“Well, now let us set off to the Chimneys!” cried Pencroft.

“One minute, my friends,” said the engineer.  “It seems to me it would be a good thing to give a name to this island, as well as to, the capes, promontories, and watercourses, which we can see.

“Very good,” said the reporter.  “In the future, that will simplify the instructions which we shall have to give and follow.”

“Indeed,” said the sailor, “already it is something to be able to say where one is going, and where one has come from.  At least, it looks like somewhere.”

“The Chimneys, for example,” said Herbert.

“Exactly!” replied Pencroft.  “That name was the most convenient, and it came to me quite of myself.  Shall we keep the name of the Chimneys for our first encampment, captain?”

“Yes, Pencroft, since you have so christened it.”

“Good! as for the others, that will be easy,” returned the sailor, who was in high spirits.  “Let us give them names, as the Robinsons did, whose story Herbert has often read to me; Providence Bay, Whale Point, Cape Disappointment!”

“Or, rather, the names of Captain Harding,” said Herbert, “of Mr. Spilett, of Neb!—­”

“My name!” cried Neb, showing his sparkling white teeth.

“Why not?” replied Pencroft.  “Port Neb, that would do very well!  And Cape Gideon—­”

“I should prefer borrowing names from our country,” said the reporter, “which would remind us of America.”

“Yes, for the principal ones,” then said Cyrus Harding; “for those of the bays and seas, I admit it willingly.  We might give to that vast bay on the east the name of Union Bay, for example; to that large hollow on the south, Washington Bay; to the mountain upon which we are standing, that of Mount Franklin; to that lake which is extended under our eyes, that of Lake Grant; nothing could be better, my friends.  These names will recall our country, and those of the great citizens who have honored it; but for the rivers, gulfs, capes, and promontories, which we perceive from the top of this mountain, rather let us choose names which will recall their particular shape.  They will impress themselves better on our memory, and at the same time will be more practical.  The shape of the island is so strange that we shall not be troubled to imagine what it resembles.  As to the streams which we do not know as yet, in different parts of the forest which we shall explore later, the creeks which afterwards will he discovered, we can christen them as we find them.  What do you think, my friends?”

The engineer’s proposal was unanimously agreed to by his companions.  The island was spread out under their eyes like a map, and they had only to give names to all its angles and points.  Gideon Spilett would write them down, and the geographical nomenclature of the island would be definitely adopted.  First, they named the two bays and the mountain, Union Bay, Washington Bay, and Mount Franklin, as the engineer had suggested.