UNITED STATES BOARD ON GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.
Gazetteer No. 14: Geographic Names of Antarctica.
With a foreword by Meredith F. Burrill and a list of Expeditions by Kenneth J. Bertrand and Fred G. Alberts.
Perhaps prepared in advance of the 1957 International Geophysical Year, this publication is described as a revision of the May 1947 Geographical Names of Antarctica. In the intervening years, significant additional information and data had been collected to require an entirely new edition.
The Cold War looms in the background of the introduction, and the authors are at pains to reiterate Antarctica’s neutrality. This would not be formalised until the 1959 Antarctic Treaty: “Questions of political sovereignty have not entered into consideration of the name policy, or of individual names. This statement of non-political character of the geographic name policy and decisions is also applicable to all statements of this publication” (1).
The text which follows contains much about the history of Antarctic exploration, and its resultant toponyms.
