3 Review(s)

A Gazetteer is the end-product of back-breaking search for nuggets of information, aggregating as well as arranging them in a prescribed order so as to be used both as a necessary tool of modern administration and for further advancement of knowledge. The first edition of Lippincott’s Gazetteer was published in the year 1855. The edition that has been re-published as the present volume pertains to 1906 and claims to contain “the most recent and authentic information respecting the countries, cities, towns, resorts, islands, rivers, mountains, seas lakes, etc., in every portion of the globe”. It highlights the fact that “dead matter” has been squeezed out to a considerable extent and replaced by new information that had been gathered in the half century that had passed since the publication of first edition. The Gazetteer made available for the first time to the world a view of the Planet Earth as presented by the thick brush of the mural painter. Only the details had to be filled in by explorers in later years. It may also be noted that this publication is a “pronouncing gazetteer”. Very much more elaborate systems of depicting pronunciation have been evolved since then. But for those who are not students of phonetics and are not interested in finer nuances, the system evolved by Joseph Thomas, the author of Lippincott’s Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, and as modified by the Heilprins for purposes of this edition appears to be quite adequate.