Cave Naming

Introduction
Purposes for naming
Recommendations
Procedural guidelines
Naming guidelines
References

Introduction

Increasing concern with nomenclature should stem from a number of causes. Clearly as the number of cavers, clubs and caves has grown in recent years there is an increasing likelihood of duplication of names and conflicts about naming. Many of these problems have surfaced recently as a result of the cave documentation required for the compilation of the cave index. In fact, the publication of the index should play an important role in rationalising nomenclature. For example, such a computerized index can readily be used to provide alphabetical lists of cave names (both approved and suggested) for each State so that the duplication of names can be avoided.

As any member of a nomenclature body can testify the average person is not particularly original when it comes to proposing new names. The same applies to caves and karst features, e.g. Bone Cave, Main Cave, Bat Cave, Cathedral, etc.

In Australia the official naming of natural features (and many man-made ones) is the responsibility of the individual State governments. Hence, in every State there is a government appointed board or committee to deal with nomenclature problems and to make decisions on names.

In Tasmania, the State with which I am most familiar, this is the task of the Nomenclature Board of Tasmania which was set up in 1950 as an Advisory Board to assist the Surveyor-General on matters of nomenclature. It was formally recognized in 1953 and established on a permanent basis by an amendment to the Survey Co-ordination Act. The board consists of a number of representatives from various government departments together with four outside members appointed by the Minister of the Lands Department.

In Queensland the Queensland Place Names Board was established in 1958 as the official naming authority. It also consists of representatives of government departments together with outside members from several boards and learned societies as well as two members nominated by the Senate of the University of Queensland. I am not familiar at this stage with the situation in other States.

If names of caves and other features are to be officially recognized it is important for speleologists to be aware of the rules of nomenclature that are generally accepted by such boards and to abide by them when new names are proposed. It is also important that there should be channels of communication between speleologists on the one hand and nomenclature bodies on the other. In States where there is more than one speleological society such contacts are best maintained by State liaison councils. In States where no such council exists the State Karst Index Co-ordinator is at present the obvious person to fill the function of communication between speleologists and nomenclature bodies.

I am very grateful to Greg Middleton, Elery Hamilton-Smith and Peter Matthews who made numerous valuable contributions which have been taken into account in the Guidelines. I also received comments from my fellow members on the Nomenclature Board of Tasmania and from the Blue Mountains Speleological Society.

Purposes for Naming

The naming of natural features serves several purposes.

1.

Identification. A name provides a means of identification which serves to distinguish a feature from all other features. The more widely known the name, the better the purpose is served but also the more difficult it becomes to substitute another name. Identification does not require a name. The purpose is also served by an identification system of codes usually consisting of combinations of numbers and letters. Such a system has grown up piecemeal in Australia and was formalized by Matthews (1974) as a requirement for cave documentation. An important and well-known cave system is much more readily identified by a name than by a number (e.g. JF-4 - Khazad dum, etc.). On the other hand small caves of little or no significance are much better left un-named to prevent undue proliferation of names.

2.

Description. A good name often embodies an element of description. Triviality in naming should be avoided. Names suggested by some peculiarity or outstanding attribute of the feature to be named are generally acceptable. Even names such as Croesus Cave and Kubla Khan are in a sense descriptive as they hint at the richness of formations found in these caves.

3.

Commemoration. Names may commemorate historical events or a prominent person. In caving, historical events are not necessarily remote in time as most of the country's caves have been explored in the last thirty years, e.g. Rescue Pot in the Junee Florentine area commemorates the rescue of two novice cavers who came to grief here in 1968. Names such as Good Friday Cave (S.A.) and Easter Cave (W.A.) are other examples of commemoration.

Names of prominent persons still living are generally acceptable to official nomenclature boards only if the features are names after royalty or representatives of royalty (e.g. in Australia a State governor or governor-general). Politicians most definitely do not come into this category.

