Book excerpt: One of the fourteen gazetteers in Durham's Place-Names of California series is guaranteed to provide addictively entertaining browsing. Great for tourists, travelers, hikers, and campers, for students, writers, genealogists, historians, geographers, and cartographers.Derived from David Durham's definitive gazetteer of California, California's Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State, this new popularly priced series is certain to attract the attention of every new or longtime resident of California. Each volume of the series contains the complete body of entries listed in California's Geographic Names for the counties covered in that volume.Thousands of geographical features, such as mountains, streams, and canyons are extensively defined, as are cities, towns, and villages. Many entries include information about who named the feature, when and why, and alternate or obsolete names are given. Each entry gives the exact longitude and latitude of the feature -- terrific for,use with GPS devices!Perfect for park and forestry rangers, natural history buffs, real estate offices, and media news desks.