104 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



maps, as indeed is to be expected from the fact that the application of the name 

 on the maps long antedated tliis settlement. The postmaster adds, in answer to my 

 further inquiry, that the word is locally said to be Indian, and to mean "tue le temps", 

 that is, "Kill time." Needless to repeat, these local explanations of Indian names 

 are wholly untrustworthy, for they arise and are repeated not in any investigational 

 spirit but under the influence of the tendency of the human mind to select and 

 perpetuate, from any suggestions offered, the one which is most striking or pleasing, 

 quite without reference to whether it is true or not, a matter on which comment 

 has already been made earlier in this scries {these Transaciions, V, 1912, ii, 179). 

 I have sought in vain in our Maliseet-Penobscot-Abnaki vocabularies for any roots 

 involving a meaning "kill time," to match up with POHENEGAMOOK, although, 

 as in all such cases, one can manipulate fragments of roots into such a compound 

 if he starts with that determination. Another correspondent obtained from an 

 Indian the meaning "to put canoe dowTi on lake after a portage," which is evidently 

 based on the termination, with a guess at the remainder. Mr. Aaron Lawson, of 

 Edmundston, obtained from a Madawaska Indian the meaning "leave snowshoes," his 

 informant evidently connecting it with agumek, meaning snowshoes. Naturally, in view 

 of the history of the word, the Indians cannot be expected to interpret it correctly. 

 It is precisely as though we were asked to explain a name LONG PORTLAKE. 



The evidence taken collectively, therefore, seems to leave no escape from the 

 conclusion that the present name POHENEGAMOOK applied to this lake, originated 

 in a series of minor clerical and psychological errors froin PECHENEGANOOK, 

 the Indian name of the St. Francis River which flows from it. Such an origin, 

 though striking, is by no means unusual, for it is typical of a method which is common 

 with place-names, beliefs, institutions and customs. An origin in accident, and 

 fixation through prominent adventitious circumstances, is a sufficiently common basis 

 of success in all phases of human affairs as it is in the evolution of all organic nature. 



Cobscook. 



Location and Application. — The name of a much-branched Bay in south- 

 eastern Maine, connected closely, both geographically and historically, with 

 Passamaquoddy Bay in New Brunswick. The name is pronounced locally precisely 

 as spelled, with the accent on the first syllable. 



History of the Word. — It makes its first known appearance in the form 

 COBSKOOK, in 1763, in the journal of an early settler, James Boyd, though as 

 printed the word may have suffered editorial alteration (Kilby, Eastporl mid Pass- 

 amaquoddy, 107). It next appears, in its present form, COBSCOOK, in 1764, in 

 the Field book of the first survey of this region by John Mitchel {Collections of the 

 New Brunswick Historical Society, II, 1904, 182). It is COPSCOOK in the journal 

 of another early settler. Captain Owen, in 1770, {Collections above cited, I, 1897, 

 202), and the same upon the very fine survey map of this region by Wright of 1772, 

 {Ms. still unpublished, in the British Museum), the original of the British charts 

 which still follow his form. Thereafter the word appears in one form or the other, 

 but most commonly as COPSCOOK, and with occasional variants to COBBSCOOK, 

 etc., well into the last century, when gradually the form COBSCOOK acquired an 

 ascendency which was made secure by its adoption on the Lfnitcd States Charts. 



Analysis op the Word. — The Indians now living in the vicintiy recognize 

 the word as of their language, and give its form and meaning without hesitation 

 Thus, John Lola, a well-informed Passamaquoddy Indian, gave me KOPSKOOK, 

 as applying to the falls on Dennys River. These falls occur at the mouth of Dennys 

 River, or rather, they occur between the two narrow parallel-lying parts of Cobscook 