Recommendations

We must consider two sets of guidelines. The first set is concerned with the procedures which ASF should consider adopting in order to formalize naming of caves and related features and to provide formal communication channels with the appropriate State and federal statutory authorities for geographical nomenclature. These will be referred to as procedural guidelines. The second set of guidelines is concerned with the actual naming process and is designed to ensure that new names will be generally acceptable if the need should arise to submit them for formal approval. They will be referred to as naming guidelines.

Procedural Guidelines

1.

Speleological societies in each State and territory should establish formal procedural bodies for the naming of caves and karst features and the recording of existing names together with adequate descriptive and locational details. Such bodies should also have the task of maintaining liaison with the ASF Documentation Convenor and with the relevant State and federal nomenclature boards.

Comment: Where State co-ordination councils exist as in N.S.W. they could take on this responsibility. In States where more than one society exists but where there is no co-ordinating council, a representative inter-society organisation should be established. In States with a single caving society, that society should take the responsibility.

2.

The ASF Karst Index should be regarded as the standard reference on the nomenclature of caves and karst features unless the entry indicates that a particular name has not been accepted or is not generally acceptable.

3.

Individuals, societies and nomenclature bodies associated with the ASF should do all within their power to limit the submission of names to official naming bodies to the minimum necessary for the sake of cave conservation.

Comment: Official acceptance of a name will inevitably result in its publication in Government Gazettes with grid references indicating its location. Once approved, names may be indicated on official maps.

Naming Guidelines

The following set of naming guidelines were developed from the following sources: Anon (1968), Wilcock (1968), Hamilton-Smith (1967) and Middleton (1978), together with comments from a number of individuals.

1.

Persons assigning names to caves, cave features or cave related features should try to be descriptive, constructive and original in their choice of names.

2.

New names should be used or published only where the location and nature of the feature have been accurately recorded in society records.

Comment: All too often in the past, names have been approved without adequate descriptive and location data. This causes lasting problems if a cave is subsequently 'lost' - a not uncommon happening in the dense Tasmanian bush or the wide expanse of the Nullarbor. When rediscovered years later, the identity of such a cave may be almost impossible to establish with certainty.

3.

The same name should not be assigned to more than one feature, particularly in the same region. Where duplication is discovered it may constitute adequate grounds for changing one of the names.

Comment: See Comment after Rule 18.

4.

It is preferable to create a new name for an un-named feature rather than to adapt an existing name of a nearby feature by addition of 'north', 'south', 'central', 'no. 2', etc.

Comment: A particulary bad example of this practice is found in the Mole Creek area of Tasmania where we have Honeycomb 1, Honeycomb 1 1/2, Honeycomb 2 and Honeycomb 3. Less extreme examples can be found in most States.

5.

A name should be concise, euphonious and not such as might give offence.

Comment: This may rule out some apt and witty names. Names such as Lillians Rift and Devils Earhole (Mole Creek) sail close to the wind and a name such as Sharlands Organ (a formation in Kubla Khan, Mole Creek) is definitely not acceptable to any nomenclature body - even allowing for a sense of humour.

6.

Names should not be applied to trivial or insignificant features.

Comment: If in doubt err on the safe side. It is easier to apply a name at a later stage than have to withdraw a name applied in haste.

7.

Names should not be applied to trivial or insignificant features.

Comment: If in doubt err on the safe side. It is easier to apply a name at a later stage than have to withdraw a name applied in haste.

8.

Caves should not be named after living persons unless in very exceptional circumstances. On no account should a cave be named after a caver or speleologist during his or her lifetime.

Comment: In recent years a number of caves at Colong in N.S.W. and along the Gordon and Franklin Rivers in Western Tasmania have been named after contemporary State and federal politicians. I am personally strongly opposed to this practice which I believe to be a means of attracting cheap publicity for the cause of conservation which might be better served by a proper evaluation of the scenic, sporting and scientific values of the caves and limestone areas concerned. However, the viewpoint has been put to me by one well known caver that the phrase 'exceptional circumstances' in the above guideline should include the possibility of "the naming of a cave which is in imminent danger of destruction after a politician who could act to save it, so as to draw public attention to the cave's existence".

