey of Great Britain—its history andobject: Josiah Pierce, Jr.
Geographic Nomenclature: Herbert G. Ogden, Gustave Herrle, MarcusBaker and A. H. Thompson
APPENDIX: Rules for the Orthography of GeographicNames: Contributed by G. Herrle.
Published, AUGUST, 1890.
THE
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE.
KOREA AND THE KOREANS.
(Abstract of lecture, with the addition of some new material.)
The Koreans are to be noted among nations for the possession of twovery different vehicles for the expression of thought, which they putto nearly parallel uses for general needs of communication: a simpleand very perfect alphabet, and a complex system of hieroglyphics. Thealphabet they owe to the Buddhist priests, missionaries, who took theidea of letters from their sacred books, and developed the Koreansymbols for the writing of tracts and prayers; the hieroglyphics camefrom the mother country and civilizer, China.
The needs of a simpler mode of writing for the intelligent,non-literary classes of Japan, had led in that country to a similardevelopment; but there progress stopped at a syllabary, and thealphabetic stage was not reached.
Until within the past few years the development of accurate maps andcharts of Korea has been retarded, partly from a lack of reliableinformation concerning Korean proper names, and partly from theabsence of systematic surveys of the coast. Very recently, however,the difficulties of map making have been considerably lessened throughthe efforts of students of the Korean language, who have developedexact systems of transliteration, by the application of which thesounds of Korean proper names may be correctly expressed in our ownletters. At the present day it would seem possible, therefore, to fix,by common consent, upon a general, systematic orthography for Koreanproper names, to be used upon the charts prepared by all those nationsemploying Roman letters; and this without serious danger of clashingwith previously developed national systems, or having to undo muchwork done by others.
The system of transliteration developed by Mr. E. M. Satow, of theBritish Diplomatic Service, which has been put to practical use bythat gentleman in his work entitled "List of Korean GeographicalNames,