In the past seven years, brisk, blue-eyed Dorothy Troxel has hardly been out of Washington, D.C. But as an employee of the U.S. Army Map Service, she has had her own way of getting around. In 1946, for instance, her office put her to work on a new map of Mongolia—and Dorothy Troxel has scarcely thought of anything but Mongolia since.
She became fascinated with the country's place-names. Each one, she found, was really a description—from Mogoito, meaning "Having Snakes," to Dorbon Modo ("Four Trees") and Ulyaasutai ("Having Aspens"). But when Mapmaker Troxel decided that she wanted to increase her vocabulary further,...