Harris enumerates the reasons that may lie behind indigenous names, and the importance of these names to the Aboriginal people; that by using these names we may preserve some of the Aboriginal knowledge of their land. He continues his paper with an extract from the Government Gazette 31 October 1839 in which Governor Gawler assigns names to various portions of South Australia in commemoration of the men who first crossed or otherwise discovered them. These names had only a brief existence.

Charles Hope Harris obtained his surveyor's licence in 1869, and in 1871 was hired by the South Australian government to conduct surveys in the northern agricultural regions, and in 1874 to conduct trigonometrical surveys north-west of Port Augusta. He discovered and mapped Lake Harris, which was named for him by the government. Harris was Examiner of Licensed Surveyors' Work, a lecturer on surveying at the School of Mines and was the state's acknowledged expert on the variation and dip of the magnetic needle. Among a number of other books and articles he wrote Field service; handbook for Government Surveyors, the fourth edition of which was published in 1914. He maintained a keen interest in the early history of South Australia and on the use of Aboriginal names for place names.