If the above guideline is accepted, ASF will have to interpret the term 'exceptional circumstances' in relation to this practice.

9.

Caves should be named after deceased persons only when they have made some major contribution to the community or have some link with the cave or area or have played a significant part in exploring, conserving or researching a particular cave or area.

Comment: In Australia, features with personal names are often given the name of the person to whom the original grant of the land on which the feature occurs was made.

10.

Where features are named after persons, it is customary not to involve the use of both Christian and surname or a combination of the two.

11.

Where personal names are used, the possessive 's' is omitted unless this destroys the euphony or descriptive application of the name. If the possessive 's' is used, the apostrophe should be omitted, e.g. Scotts Cave not Scott's Cave.

12.

Use of hyphens should be avoided in new names.

13.

Names composed of a large number of words should be avoided.

Comment: An official nomenclature body might take a dim view of a name such as 'Tower of London Cave' at Chillagoe, Queensland, although they would probably approve it if it were well established. 'The Cave with the Thing that went Thump' at Mt. Etna would definitely not be approved.

14.

Combinations of unrelated words, anagrams or words which are too close in spelling or phonetics, should not be used.

Comment: At Mole Creek, Tasmania, three originally separate caves were subsequently linked by further exploration. The combined system has been referred to as the Spider-Pyramid-Cow System by combining the three names. In this particular case such a combination groups unrelated names and seems undesirable.

15.

Long and difficult aboriginal, botanic or scientific names are best avoided. If an aboriginal name is used, it should be in the language or dialect appropriate to the region and should follow the standard spellings now in use by aboriginal linguists.

16.

Corrupted or modified names should not be used unless such forms are well established by local usage.

17.

Names that can be construed as advertising a particular commercial or industrial enterprise are not acceptable.

18.

If more than one name is available for a cave or feature, the historically earliest name should be accepted unless either (a) another name is well established in local usage or (b) a change has to be made to eliminate confusion.

Comment: An example of (b) is Federal Cave at Murrindal, the name of which was changed to Anticline Cave to eliminate confusion with Federal Cave at Buchan, only a short distance away.

19.

Changing an already accepted name should be avoided unless there are very compelling reasons for doing so. Where an existing name has been used in a scientific description, e.g. to name a geological formation or as the type locality of a new species of cave fauna, the name should never be assigned to any other feature.

20.

Where two or more caves, originally thought to be physically separate, are subsequently connected the use of different names for parts of the linked system should preferably be discontinued.

Comment: In the naming of caves a problem often arises in that two or more caves, regarded as distinct and named as such, may subsequently be linked to one another by further exploration. One possible solution would be to assign the name of the longest component cave to the whole of the system unless there are compelling reasons for not doing so, e.g. if one of the smaller components is a type site for geological or biological description.

References

Anon 1968. Rules of Orthography and Nomenclature: Nomenclature Board of Tasmania. Adopted at Meeting No. 132 (15th February, 1968), 2pp.
Hamilton-Smith, E. 1967. The Nomenclature of Australian Caves (Report of the Committee on Cave Nomenclature of the Australian Speleological Federation). ASF Newsletter 38:3-5.
Matthews, P. 1974. Handbook Commission Circular (April, 1974), Australian Speleological Federation.
Middleton, G. 1978. Guidelines for naming caves and cave features. Speleo Spiel 135:5-8.
Wilcock, A.A. 1968. 'Geographical Nomenclature' in Matthews, P. (Ed.) Speleo Handbook (First Edition) p67-69. Australian Speleological Federation.   Copyright © 1968, 1979, 1985, 1997 Australian Speleological Federation Inc.