Page talk:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/421

Imaginary mountains
The mountains certainly do not exist in the form reported by the Pallada and Virginie. I can't find the original accounts of those ships online, but the names are certainly Chinese versions of what would be Xianfeng and Daoguang in pinyin. "Xianfeng" is normally going to be "Seonbong" as listed and, while I can't find any "Seon-bong" or "Dogwang-san" in WWII maps of the Hamgyongs, it's always possible they were renamed under the Japanese occupation of the country. It's also possible that the first name was a mistaken use of the name of the range itself, since the first syllable of "Hamgyong" is a Korean word that is transcribed xian in Chinese characters. "Xianfeng" would then be "Ham[gyong] Peak(s)", with the native or Sinophone interpreter writing the name of the mountain range and being understood as intending the name of a particular peak. — LlywelynII  12:32, 13 May 2017 (UTC)