restricted to one of its branches,—is probably (Delaware) welhik-hanné or [oo]lik-hanné, 'the best (or, the fairest) river.' Welhik (as Zeisberger wrote it)[19] is the inanimate form of the adjectival, meaning 'best,' 'most beautiful.' In his Vocabulary, Zeisberger gave this synthesis, with slight change of orthography, as "Wulach'neü" [or [oo]lakhanne[oo], as Eliot would have written it,] with the free translation, "a fine River, without Falls." The name was indeed more likely to belong to rivers 'without falls' or other obstruction to the passage of canoes, but its literal meaning is, as its composition shows, "best rapid-stream," or "finest rapid-stream;" "La Belle Riviere" of the French, and the Oue-yo´ or O hee´ yo Gä-hun´-dä, "good river" or "the beautiful river," of the Senecas.[20] For this translation of the name we have very respectable authority,—that of Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian of Pennsylvania, who lived seventeen years with the Muhhekan Indians and was twice married among them, and whose knowledge of the Indian languages enabled him to render important services to the colony, as a negotiator with the Delawares and Shawanese of the Ohio, in the French war. In his "Journal from Philadelphia to the Ohio" in 1758,[21] after mention of the 'Alleghenny' river, he says: "The Ohio, as it is called by the Sennecas. Alleghenny is the name of the same river in the Delaware language. Both words signify the fine or fair river." La Metairie, the notary of La Salle's expedition, "calls the Ohio, the Olighinsipou, or Aleghin; evidently an Algonkin name,"—as Dr. Shea remarks.[22] Heckewelder says that the Delawares "still call the Allegany (Ohio) river, Alligéwi Sipu,"—"the river of the Alligewi" as he chooses to translate it. In one form, we have wulik-hannésipu, 'best rapid-stream long-river;' in the other, wuliké-sipu, 'best long-river.' Heckewelder's derivation of the name, on the authority of a Delaware legend, from the mythic 'Alligewi' or 'Talligewi,'—"a race of Indians said to have once inhabited that country," who, after great battles fought in pre-historic times, were driven from it by the all-conquering Delawares,[23]—is of no value, unless supported by other testimony. The identification of Alleghany with the Seneca "De o´ na gä no, cold water" [or, cold spring,[24]] proposed by a writer in the Historical Magazine (vol. iv. p. 184), though not apparent at first sight, might deserve consideration if there were any reason for believing the name of the river to be of Iroquois origin,—if it were probable that an Iroquois name would have been adopted by Algonkin nations,—or, if the word for 'water' or 'spring' could be made, in any American language, the substantival component of a river name.

From the river, the name appears to have been transferred by the English to a range of the "Endless Mountains."

3. Nippe, Nipi (= n'pi; Narr. nip; Muhh. nup; Abn. and Chip. nebi; Del. m'bi;) and its diminutives, nippisse and nips, were employed in compound names to denote Water, generally, without characterizing it as 'swift flowing,' 'wave moved,' 'tidal,' or 'standing:' as, for example, in the name of a part of a river, where the stream widening with diminished current becomes lake-like, or of a stretch of tide-water inland, forming a bay or cove at a river's mouth. By the northern Algonkins, it appears to have been used for 'lake,' as in the name of Missi-nippi or Missinabe lake ('great water'), and in that of Lake Nippissing, which has the locative affix, nippis-ing, 'at the small lake' north-east of the greater Lake Huron, which gave a name to the nation of 'Nipissings,' or as the French called them, 'Nipissiriniens,'—according to Charlevoix, the true Algonkins.

Quinnipiac, regarded as the Indian name of New Haven,—also written Quinnypiock, Quinopiocke, Quillipiack, &c., and by President Stiles[25] (on the authority of an Indian of East Haven) Quinnepyooghq,—is, probably, 'long water place,' quinni-nippe-ohke, or quin-nipi-ohke. Kennebec would seem to be another form of the same name, from the Abnaki, k[oo]né-be-ki, were it not that Râle wrote,[26] as the name of the river, 'Aghenibékki'—suggesting a different adjectival. But Biard, in the Relation de la Nouvelle-France of 1611, has 'Kinibequi,' Champlain, Quinebequy, and Vimont, in 1640, 'Quinibequi,' so that we are justified in regarding the name as the probable equivalent of Quinni-pi-ohke.

Win-nippe-sauki (Winnipiseogee) will be noticed hereafter.

4. -Paug, -pog, -bog, (Abn. -béga or -bégat; Del. -pécat;) an inseparable generic, denoting 'water at rest,' 'standing water,' is the substantival component of names of small lakes and ponds, throughout New England.[27] Some of the most common of these names are,—

Massa-paug, 'great pond,'—which appears in a great variety of modern forms, as Mashapaug, Mashpaug, Massapogue, Massapog, &c. A pond in Cranston, near Providence, R.I.; another in Warwick, in the same State; 'Alexander's Lake,' in Killingly; 'Gardiner's Lake,' in Salem, Bozrah and Montville; 'Tyler Pond,' in Goshen; ponds in Sharon, Groton, and Lunenburg, Mass., were each of them the 'Massapaug' or 'great pond' of its vicinity.

Quinni-paug, 'long pond.' One in Killingly, gave a name to Quinebaug River and the 'Quinebaug country.' Endicott, in 1651, wrote this name 'Qunnubbágge' (3 Mass. Hist. Coll., iv. 191). "Quinepoxet," the name of a pond and small river in Princeton, Mass., appears to be a corruption of the diminutive with the locative affix; Quinni-paug-es-it, 'at the little long