&c., &c., are either names still found in the Iroquois country, or which formerly existed there. This syllable Ca, and that of Ot and Os, were as common at the commencement of a name as agua, aga, ogua, were at the conclusion.
From the roving life lead by the Indians, hunting and fishing in different places, according to the changes in the seasons, they have left but few names to towns and villages, and scarcely any to plains and valleys. Nor does it seem always easy to decide whether they gave their own names to the lakes and rivers, or received them from the streams; in very many cases in this part of the continent the last would seem to have been the case, especially in the subdivisions of the clans, for scarce a river but what had a tribe of its own fishing and hunting upon its banks. Their names for the mountains have only reached us in a general way, such as the Alleghany, or Endless-chain, the Kittatinny, &c., &c. Perhaps the fact that the mountains in this region lie chiefly in ridges, unbroken by striking peaks, may be one reason why single hills have not preserved Indian names; but in many instances the carelessness of the first colonists was probably the cause of their being lost, since here and there one of a bolder outline than usual must have attracted the attention of such an observant race.
Our own success in naming the hills has been indifferent; the principal chains, the Blue, the Green, the White Mountains, the Catsbergs, the Highlands, &c., &c., do well enough in the mass, but as regards the individual hills we are apt to fail sadly. A large number of them bear the patronymic of conspicuous political men, Presidents, Governors, &c., &c. That the names of men honorably distinguished should occasionally be given to
