There has been much confusion of late years as to the names to be given to the two highest summits of this range, which stand respectively N. and S.W. of the Bocca di Brenta.

The old and very incorrect Government Map of Tyrol gives the name of Cima Tosa to the N. peak, and none to the S. and highest. Mr. Ball, the first mountaineer who explored this country, adhered, on his first visit, to the name given by the Survey to the N. peak, and to the S. gave the name of Cima di Brenta or Brenta Alta. Lieutenant Payer followed Mr. Ball's example in his article on the Bocca di Brenta in the fifth volume of the Austrian Alpine Club's Publication.

When, however, in 1865, Mr. Ball made from Molveno the first ascent of the S. peak, he found that his guide, a native of that village, knew it as 'La Tosa.' Mr. Ball therefore seemed in his last edition disposed to give the collective name of Brenta to the chain, and to call the S. peak the Cima Tosa; but he ignored the difficulty that the almost equally important N. summit, hitherto known to chartographers and English climbers as the Cima Tosa, was left nameless.

In this state of things the attention of the newly formed Trentine Alpine Society was called to the subject, and they promptly appointed a committee to inquire into and consider the local usage. The results of this inquiry are now shortly stated.

The Val di Brenta gives its name to the group. The point S. of the Bocca di Brenta is known as La Tosa throughout the country. The peak N. of the Bocca (the Cima Tosa of the map) is called in Val Brenta the Cima di Brenta. The following names are wrongly given in the Austrian map:—Val Asinella for Vallesinella, Val Agnola for Val Agola, Val Dalcon for Val d'Algone. The names Bocca di Vallazza, Bocca della Vallesinella, Bocca dei Camozzi, and Passo d'Ambies, suggested for the passes discovered of late years by English climbers, are, as I understand, accepted. The Bocca della Vallesinella is the pass first called Bocca di Tosa by Mr. Tuckett.

Some curious etymological details are added to the report. Tosa, supposed by Mr. Ball to be equivalent to 'virgin,' is stated to be a contraction of tosata = shaven, a title derived from the bald, rounded aspect of the peak when seen from the east. 'Brenta' is a local word in the Sarca valley for a shallow vessel used for soup in cottages: thence it is applied to the stagnant pools or tarns common in the dolomite glens. In this way the word gets attached to the glen itself, and finally to the peak above it. Cima di Brenta is, it would seem, therefore, the Italian equivalent for Kesselkogel.

There was one other quarter to which it was natural to look for information—the officers at the head of the Viennese Ordnance Survey Department, who have recently re-surveyed the Trentino. But every application for information—although made to the Head of the Department through influential Austrian friends, and in the name of the English Alpine Club—was met by a refusal, or a promise broken as soon as made. I finally sent an extract from the old Government Map, with a request that the names adopted in the new survey for the two chief peaks of the Brenta group might be written across it. Even this the office declined to do. Such a refusal was the more unexpected as the French and Swiss Engineers have always been ready to give every information, even where there was real prospect of rivalry between the private work in hand and the Government survey.

From photographs I have seen of some portions of the new map, I feel sure that although much too large for general use it will be valuable to explorers, and I recommend every mountaineer intending to visit the Trentino or the Italian Tyrol to inquire through Messrs. Stanford if it is yet out, and if possible to purchase the sheets he will require.

Time has not verified the official statement made in March last that the sheets containing the Brenta group 'would be published in a few days,' but they may probably be looked for within the next year or two. If, when they appear, the nomenclature adopted proves different in any way from that here given, General Dobner, the head of the Department, will be alone to blame for any confusion to which the discrepancy may give rise. I should have been glad to follow the authority of his map; but the nomenclature I have used, coming as it does from the very best local authorities, can scarcely, if the engineers have gone for information to the same source, differ widely from theirs.

I have taken the heights in my map from the reductions from the Kataster of Mr. Ball and from a table contained in the 'Annuario' for 1874 of the Trentine Alpine Society. The peaks are mostly derived from the latter, the villages from the former authority.

I may mention here that I have been unable to adopt the heights given for the Primiero peaks in the same 'Annuario.' The Cimon della Pala is there set down as 3,550 metres = 11,647 feet, and the Palle di San Martino as 2,953 metres = 9,688 feet. The first of these figures is as much over as the other is under the mark. In the same list the height of the Sass Maor is probably pretty correctly given as 10,656 feet, and that of the C. della Rosetta as 10,266 feet.